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Title
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Letter from Cyril Stanley Smith to Louise Kertesz
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Creator
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Cyril Stanley Smith
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Description
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Dated April 6th, 1976, a typed letter from MIT professor Cyril Stanley Smith to Louise Kertesz in response to her inquiries about Willard Gibbs and The Traces of Thomas Harriot: “You ask about scientists’ views on W. G. Frankly, I have never met one who liked it. Most of them think that it is not the biography of a scientist. For all of its studies of incoming and outreaching influences, it fails to catch the intellectual experience of the scientist in finding and clarifying his problem and doesn't distinguish between the moments of insight and the hard work of verification and transmission” (underlined in red by LK). Suggests that both WG and The Traces “are somewhat questionable if they are judged by the standards of down-to-earth well disciplined science or history of science, and they may even me [sic] a bit unreliable as biography.” Suggests that the two books need to be supplemented by more critical scientific biographies.The letters are underlined and have handwritten notes by Louise Kertesz.
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Date Created
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April 6th, 1976
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Original Object Type
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Paper
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Subject
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Cyril Stanley Smith; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Willard Gibbs; Louise Kertesz; Louise Kertesz; handwritten notes; verification; transmission; scientific biographies;
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Collection Location
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Box 1 Folder 1
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Cataloger
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Latitude Brown
