This is the official poll. Vote for you favorite classic science post from the monthly blog carnival on Giant's Shoulders from the following list: Remember. the winner gets 20 bucks, so this is serious business.

 

 

 

From The Renaissance Mathematicus, we have a very interesting post, A loser who was really a winner. It's a tale of Christoph Clavius, educational reformer who played a pivotal, if oft forgotten role, for the 17th century mathematics revival and astronomy. As an extra treat blogger Thony Christie is presenting a more detailed lecture version this post at the Remeis Observatory in Bamberg at 7:00 pm on 24th June (for those of you in the area... I wish I could go).

 

 

From Nature networks I, Editor blog: Henry Gee searches for the origin of the term "the missing link." Ben Zimmer helps on the Visual Thesaurus.

 

 

Ethan Siegel from Starts with a Bang has a great (and lengthy and on-going) series on the last 100 years of physics and astronomy. Start (but by no means stop) with this post.

 

 

Here's a post that may not be safe for work. the Evil Monkey, from Neurotopia v2.0, blogs about Grafenberg's 1950 paper on "the role of the urethra in the female orgasm" published in the (you can't make this stuff up) International Journal of Sexology. The post is chock full of great quotes that would make you blush if you read them to your grandmother.

 

 

Brian Switek of Laelaps writes about an interesting hypothesis, about Charles Darwin's ideas of origin of human races and genocide pursued by Western powers against indigenous people of the "new world" during his time. In another post, Switek discusses Richard Owen, a 19th century anatomis, attemps to classify the Thylacoleo.

 

 

I'm honestly not sure how this one classifies as classic science. But, Greg Laden submitted the post himself, so maybe he can help enlighten us?

 

 

gg from Skulls in the Stars enlightens us on Barkla's demonstration that x-rays have polarity (1905). As usual, gg does an incedible job, gives an extensive background on x-rays and goes into great detail on Barkla's experiments.

 

 

Last, but not least, my own post. I talk about a paper which provided one of the origins for mathematical epidemiology, W. O. Kermack and A. G. McKendrick 1927 paper on their model of epidemic infectious disease.

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Merged post follows:

Consecutive posts merged

bump... please vote

Edited June 16, 200916 yr by ecoli

ecoli, thanks. I've learned so much reading the entries.

 

I liked the revelations into how science operates, and the historical perspective between current and former knowledge.

 

Brian Switek's and gg's did a nice job on those, and I found your's interesting on how simply the life/chance of epidemics is determinable with math. Sci's post on femal ejaculation (the link, btw) gets high marks for being very educational. And on a subject like that, who couldn't be drawn in?

 

Overall, Ethan Siegel's post is the best in my opinion. Elegant, informative and quickly to the point. It supplies history, data, charts/pics, and experiments neatly without being crammed.

 

Overall, Ethan Siegel's post is the best in my opinion. Elegant, informative and quickly to the point. It supplies history, data, charts/pics, and experiments neatly without being crammed.

I admit voting for this one as well. His post series is exhaustive will still remaining interesting and relevant.

 

Also nice summaries of the entries.

It was really a good experience to read out from here