Be my ball machine.

[grinninfoole]

In about ten days I will take my comps, which involve me getting one or two questions on the history of American science and then writing an extemporaneous, closed book essay for an hour answering one. Want to help me prepare? Then ask me a question about the history of American science. Reply to this post with a question (and please give a heading like 'question' or some such), and tell me what story you would like me to tell you about science, the people who did it, and how they went about it here in the Americas.

I'm not a technologist, so I can't give you a lot of technical details unless you happen to ask about the right thing, and the possible topics are so numerous that I might not have a lot to say, but I just need folks to pop me a lot of questions that I have to answer on the fly. (My particular interests are secrecy and popularization, if that helps.)

Comments

[crouchback.livejournal.com]

How much did early American science benefit from copyright violation and theft of European industrial secrets? It's my impression that Americans used to engage in what would now be regarded as theft of intellectual property on a large scale. Is this accurate, and how much did it help us develop?

question

[omnia-mutantur.livejournal.com]

i can't really come up with a good question format.

can you tell me something about fiction, or popular books about science, and the accessibility or inaccesibility of understanding of scientific concepts to the american poplace at large, and how that can either help or hinder scientific advancement, either popular opinion or funding or governmental support? i'm thinking alan lightman, and kurt vonnegut, and feynman, and gleick and all the ... for dummies books.

[millari.livejournal.com]

Scientific research projects are typically shrouded in secrecy for one of two reasons - national security or the protection of intellectual property. In your scholarly experience, how have these two differing motivations for secrecy affected the cultural atmosphere of institutions pursuing work in secret? Where are there similarities and where are there differences?