The Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (MPIWG) has published its format “Research Topics” since 2008. Every six to eight weeks, researchers present individual contributions of one relevant aspect of their research or present a new research project. “Research Topics” appear on the home page of the Institute’s website and in a printed version available in the MPIWG’s entrance hall. The online version makes the latest research easily available and offers links to sources, databases, audiovisual material, publications, authors, and partner institutions. Published in German and English, the collection of Research Topics gives a representative picture of the ways in which research is conducted at the Institute. Copies can be ordered in brochure form through the Institute's press contact.

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Research Topics
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No 82![]()
Hortus Indicus Malabaricus: The Eurasian Life of a Seventeenth-Century “European” Botanical Classic
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- Minakshi Menon
- Max Planck Research Group (Premodern Sciences)
No 81![]()
The Anthropocene’s Signal: What the Geology of the Present Beckons for the Future of Research
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No 80![]()
Anthropocene Formations: Process Landscapes of Petromodernity
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No 79![]()
A Vital Force? Exploring Agricultural Uses of Alchemy in Early Modern Europe, ca. 1550-1730
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- Justin Niermeier-Dohoney
- Dept. III
No 78![]()
Dreams of Unification: The Role of Mathematics in Final Theory Programs
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No 77![]()
Practices of Validation in the Biomedical Sciences
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No 76![]()
Leonardo's Intellectual Cosmos
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No 75![]()
The Networks of Early Quantum Theory
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- Alexander Blum
- Christoph Lehner
- Jürgen Renn
- Max Planck Research Group (Final Theory Program)
- Dept. I
No 74![]()
Learning by the Book: Manuals and Handbooks in the History of Science
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No 73![]()
Knowing the Unobservable: Analogies and Analogical Reasoning in Premodern Islamic Theology
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No 72![]()
From the Renaissance of Einstein's General Theory of Relativity to the Confirmation of the Black Hole Paradigm
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- Alexander Blum
- Luisa Bonolis
- Roberto Lalli
- Juan-Andres Leon Gomez
- Jürgen Renn
- Dept. I
- Max Planck Research Group (Final Theory Program)
- Max Planck Research Program (GMPG)
No 71![]()
Local Gazetteers Research Tools (LoGaRT): A Digital Resource for Researching Chinese History
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- Sean Wang
- Dept. III
No 70![]()
The Mask—Arrayed: An Interdisciplinary Project on the Materiality of a Covid-19 Icon
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No 69![]()
China in the Global System of Science
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No 68![]()
Ecologizing the Korean Demilitarized Zone: Fields, Animals, and Science during the Cold War
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No 67![]()
The Evolution of Knowledge: Rethinking Science for the Anthropocene
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No 66![]()
De Sphaera: Epistemic Communities Shaping Scientific Knowledge in Early Modern Europe
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- Matteo Valleriani
- Florian Kräutli
- Dept. I
- Research IT
No 65![]()
Working with Paper: Gendered Practices in the History of Knowledge
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- Carla Bittel
- Elaine Leong
- Christine von Oertzen
- Dept. Daston
- Reading & Writing Nature in Early Modern Europe
No 64![]()
Twenty-Four Years of the History of Rationality
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No 63![]()
Elephant Ivory, Zoos, and Extinction in the Age of Imperialism (1870s–1940s)
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- Marianna Szczygielska
- Dept. III