HIST401 Syllabus
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Study Questions
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Essay Reviews
  Essay Review Instructions
  Assignment #1
  Assignment #2
  Example #1 by Student
  Example #2 by Student
  Example by Instructor

Instructor:
Dr. Stephen G. Brush
Distinguished University Professor of the History of Science
Department of History
  and
Institute for Physical Science & Technology
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742 USA

Stephen G. Brush Home Page

Last modified:
July 30, 2004
© Stephen G. Brush

HIST 401, Fall 2004 , p. 5

Murphy's Law
      You are expected to be familiar with the Law that "If something can go wrong, it will."  For example, if you write a paper on a computer and do not (a) make a back-up copy on a floppy disk or (b) print out at least one copy in addition to the one you hand in to the instructor, the Law predicts that the copy intended for the instructor will somehow get lost, and all the information on your computer's hard disc will be destroyed by a virus.  You do NOT have a legitimate excuse for handing in the paper late, because you should have taken account of Murphy's Law, and after reading this paragraph you can't say you weren't warned!  (This actually happened to a student last year--or so he said; he had to rewrite the entire paper after the due date, and ended up with a much lower grade as a result.)
      Murphy's Law also applies to the UMCP Records Office (in fact it applies to any activity involving computers and/or humans).  In 2003, their computer erased the grades of an entire section of a course (15 students) after those grades had been submitted and posted on the website.  All those students would have found themselves 3 credits short at graduation time, except that one student happened to look for his grade after the erasure occurred, and found it wasn't there; as a result, the mistake was fixed and all the grades and credits for that section were restored.

Caveat
      Any student who remains registered in the course after the end of the Schedule Adjustment period will be assumed to have agreed to the above rules and procedures.

Schedule of Topics, Reading Assignments (complete by date indicated), deadlines, etc.
First class, August 31
End of Schedule Adjustment period, Sept. 13

Required:
• Kuhn, "What are Scientific Revolutions?"
• Holt, "Mistaken Identity Theory"
• Cohen, Birth, pages 3-35
• Dear, Revolutionizing, pages 1-9
• Diamond, Guns, pages 9-52, 67-92
• Lindberg, Beginnings, pages 1-110
• Matthews, Scientific Background, pages 5-32 (Aristotle)

Recommended:
• Diamond, Guns, pages 53-66, 93-175
• Lindberg, Beginnings, pages 111-160

Required:
• Huff, Rise, pages 1-90, 237-286
• Lindberg, Beginnings, pages 161-182
• Diamond, Guns, pages 174-264, 322-333

Recommended:
• Diamond, Guns, pages 265-321

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