author
Derek J. de Solla (Derek John de Solla) Price
1922–1983
A pioneering historian of science who made big ideas feel measurable, he helped explain how scientific knowledge grows and why old machines can still change modern thinking. He is especially remembered for his work on the Antikythera mechanism and for founding the field now known as scientometrics.
1 Audiobook
On the Origin of Clockwork, Perpetual Motion Devices, and the Compass
by Derek J. de Solla (Derek John de Solla) Price
About the author
Born in 1922, Derek J. de Solla Price was a British physicist, historian of science, and information scientist whose work connected the history of ideas with the patterns hidden inside scientific research. He became widely known for studying the Antikythera mechanism, the remarkable ancient Greek device often described as an early planetary calculator.
Price also played a major role in creating scientometrics, the quantitative study of science and scientific publication. His influential book Little Science, Big Science helped shape how scholars think about the growth of research, citation patterns, and the expansion of modern knowledge.
He later served at Yale University, where he was Avalon Professor of the History of Science. Remembered as an inventive and wide-ranging thinker, he brought together physics, history, and information science in a way that still feels fresh today.