University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Wilhelm Ostwald’s combinatorics as a link between in-formation and form

Hapke, Thomas

Permalink

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/89740

Description

Title
Wilhelm Ostwald’s combinatorics as a link between in-formation and form
Author(s)
Hapke, Thomas
Issue Date
2012
Keyword(s)
  • Information and Space
  • Spatial Analogies
  • Wilhelm Ostwald
  • Combinatorics
Abstract
The combinatorial thinking of the chemist and Nobel laureate Wilhelm Ostwald grew out of his activities in chemistry and was further developed in his philosophy of nature. Ostwald used combinatorics as an analogous, creative, and interdisciplinary way of thinking in areas like knowledge organization and in his theory of colors and forms. His work marginally influenced art movements like the German Werkbund, the Dutch De Stijl, and the Bauhaus. Ostwald’s activities and his use of spatial analogies such as bridge, net, or pyramid can be viewed as support for a relation between information—or “in-formation,” or Bildung (education, formation)—and form.
Publisher
Johns Hopkins University Press and the Graduate School of Library and Information Science. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
ISSN
0024-2594
Type of Resource
text
Language
en
Permalink
http://hdl.handle.net/2142/89740
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1353/lib.2012.0041
Copyright and License Information
Copyright 2012 Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Owning Collections

Library Trends 61 (2) Fall 2012: Information and Space: Analogies and Metaphors PRIMARY
Library Trends 61 (2) Fall 2012: Information and Space: Analogies and Metaphors. Edited by Wouter Van Acker and Pieter Uyttenhove