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1. Concept The attractive power of natural magnets (i.e. lodestones; Latin  magnes; German  Magnetstein; French  aimant; Italian  magnete) was already reported in antiquity. In the 12th century, the north-south alignment of magnetized iron needles became known in Europe, and magnetism acquired its first eminent practical application in the form of the compass. Often mentioned in a single breath in antiquity, magnetism and electricity came to be treated as quite distinct in the early modern period. Only with the …

1. BackgroundThe Indo-European word behind  Latin  veritas, French  vérité, German  Wahrheit (English “truth”) meant “respect,” “assent,” “fidelity”; Greek  alḗtheia (literally “unconcealment”) was also important for the history of the term. The pragmatic questions concerning whether an assertion or message is true and what criteria we should use to assess and recognize its truth have been answered implicitly or explicity in every culture. The question of what truth is arises whenever a culture reflects on its…

1. ConceptExperiment in the modern sense is understood as the manipulation of things with the purpose of gaining knowledge about them. With research, experiment also serves instruction and demonstration. All natural sciences and many fields of the humanities and social sciences base the claim to certainty of their knowledge on experience, whether arrived at by observation or experiment. In other cultural spheres, such as art, music, or new forms of economic activity or social living, experiment i…

1. ConceptObservation (Latin observatio) is the main source of empirical knowledge, and together with experiment represents the key procedure of natural science and the empirical spheres of the humanities and social sciences (Empiricism). As directed attention focused on specific objects or aspects of objects, observation is also found in non-scientific spheres of life, for example in a draftsman observing her subject, a soldier enemy lines, a roulette player his fellow players, or a passer-by eyeing suspicious figures in a car park.Friedrich Steinle2. Traditions of scientif…

1. Prior historySpeculations about an interaction between electricity and magnetism were already being voiced in the 18th century, stimulated by reports of magnetic needles switching polarity during storms, or the magnetization of iron crosses on church towers. However, stable experimental conditions only became possible with the development of the voltaic pile around 1800 (the first electric battery; Galvanism), which delivered sustained electrical effects for the first time. Experiments in Parma…

1. Concept and definition Enlightenment in English is first attested from 1865 as a translation of the German  Aufklärung, which was first recorded in 1691. With their European cognates  lumières (French), illuminismo (Italian), and  ilustración (Spanish), they denote the most influential European educational and cultural movement of the 18th century, as well as its overriding goals: to subject all authorities, traditions, and hierarchies to the critical measure of a newly defined reason, and to abolish them if they ran counter…

1. ConceptThe use of scientific instruments – material equipment and aids to the obtaining and processing of empirical findings – is generally seen as one of the key characteristics of modern empirical natural science. In fact, the use of such instruments dates back to classical antiquity, but it became far more intensive and widespread in the early modern period – for instance, as a result of a creative drive in astronomy. Instruments essentially had three functions: (1) increasing the depth and…

1. ConceptEnergy (from the Greek enérgeia, “activity”, “actuality”) today describes the capacity of a body or a physical system to do work. Energy being a conserved quantity that, while appearing in different forms (mechanical, electrical, thermal, chemical, etc.), remains constant in total in isolated systems is one of the most fundamental principles of natural science, applying equally to and thus connecting the physical and chemical sciences and biology. Mechanics was already approaching an unders…

1. ConceptAmong the many meanings of the Greek word  physis (Latin  natura), the most important was in reference to the sphere of things that carry the origin of their being and their drive to change within themselves. This sphere is distinct from that of the planned, purposeful arrangement of things by people, known as  téchne (Latin  ars; Aristot. Phys. 2,1; 2,8), and the two still form the basis for the opposition of nature and technology. Physics as a quest for knowledge (Greek physikḗ epistḗme, Latin  philosophia naturalis; Natural philosophy) in Aristotle concerns itself…