Why PhD students should read the history of science

Here’s a secret I accidentally discovered during my PhD: consuming history-of-science content is a powerful way to nurture your emotional maturity as a researcher.

You’ll notice, even as you read two random pages from the history of science, the pages have an uncanny resemblance to each other, and to the one you’re writing! Every tale of discovery demonstrates that:

  1. Scientists always gambled in the scientific process, and made mistakes.

  2. Science is noisy and subjective. There can be great subjectivity in interpreting a result or appreciating the significance of a direction. The subjectivity may disappear only in hindsight with more data and more exploration.

  3. Lesser-known scientists were rarely taken seriously, especially by scientists who were backed by reputation or seniority or systemic power or mere confidence. There were always pushbacks, humiliations, and complete indifference.

  4. Controversies between scientists has always been the norm. “Big and proud” personalities in power have made other scientists’ lives miserable. Or at times, two “big” scientists on an equal footing sparred publicly with each other. It wasn’t very nice.

  5. Credit assignment has always been noisy and at other times, deliberately unfair. Some great scientific discoveries were tragically known only long after their originator’s passing.

There are important lessons in these observations1 that make you a more level-headed and emotionally mature researcher.

You learn to

  • recognize the inevitable ups and downs of the research process,

  • navigate the terrain of research with grit,

  • value deeply satisfying long-term ambitions over anxiety-inducing short-term goals,

  • value goal-less, curiosity-driven random explorations as an exciting and important part of working at the frontier of human knowledge,

  • not perceive certain setbacks or the lack of external validation as a personal attack in those situations where it is not personal but pure noise (not always the case!),

  • not be intimidated by those who may assert their subjective opinions as objective truth with authority (this is my favorite lesson),

  • hold on to a measured conviction in your own opinions (second favorite lesson).

Some of these lessons2 may sound like platitudes; but learning how these have repeatedly manifested in history — through vivid narrative detail — leaves a profound imprint on how you operate as a researcher, and how you construct an inner narrative about your role in the scientific community.

I contend that you cannot learn this emotional maturity efficiently through the brute-force of the research process alone. You need to read.


Reading list

Here are some of the books I would recommend. I’ll continue to update this over time. 3 4

Longitude by Dava Sobel

This little book describes the story of how 18th century governments and monarchies funded a race to design the clock, a race that stemmed from colonial ambitions (you need clocks to track the longitude which until then was extremely cumbersome and prone to ship-wrecking errors). The book covers the competition and drama that ensued between inventors and powerful astronomers and the magnitude of grit that was involved in the inventor's process.

Chaos: Making a New Science by James Gleick

This narrates the emergence of Chaos Theory as a standalone discipline (born from problems and observations in various other disciplines) and the pushbacks it experienced along the way. The book also describes the basic tenets of chaos theory in a way that is easy to follow.

Chasing Venus: The Race to Measure the Heavens by Andrea Wulf

This thriller-like (true) story tracks the journey of a dozen astronomers (of many) in the 1760s as they raced to colonies in various corners of the globe. Their goal was to time the journey of the Venus across the Sun in a bid to measure the distance of the Sun from the Earth. The scientists and astronomers worked across imperial borders to consolidate resources and collaborate (or not!), and in their race against time, they faced one obstacle after another, political, logistical and meteorological. Many failed. The book details the competition that developed between various astronomers (and like Longitude, also how all of this was deeply tied to colonization).

Great Feuds in Science: Ten of the Liveliest Disputes Ever by Hal Hellman

This outlines instances across the vast history of science where two ideas or two people collided head-on. Some of these you may already be aware of, like the one between Newton and Leibniz or the one between Galileo and the Pope. But the book digs out little historical details which paint a picture of many of these debates nastier than what you’d have imagined.

When Einstein Walked with Gödel by Jim Holt

A collection of essays on science and mathematics, each with a unique insight into some of the lessons I brought up earlier.

Accidental Astronomy: How Random Discoveries Shape the Science of Space by Chris Lintott

This describes the serendipitous history leading up to many astronomical discoveries. The story of how radio astronomy came to be is absolutely fascinating. The book also led me to learning about the story of Jocelyn Bell who discovered the pulsars but was not awarded the Nobel Prize.

The Creative Moment by Joseph Schwartz

A collection of (provocative) essays describing how various scientific discoveries were triggered by a political or social force; and also, how the natural sciences became more and more abstract and obscured in the public eye (beginning at the moment Galileo mathematized physics when in conflict with the Church), and how the ways of doing science have transformed from lone inventors to large highly-managed teams, a fact that is true of machine learning and AI too.

Inventing Temperature by Hasok Chang

This narrates the long history behind how temperature began to measured like how it is right now. There are details about the physics of it (some of it was a bit dense for a casual read for me), but also details about the disputes and confusion that transpired along the way.

There are places in the world where rules are less important than kindness by Carlo Rovelli

A collection of essays by a theoretical physicist that touches upon many things broadly: science, anthropology, also of the life of a young scientist, and of many other social and human values.

A sense of the mysterious by Alan Lightman

The essays here describe the emotional experience of a scientist and the intersection of being scientist and an artist (Alan’s writing about this is beautiful; it deeply resonated with me) and the power of metaphors in scientific thinking. There are also insightful historical accounts of some scientists and discoveries; my favorite is the essay titled “Megaton Man” which descibes the personality of Edward Teller who was involved in the Manhattan Project.

Science and Government by CP Snow

A long essay (or a short book?) that narrates the rivalry between two scientists who were at the helm of British military technology during the second World War.

The Knowledge Machine by Michael Strevens

This book presents a theory of why science emerged when it did; what stood out to me are examples of scientists making irrational or un-objective decisions e.g., such as in the Eddington eclipse experiment where scientists ignored some data that might have otherwise tipped the scales in favor of Newton.

I received a few more suggestions from readers:

  • Ascent of Man by Bronowski (h/t Tarun Gupta)
  • Infinite Powers by Steven Strogatz (h/t Puneesh Deora)
  • The Emergence of Probability by Ian Hacking and Science in history by Bernal (h/t Javier Burroni)

Footnotes

  1. While point 1 and 2 are inherent to science and research, the rest are idiosyncrasies of the current system of doing science. It does not have to be this way and I do not mean to normalize any of it, and I truly wish they were gone. ↩

  2. There is another important dynamic you’ll notice in history, one which is less personal and more social: science has interacted with politics in unfortunate and devastating ways causing great and unequal harms. This interaction goes in two ways. Science creates new political tension, and conversely, political tension both hastens and hinders science. This is a topic of its own and is important to pay attention to while you read! ↩

  3. Most of these books are random picks from various old book stores, so they do not come vetted by popularity. ↩

  4. My summaries are based off of memory so please actually read the book. ↩

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