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Science Since Babylon: Difference between revisions
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a power of ten in fifty years and a factor of one thousand in a century and a half. In the three hundred years which separate us from the mid-seventeenth century, this represents a factor of one million. | a power of ten in fifty years and a factor of one thousand in a century and a half. In the three hundred years which separate us from the mid-seventeenth century, this represents a factor of one million. | ||
"One can be reasonably surprised that any accurate law holds over such a large factor of increase. Indeed, it is within the common experience that the law of exponential growth is too spectacular to be obeyed for very long. Large factors usually introduce some more-than-quantitative change that alters the process." p 169 | "One can be reasonably surprised that any accurate law holds over such a large factor of increase. Indeed, it is within the common experience that the law of exponential growth is too spectacular to be obeyed for very long. Large factors usually introduce some more-than-quantitative change that alters the process." p 169 | ||
*"Why should it be that journals appear to breed more journals at a rate proportional to their population at any one | *"Why should it be that journals appear to breed more journals at a rate proportional to their population at any one time instead of at any particular constant rate?" p 169 | ||
time instead of at any particular constant rate?" p 169 | |||
*"Thus, at any one time, about three doubling periodsâ worth of scientists are alive. Hence, some 8o to go per cent of all scientists that have ever been, are alive now. We might miss Newton and Aristotle, but happily most of the contributors are with us still!" p 176 | *"Thus, at any one time, about three doubling periodsâ worth of scientists are alive. Hence, some 8o to go per cent of all scientists that have ever been, are alive now. We might miss Newton and Aristotle, but happily most of the contributors are with us still!" p 176 | ||
*"Science in America is growing so as to double in only ten yearsâ it multiplies by eight in each successive doubling of all nonscientific things in our civilization. If you care to regard it this way, the density of science in our culture is quadrupling during each generation. | *"Science in America is growing so as to double in only ten yearsâ it multiplies by eight in each successive doubling of all nonscientific things in our civilization. If you care to regard it this way, the density of science in our culture is quadrupling during each generation. | ||