# Science in history: reconstruct what a reading measured — Study worksheet [Study guides](https://unireadinglist.com/guides/science-in-history/) [Course topic: History of Science, Technology and Medicine](https://unireadinglist.com/subjects/history/#course-history-of-science-technology) Sources checked: 2026-11-04 Study route and exercise: University Reading List editorial project. The numerical archive is invented, not a historical quotation or experiment attributed to a real scientist. Teich’s European Scientific Revolution focus is narrower than a global history of science, technology and medicine. ## Choose your starting point - [ ] Begin with an open historical argument Use Teich to ask how inquiry and its social setting are connected. - [ ] Build broader modern context Use Bowler/Morus to connect scientific changes with institutions and society across topics. - [ ] Study experimental authority Use Shapin/Schaffer for a sustained account of how experimental knowledge and its credibility are established. ## Compare the three books ### The Scientific Revolution Revisited Mikuláš Teich · 2015 Free focused interpretation Choose it when: You have early-modern context and want an argument, not only a chronology. Use another route when: You need an all-period global survey or technical physics instruction. Selected reading: Read the introduction and a selected chapter alongside a chronology of the period discussed. Limits and trade-offs: A historically specific interpretation does not establish a universal single cause of science. #### Try before choosing Separate an actor’s recorded category from a later historian’s description of it. Check your work: Do not translate every old numerical word into a modern unit without evidence. Your notes: ________________________________ ISBN: 9781783741229 [Official free reading](https://books.openbookpublishers.com/10.11647/obp.0054/) [Book record and access options](https://unireadinglist.com/subjects/history/scientific-revolution-revisited-teich/) ### Making Modern Science Peter J. Bowler; Iwan Rhys Morus · 2 · 2020 Broader survey Choose it when: You need an entry to modern-science episodes and social contexts. Use another route when: You only need one close case or a first experimental methods manual. Selected reading: Use the second edition’s discussions of scientific change, institutions and public relations with science as a thematic route. Limits and trade-offs: A survey’s synthesis and an original laboratory record have different evidential roles. #### Try before choosing Make an observation–instrument–recording–interpretation chain for the invented packet. Check your work: The raw figure is not yet a directly comparable measurement. Your notes: ________________________________ ISBN: 9780226365763 [Book record and access options](https://unireadinglist.com/subjects/history/making-modern-science-bowler-morus/) ### Leviathan and the Air-Pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experimental Life Steven Shapin; Simon Schaffer · 2017 Experimental-life study Choose it when: You can follow early-modern history and want to examine evidence and credibility. Use another route when: You need a general survey or a current account of laboratory accuracy. Selected reading: Read the discussions of experiment, witnessing and disputes over knowledge, using the selected edition. Limits and trade-offs: Social authority and mathematical conversion are related questions, but neither substitutes for the other. #### Try before choosing Explain why calibration can defeat a numerical progress claim without settling who trusted the instrument. Check your work: Identify both the conversion result and a separate missing reception record. Your notes: ________________________________ ISBN: 9780691178165 [Book record and access options](https://unireadinglist.com/subjects/history/leviathan-and-the-air-pump-shapin-schaffer/) ## Check your preparation ### What mathematics is needed? Your notes: ________________________________ ### Does an instrument’s new scale prove improvement? Your notes: ________________________________ ### Can present knowledge correct every actor? Your notes: ________________________________ ## A six-step study plan - [ ] Register the sources Selected reading: History survey: evidence. What to do: List each invented ledger, calibration and column heading. Check your work: Keep a reported measurement distinct from a modern transcription. Your notes: ________________________________ - [ ] Recover the old scale Selected reading: Open argument with packet. What to do: Use A’s two standards and stated linearity to derive r=2x+10. Check your work: Retain the offset 10. Your notes: ________________________________ - [ ] Recover the later scale Selected reading: Survey with packet. What to do: Derive B’s r=4x+6 and invert it. Check your work: Both slope and zero differ. Your notes: ________________________________ - [ ] Compare like quantities Selected reading: Experimental-life route. What to do: Convert raw readings before comparing. Check your work: 30 versus 46 becomes 10 versus 10. Your notes: ________________________________ - [ ] Change the column evidence Selected reading: Follow-up with source register. What to do: Recalculate when 46 is a converted x entry rather than raw r. Check your work: The heading changes the role of the same numeral. Your notes: ________________________________ - [ ] Write a historical claim Selected reading: All three routes. What to do: Separate measured change, instrument improvement and reception. Check your work: Support only the claim the packet actually constrains. Your notes: ________________________________ ## Worked exercise: Two scales in an invented archive In fictional year 70, instrument A’s raw scale has standards x=0→r=10 and x=10→r=30. In year 71, B has x=0→r=6 and x=10→r=46. The same reference quantity x is measured in unit U; both scales are stipulated exact and linear for 0≤x≤50. The observation ledgers explicitly label A’s entry 30 and B’s entry 46 as raw r. Did the measured quantity increase, and is B thereby more accurate? Assumptions: All standards and headings are complete invented records. The underlying quantity is comparable across occasions, with no measurement error within the stipulated model. Instrument operation and real historical practice are outside the packet. Your notes: ________________________________ ## Change an assumption: The later column was already converted Correct the source description: B’s ledger column is explicitly labelled “x in U”, not raw r. Its 46 is already a converted quantity. A’s entry remains raw r=30; both calibration functions and exact linear domain 0–50 remain. Your notes: ________________________________ ## Before moving on - Choose a focused argument, broad context or close study of experimental authority. - Translate readings using complete calibration and heading evidence. - Revise a historical claim when a recording convention changes. ## Answer and interpretation ### What mathematics is needed? A linear conversion and subtraction. The packet supplies its calibration domain and exactness; this is not a claim about actual historical precision. ### Does an instrument’s new scale prove improvement? No. Accuracy, repeatability, usability and authority require different evidence from an altered scale factor. ### Can present knowledge correct every actor? First establish what actors meant and could observe. A modern label is an analytical choice, not automatically their category. ### Two scales in an invented archive 1. A’s slope is (30−10)/10=2, so r=2x+10 and x=(r−10)/2. Its observation gives x=10 U. 2. B’s slope is (46−6)/10=4, so r=4x+6 and x=(r−6)/4. Its raw 46 also gives x=10 U. 3. Raw readings rise by 16, but converted quantity changes by zero. Both instruments were stipulated exact, so no improvement in accuracy is demonstrated; no actual uncertainty comparison is supplied. The model’s measured quantity is unchanged at 10 U. A story of growth based only on 30→46 confuses scales; a story of superior accuracy needs evidence beyond a changed scale. Test the result: Check both zero points. Dividing by slope alone would give 15 and 11.5 and manufacture a false difference. ### Change an assumption: The later column was already converted 1. A still converts to x=10 U. B now directly records x=46 U and must not be converted a second time. 2. The comparable change is 46−10=36 U, rather than zero. B’s implied raw reading would be 4×46+6=190, within its stipulated calibration domain. 3. The new heading changes the interpretation of the numeral, not merely the arithmetic. A measured increase now follows in the paper model, but superiority of the instrument and the cause of the increase still do not. The corrected packet supports an increase of 36 U. It still supplies no evidence of improved accuracy or a historical discovery’s social acceptance. Test the result: State exactly which source premise changed. Keep original and corrected interpretations separate rather than selecting the more dramatic result. ## Common mistakes ### Raw figures become common units Recover the scale and offset first. ### New instrument means progress Specify the dimension of improvement and its evidence. ### Later categories become actors’ words Distinguish modern interpretation from recorded vocabulary. ## Sources and edition checks - [Teich: official open book](https://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0054) Teich’s 2015 open book is CC BY 4.0 and examines European inquiry in social context. - [Bowler/Morus: Chicago second edition](https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo51203130.html) Chicago identifies the 2020 second edition; a broad survey complements a specific source exercise. - [Shapin/Schaffer: selected Princeton paperback](https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691178165/leviathan-and-the-air-pump) The selected 2017 Princeton paperback is distinct from the original publication; no technical recipe is inferred from its historical argument. These are proposed study activities, not official course assignments or a claim that every book has been read cover to cover. [How we curate](https://unireadinglist.com/editorial/)