Cartes que lliguen. Les correspondències científiques com a font de la història de la ciència

2007, 136 pp.

The easy pun that appears in the title of this book fills us with the vicissitudes of gambling. It is a chance that the letters exchanged by a scientist -or by anyone, of course- with their correspondents will be preserved once they are transferred. It is another chance that they will end up in the hands of someone who will value them properly, who will keep them and also will send them to those who can study them with solvency. But when all this is fulfilled, what a wonderful play! What a winning hand! What a smooth game! One of these fortunate chancess has occurred with the correspondence of Joan Joaquim Rodríguez Femenias, the naturalist, businessman and politician of Minorca -1839 to 1905-. On the occasion of the commemoration of the centenary of his birth, the Institute of Catalan Studies -Institut d’Estudis Catalans, IEC-, especially the Catalan Society for the History of Science and Technology -which is his subsidiary- and the Institute of Minorcan Studies organized a meeting of contributions and debates on scientific correspondences as a source for the history of science. This book is a compilation of the contributions of that day, which -under the title of Linking letters. Scientific correspondence as a source for the history of science- took place at the headquarters of the IEC, in Barcelona, on January 2005. Its authors are Josep M. Camarasa, Santos Casado, Alberto Gomis, Antonio González Bueno, Félix Muñoz Garmendia, Francisco Pelayo, Vicent L. Salavert, Joan Vallès and Josep M. Vidal. All of them are science historians of renowned prestige.