Every Picture Tells a Story: Scientific American’s 175th Anniversary

By Chuck Dinerstein, MD, MBA — Aug 26, 2020

September marks the 175th anniversary of Scientific American, one of the magazines from a memorable era in journalism that included Life as well as Time – periodicals longer than 20 pages. In honor of SA's anniversary, the editors devoted an article to the words used in articles since the founding of the magazine back in 1845.

Image courtesy of Dariusz Sankowski on Pixabay

“Since at least the 17th century, science has struggled with words. Francis Bacon, visionary of a new, experimental natural philosophy, called language an “idol of the marketplace”: a counterfeit currency we trade in so habitually that we no longer notice the gap between words and the world.”

The article, entitled The Language of Science, contains several examples of how words have changed over this time. For those who write the words, such as myself and those that read the words, you and me, this is a treat.

Here are three great examples

You can find the interactive infographics here.

Source: The Language of Science Scientific American DOI:10.1038/scientificamerican0920-26

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Chuck Dinerstein, MD, MBA

Director of Medicine

Dr. Charles Dinerstein, M.D., MBA, FACS is Director of Medicine at the American Council on Science and Health. He has over 25 years of experience as a vascular surgeon.