Sergei Vinogradskii and the Cycle of Life

Abstract

This is one of those biographies that provide a window onto the broader understanding of science in its social and cultural context. Using Sergei Nikolaevich Vinogradskii's career and scientific research trajectory as a point of entry, this book illustrates the manner in which microbiologists, chemists, botanists, and plant physiologists inscribed the concept of a ""cycle of life"" into their investigations. Their research transformed a longstanding notion into the fundamental approaches and concepts that underlay the new ecological disciplines that emerged in the 1920s. The book presents a re. Part 1. Plant Physiology -- A Synthesis of Thermodynamics and Bioenergetics in Plant Physiology: The Investigation of a Moody Apprentice -- The Exchange of Matter and the Transformation of Energy -- Part 2. Experiment and Natural History -- The Laboratory is Nature: Investigating the Cycle of Life Under the Microscope -- Free Nature in the Laboratory -- Part 3. Ecology -- Vinogradskii's Transformation from Plant Physiologist to Ecologist, 1890-1920 -- Soil Science and Russian Ecology -- Part 4. French Agriculture -- The Master of Brie-Compte-Robert and His "Direct Method:" Translating the Cycle of Life into Ecology -- Ecological Microbiology -- Part 5. The Impact of Vinogradskii's Work -- Science is Ecological and Ecology is Scientific: The Uptake of Vinogradskii's Direct Methods -- Vinogradskii's Reception in Russian and Soviet Microbiology -- Conclusions.