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lectures > lectures autumn 2001

The Hidden Histories of Science

Speaker: Peter Tallack
24th November 2001

Does science develop in a linear way, smoothly progressing from one breakthrough to another? Or is it more tortuous and complex, with seemingly insignificant pebbles becoming the foundation stones of future revolutions? Does the story of scientific discovery we read in the textbooks reflect what actually happened? Or have there been hidden and neglected paths in our scientific quest to understand the universe that deserve wider recognition? And how important are the personalities who give rise to the ideas - would anyone have come up with the theory of relativity if Einstein hadn't got there first? In this talk, the editor of a major new science book looks at the way in which scientific truth is sought, established and overturned.

Peter Tallack is Science Publishing Director of Weidenfeld and Nicolson. For nearly a decade he was on the editorial staff of the international science journal, Nature. He is editor of The Science Book (Cassell, September 2001), a major new illustrated book celebrating 250 milestones in the history of science.

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