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Re: history question



At 06:20 PM 11/29/01, you wrote:
When did physics stop getting called natural philosophy and start getting
called physics?

Thanks,
Larry


I took an impromptu poll of text book titles containing "Natural Philosophy"
for each even year of publication in a library catalog between 1850 and
1818 inclusive.

Here they are: (1850)
3,1,3,3,2,1,1,2,1,0,1,3,0,1,1,1,8,3,3,1,1,0,2,1,0,2,0,1,0,1,2,0,0,0,0 (1918)

I did not fit them to a regression - by eye there is no great fall off
before WWI, at least not at the Bodleian (Oxen) pre 1920 catalog. Then
again, I didn't count the titles containing the competitive word "physics"
either, as a control.




Brian Whatcott
Altus OK Eureka!