L. Pearce Williams
Encyclopedia
Leslie Pearce Williams is the emeritus John Stambaugh Professor of the History of Science at Cornell University
's Department of History
, where he is also director of the program in the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology. Besides publishing a number of books, he has written three Encyclopædia Britannica
articles. His birth name is Leslie Greenberg. He is the brother of Charles Williams, the long-time business manager of the Cornell Alumni News.
He graduated from Cornell in 1948.
Williams was an outspoken conservative during the campus unrest era of the 1960s. He was a leading advocate of maintaining ROTC on the Cornell campus, of compulsory physical education, and of removing Dale Corson as Cornell President because of an alleged decline in academic standards.
Williams along with E. A. Burtt and twenty-three other Cornell University professors was a volunteer faculty member of Ithaca Neighborhood College.
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
's Department of History
Cornell University Department of History
|- valign="top" ! style="border-top: solid 1px #aaaaaa;" | College | style="border-top: solid 1px #aaaaaa;" | Arts and Sciences |- valign="top" ! style="border-top: solid 1px #aaaaaa;" | Department Chair | style="border-top: solid 1px #aaaaaa;" | Barry Strauss...
, where he is also director of the program in the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology. Besides publishing a number of books, he has written three Encyclopædia Britannica
Encyclopædia Britannica
The Encyclopædia Britannica , published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia that is available in print, as a DVD, and on the Internet. It is written and continuously updated by about 100 full-time editors and more than 4,000 expert...
articles. His birth name is Leslie Greenberg. He is the brother of Charles Williams, the long-time business manager of the Cornell Alumni News.
He graduated from Cornell in 1948.
Williams was an outspoken conservative during the campus unrest era of the 1960s. He was a leading advocate of maintaining ROTC on the Cornell campus, of compulsory physical education, and of removing Dale Corson as Cornell President because of an alleged decline in academic standards.
Williams along with E. A. Burtt and twenty-three other Cornell University professors was a volunteer faculty member of Ithaca Neighborhood College.
Works
- Michael Faraday, a biography (1965, 1987), Chapman & Hall
- The origins of field theory (1966, 1980), Random HouseRandom HouseRandom House, Inc. is the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world. It has been owned since 1998 by the German private media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing. Random House also has a movie production arm, Random House Films,...
- Relativity theory; its origins and impact on modern thought (1968, 1979), John Wiley & SonsJohn Wiley & SonsJohn Wiley & Sons, Inc., also referred to as Wiley, is a global publishing company that specializes in academic publishing and markets its products to professionals and consumers, students and instructors in higher education, and researchers and practitioners in scientific, technical, medical, and...
- The nineteenth century (1978), ScribnerCharles Scribner's SonsCharles Scribner's Sons, or simply Scribner, is an American publisher based in New York City, known for publishing a number of American authors including Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Kurt Vonnegut, Stephen King, Robert A. Heinlein, Thomas Wolfe, George Santayana, John Clellon...
- The history of science in Western civilization (1978), authored with Henry John Steffens, University Press of AmericaUniversity Press of AmericaUniversity Press of America is an academic book publisher based in the United States. Part of the independent Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, it was founded in 1975 and boasts of having published "more than 10,000 academic, scholarly, and biographical titles in many disciplines"...
, 1977, Volumes I, II, and III - Great issues in Western Civilization. Random House, 1967 and 1972. Volumes I and II. Eds. Brian Tierney, Donald KaganDonald KaganDonald Kagan is an American historian at Yale University specializing in ancient Greece, notable for his four-volume history of the Peloponnesian War. 1987-1988 Acting Director of Athletics, Yale University. He was Dean of Yale College from 1989–1992. He formerly taught in the Department of...
, and L. Pearce Williams. - "Normal Science, Scientific Revolutions and the History of Science" (pages 49–50) in Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge: Proceedings of the International Colloquium in the Philosophy of Science, London, 1965, Editors Imre LakatosImre LakatosImre Lakatos was a Hungarian philosopher of mathematics and science, known for his thesis of the fallibility of mathematics and its 'methodology of proofs and refutations' in its pre-axiomatic stages of development, and also for introducing the concept of the 'research programme' in his...
and Alan MusgraveAlan MusgraveAlan Musgrave is an English born New Zealand philosopher. Musgrave was educated at the London School of Economics with a BA Honours Philosophy and Economics 1961. Sir Karl Popper supervised Musgrave's PhD which was completed in 1969. Musgrave worked as Popper's Research Assistant initially then...
, Cambridge University PressCambridge University PressCambridge University Press is the publishing business of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII in 1534, it is the world's oldest publishing house, and the second largest university press in the world...
, 1970, ISBN 0521096235, 282 pages - Historiography of Victorian Science (1966) (paper)
External links
- His faculty profile at Cornell UniversityCornell UniversityCornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
- http://cdsun.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/newscornell?a=d&d=CDS19730914.2.1.4.1&e=--------20--1-----allVolume 90, Issue 12, 14 September 1973. Page 1], Page 16 of the Cornell Daily Sun
- "Did Egypt Originate Geometry Theorem?". February 14, 1991. New York Times.
- History of Science, Vol. 18, p.68-74. 1980. Williams, L. P. Review of The Essential Tension by Thomas KuhnThomas KuhnThomas Samuel Kuhn was an American historian and philosopher of science whose controversial 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions was deeply influential in both academic and popular circles, introducing the term "paradigm shift," which has since become an English-language staple.Kuhn...
. - Friday, Aug. 13, 1965. Brief Time Magazine review of Williams' Michael Faraday (Basic Books, 1965)
- "Books: Saint of Science". Jul. 23, 1965. Three page Time Magazine review of Williams' Michael Faraday (Basic Books, 1965)