La scienza e la sua storia

Does science have a past? Whom is it for? Are scientists part of this past? Can someone win a Nobel Prize for physics or biology without ever having read a book on the subject published over fifteen years ago? Even though all scientists know about the past as well as the founding fathers of their respective disciplines, direct knowledge of the primary sources is not necessary to qualify for or be esteemed as a scientist nowadays. Yet the history of science is full of statements, theories and many other things that have long since disappeared from the «real world», or of ideas concerning realities that have long since proved to be non-existent. In discussing the work of the historian of science, Paolo Rossi Monti provides an interesting overview of these long forgotten objects, theories, methodologies, formulations of problems, career paths, manuals, ideas of progress and obsolescence, and more.