The Facts on File Encyclopedia of Science, Technology, and Society

by Volti, Rudi

• ISBN13: 9780816031238
• ISBN10: 0816031231
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-01-01
• Publisher: Facts on File

Summary

Would a man have walked on the moon if the British had not escaped at Dunkirk during WWII? How did an elaborate meal for Charles II lead to the invention of the steam engine? The Facts On File Encyclopedia of Science, Technology, and Society provides the answers to these and many more fascinating questions. The three-volume Facts On File Encyclopedia of Science, Technology, and Society is a landmark publication for the emerging field of study known as STS. It is the only source that both explores specific and technologies and focuses on the historical and social dimensions behind each.

Table of Contents

Editorial Board and Contributors	ii
Introduction	vii
Organization of the Encyclopedia	viii
Acknowledgments	viii
A Note on Measurements and Conversions	ix
Encyclopedia of Science, Technology, and Society	1	(1144)
Bibliography	1145	(14)
Index	1159

Excerpts

Would a man have walked on the moon if the British had not escaped at Dunkirk during WWII? How did an elaborate meal for Charles II lead to the invention of the steam engine? The Facts On File Encyclopedia of Science, Technology, and Society provides the answers to these and many more fascinating questions, revealing how economics, society, and culture produce scientific and technological advances.
This three-volume set explores specific sciences and technologies and focuses on the historical and social dimensions behind each. More than 900 entries depict the interaction between experimentation, change, and community. From canned food to compact discs, paper clips to penicillin, this resource reveals how scientific and technological advances depend more on societal needs and priorities than on the internal forces of the scientist, creator, or discoverer.
Each of the more than 900 extensively detailed entries connect a scientific or technological subject with its social causes and consequences. Coverage identifies how scientific and technological changes have modified our lives and emphasizes how outcomes have been both positive and negative, and sometimes even unexpected.
Enhanced by 150 photographs and illustrations, diagrams, and a bibliography, coverage also details contemporary issues and controversies and what roles these have had in scientific growth.
Among the areas covered are agriculture, biology, communications, construction, electricity, electronics, energy, food, governance, instruments, materials, mechanics, medicine, military, photography, production and commerce, public works, radio and television, scientific principles, space exploration, and transportation.
Specific topics covered include air conditioning, amniocentesis, anabolic steroids, area code, atomic bomb, ballooning, ballpoint pen, barbed wire, battery, cable television, clocks and watches, cloning, compact disc, contact lens, cotton gin, cyclotron, deforestation, electron microscope, elevator, flush toilet, freeze drying, frozen food, fusion energy, gene splicing, microwave oven, nylon, paper, paper clip, periodic table, radar, robotics, roller skates, safety bicycle, smart bomb, soap, space shuttle, spray paint, standard time, stirrup, subway, supercollider, supersonic transport, teflon, telephone, typewriter, ultrasound, vaccination, velcro, vending machine, wheelbarrow, widescreen movies, wind tunnel, word processing, X-rays, zipper.