Periodization in the History of Basic Research

Abstract

A central objective of history of any natural science is constructing a periodization scheme of its development, marked by breakthrough or revolutionary events underlying it. To reveal these key events (ideas, facts, theories, discoveries or laws) is an objective of foremost importance, because they open up new periods and phases in the development of a science and determine its architectonics. It follows that historians of science have to build an array of facts, with highlighting fundamental and landmark ones opening new periods and phases of natural sciences. These events-facts with their dates lay the basis for periodization schemes of basic sciences development, constructed in this way.

The updated periodization of physics is proposed, based on the revealed landmark events and top facts. It is underlined that while in a periodization scheme of the global science development its landmark events and facts have purely theoretical origin, in a periodization scheme of a national science they have socio-political roots; hence, a periodization for a basic science at national level has to be built in the system of socio-political and economic coordinates. At the same time, the history of a national (basic) science needs to be projected on the global context, in order to see if its level conforms to the global one. A periodization of the history of physics in Ukraine is given with account to socio-political factors; built in this way, it is apparently coincides with the periodization of the civil history of Ukraine: prehistory of physics in Ukraine (17 century — first half of 19 century); rise and formation of physics in Ukraine as a basic science (latter half of 19 century — beginning of 20s of 20 century); decline of physics in Ukraine (end of 10s — first half of 20s of 20 century); formation of modern physics in Ukraine (30s of 20 century); slow development of physics in Ukraine (40s — first half of 50s of 20 century); physics in the period of “thaw” in the USSR (1956—1965); physics in the period of “stagnation” in the USSR (1966—1984); physics in the period of “repestroika” in the USSR (1985—1991); physics in independent Ukraine (1992 and on).