[Ovah]

Tangent: I have years of academic studies. And yet it can be time consuming to truly understand where and how ideas came to be. I might have an equation but to understand how it was initially thought of or derived might require access to physical contemporary books. At least once I've had to resort to 18th century handwritten manuscripts. Wikipedia can be great. But I often wonder if historical scientific progress can be made even more accessible.

[alexpetralia]

This etiological approach is captured, for example, in the book "Inventing Temperature" by philosopher of science Hasok Chang. It chronicles the meandering, dialectical and controversial journey scientists pursue in order to discover what exactly temperature is - now elegantly captured in concise but sterile formulas. It demonstrates the process of science, as opposed to merely its output.