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The Invention of Atomist Iconography

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The Power of Images in Early Modern Science

Abstract

For centuries now, particles of matter have invariably been depicted as globules. These globules, representing very different entities of distant orders of magnitudes, have in turn been used as pictorial building blocks for a host of more complex structures such as atomic nuclei, molecules, crystals, gases, material surfaces, electrical currents or the double helixes of DNA. Maybe it is because of the unsurpassable simplicity of the spherical form that the ubiquity of this type of representation appears to us so deceitfully self-explanatory. But in truth, the spherical shape of these various units of matter deserves nothing if not raised eyebrows.

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Authors
  1. Christoph Lüthy
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  1. Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Wilhelmstr. 44, D-10117, Berlin, Germany

    Wolfgang Lefèvre , Jürgen Renn  & Urs Schoepflin ,  & 

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Lüthy, C. (2003). The Invention of Atomist Iconography. In: Lefèvre, W., Renn, J., Schoepflin, U. (eds) The Power of Images in Early Modern Science. Birkhäuser, Basel. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-0348-8099-2_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-0348-8099-2_7

  • Publisher Name: Birkhäuser, Basel

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-7643-2434-6

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