Re: history question (2)

[Bernard Cleyet <anngeorg@PACBELL.NET>]

Do the removals of the > 1  sigma? from the regression indicate that war directs
research????

bc

P.s what happened during the odd years?

Brian Whatcott wrote:

> At 08:53 PM 11/29/01, I wrote this in response to Larry's question:
>
> > > 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.
>
> Today I followed up with a count of "Physics" titles at the same library.
> This result was more interesting.
> The count is fairly fitted by an exponential growth which doubles every
> sixteen years from a level of 1 title per annum in 1850 to the onset of
> WWI  - 16 titles per year.  I removed from the regression the
> declining  figures for 1914 = 11 titles,   1916 = 7 titles, 1918 = 4 titles.
>
> One could conclude without straining the facts, that a field became visible
> in 1850 and showed the onset of a logistic curve type growth of the kind
> you would expect of a new field which carried 'Physics' in the title of
> relevant texts.  Of course, there were physics titles well before that point.
> The model is
> physics book annual publication rate  = EXP[ 0.0443 (Year number -
> 1850)]      (to WWI)
>
> This confirms Joe Bellina's proposal rather well.  As to the older label, I
> noticed that the UAberdeen's Web site explains that it is the Scottish
> custom to refer to Physics still, as Natural Philosophy.
>
> Brian W
>
> The NLREG input file is shown below.
>
> Title "Exp rise in physics titles - Bodleian";
> Variable Year;                  // Year for new titles
> Variable Newcases;              // Total new titles this year
> Parameter b=0.01;
> constant baseyear=1850;
> Function newcases = exp(b*(year-baseyear));
> Plot Domain=1850, 1918, residual;
> nplot;
> rplot;
> Data;
> 1850 0
> 1852 1
> 1854 1
> 1856 2
> 1858 0
> 1860 1
> 1862 0
> 1864 4
> 1866 1
> 1868 1
> 1870 3
> 1872 3
> 1874 1
> 1876 3
> 1878 4
> 1880 3
> 1882 6
> 1884 7
> 1886 3
> 1888 6
> 1890 5
> 1892 6
> 1894 5
> 1896 10
> 1898 8
> 1900 7
> 1902 14
> 1904 6
> 1906 19
> 1908 10
> 1910 13
> 1912 16
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> Brian Whatcott
>    Altus OK                      Eureka!