Lawrence M. Principe () is the Drew Professor of the Humanities at Johns Hopkins University in the Department of History of Science and Technology and the Department of Chemistry.[1] He is also currently the Director of the Charles Singleton Center for the Study of Premodern Europe, an interdisciplinary center for research at Johns Hopkins.[2] He is the first recipient of the Francis Bacon Medal for significant contributions to the history of science.[3] Principe's research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Philosophical Society, the Chemical Heritage Foundation, and a 2015-2016 Guggenheim Fellowship.[4] Principe is recognized as one of the foremost experts in the history of alchemy.
Education
He earned undergraduate degrees at the University of Delaware (B.A. Liberal Studies, 1983; B.S. Chemistry, 1983) and did his graduate work at Indiana University (Ph.D. Organic Chemistry, 1988) and at Johns Hopkins (Ph.D. History of Science, 1996).
Research
History of alchemy
Principe is recognized as one of the foremost experts on the history of alchemy.[5] Principe's main studies concern the early history of chemistry, particularly alchemy, although he is also active in the study of the relationships between science and religion. His early studies focused particularly on the works of Robert Boyle, especially their connection to the earlier study of alchemy.[6][7] His book The Aspiring Adept: Robert Boyle and His Alchemical Quest (Princeton, 1998) makes the case that Boyle was himself active as an alchemist.[8] His later book with William R. Newman, Alchemy Tried in the Fire: Starkey, Boyle, and the Fate of Helmontian Chymistry (University of Chicago Press, 2002) also promotes the continuity between alchemy and chemistry.[9] His most recent book, The Secrets of Alchemy (University of Chicago Press, 2013), provides a survey of the history of alchemy and includes explanations and replications of alchemical processes that he has carried out in his laboratory.[10] Principe was the first historian of science to bring the reconstruction of alchemical experiments as a historical tool into the mainstream of scholarship, reproducing a number of experiments and reconstructing methods, tools, and settings reported by alchemical texts in his modern laboratory while accounting for impurities in substances used, conditions for the experiments, and other factors.[5] Principe has uploaded several videos on the production of white lead to YouTube.[11]
History of science
His book The Scientific Revolution: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2011) describes and contextualizes the important scientific developments that took place from about 1500 to 1700, and explores the worldviews and motivations of the people responsible for those developments; it has been translated into Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, and Swedish.
Awards
He is the first recipient of the Francis Bacon Medal by the California Institute of Technology for significant contributions to the history of science in 2004.[3] Principe's book Alchemy Tried in the Fire: Starkey, Boyle, and the Fate of Helmontian Chymistry was awarded the Pfizer Award by the History of Science Society in 2005.[12] In 2015, he received a Guggenheim Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.[4] In 2016, he received the Franklin-Lavoisier Prize in Paris from the Fondation de la Maison de la Chimie and the Chemical Heritage Foundation.[13] In 2021, he received the St. Albert Award from the Society of Catholic Scientists.[14]
Lawrence Principe on chemical history and "The Secrets of Alchemy"