SCIENCE, SOCIETY AND CIVILIZATION IN THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE
SCIENCE, SOCIETY AND CIVILIZATION IN THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE

Summary/Abstract: What about science, society and education in the history? In the 19th century Europe the figure of the scientific engineer is emerging. In Paris the Grandes Écoles were founded, where the most distinguished mathematicians of the time taught to students and drew up treaties. and Joseph–Louis Lagrange (1736–1813) and Gaspard Monge (1746–1818) were among the first professors of mathematics at École Polytechnique (1794), a military school for the training of engineers. In 1794 the École Normal of Paris was also born, in 1808, the École normale supérieure Paris was founded, a school that had as its goal the training of teachers of both science and humanities. On this model, with a Napoleonic decree of 1813, it was established the first foundation of the Scuola Normale in Pisa. The attention of the French mathematicians toward applications was therefore, at least in part, due to the need of educational institutions to train technicians for the new state. Such an attitude is not found in Germany, the country that in the nineteenth century was with France at the forefront of European mathematics. On the one hand, great importance was attributed to purely theoretical disciplines, such as number theory and abstract algebra, on the other hand the natural philosophy aim to frame in the same theory at all the physical disciplines. In Germany a great engineering school eventually developed which become dominant in Europe. But interaction between scientists and engineers has existed since ancient times: e.g., for the study of prototypes and machines for the society.

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