The History of Physics in Collaborations: Archimedes, Galileo, Einstein et al.

The talk reviews some turning points in the history of physics, from the emergence of mechanics in antiquity, via its Renaissance in the early modern period, to the transformation of classical into modern physics around the turn of the twentieth century. It features the approach of a long-term study of the evolution of knowledge pursued in the context of collaborative efforts centered at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science. It argues for the usefulness of theoretical concepts such as shared knowledge, challenging objects, borderline problems, scaffolding and other ways to describe the architecture of knowledge for understanding conceptual change from a longue-durée perspective.