TIME has recently published 100 greatest places in the world.
The book is a collection of sites that, the editors argue, have
had the biggest impact on world history. It’s excellent blog
material because hardly anyone has read it (including me), any
list will be personal and omit something someone feels is
important and, following what the press releases say, at least
one of the choices is intentionally trolling for controversy.
The other reason for blogging about it is that it raises some
interesting questions about the nature of science and history.
I’m opening what will be three blog posts this week with a
question about scale. What sort of scale is appropriate for
examining the history of science? The scale might seem obvious
and the only real question is to argue whether it’s marked BC/AD
or BCE/CE. That’s a scale of time or duration. To flip the
question what is the smallest measurable unit of history? Is the
action of leaping from a bath and shouting ‘Eureka!’ the
shortest possible historical event? At