tailieunhanh - The Coming of Materials Science Part 2

Tham khảo tài liệu 'the coming of materials science part 2', kỹ thuật - công nghệ, cơ khí - chế tạo máy phục vụ nhu cầu học tập, nghiên cứu và làm việc hiệu quả | Chapter 2 The Emergence of Disciplines . DRAWING PARALLELS This entire book is about the emergence nature and cultivation of a new discipline materials science and engineering. To draw together the strings of this story it helps to be clear about what a scientific discipline actually is that in turn becomes clearer if one looks at the emergence of some earlier disciplines which have had more time to reach a condition of maturity. Comparisons can help in definition we can narrow a vague concept by examining what apparently diverse examples have in common. John Ziman is a renowned theoretical solid-state physicist who has turned himself into a distinguished metascientist one who examines the nature and institutions of scientific research in general . In fact he has successfully switched disciplines. In a lecture delivered in 1995 to the Royal Society of London Ziman 1996 he has this to say Academic science could not function without some sort of internal social structure. This structure is provided by subject specialisation. Academic science is divided into disciplines each of which is a recognised domain of organised teaching and research. It is practically impossible to be an academic scientist without locating oneself initially in an established discipline. The fact that disciplines are usually very loosely organised my italics does not make them ineffective. An academic discipline is much more than a conglomerate of university departments learned societies and scientific journals. It is an invisible college whose members share a particular research tradition my italics . This is where academic scientists acquire the various theoretical paradigms codes of practice and technical methods that are considered good science in their particular disciplines. A recognised discipline or sub-discipline provides an academic scientist with a home base a tribal identity a social stage on which to perform as a researcher. Another attempt to define the concept of a scientific