Scientific Babel: Communication and Identity in Western Chemistry since the Fall of Latin
FAIN: FA-55650-11
Michael D. Gordin
Princeton University (Princeton, NJ 08540-5228)
This project explores the transitions between "scientific languages"--the languages in which science is actually conducted--from the breakdown of Latin as an international mode of communication in the seventeenth century to the end of the Cold War and the rise of English as essentially the sole language of the natural sciences. Emphasizing chemistry, it examines in detail the cases of Russian, Esperanto/Ido, and German.