Abstract

In spite of having published more than hundred articles and three monographs, the chemist and statistician Alfred James Lotka (1880–1949) is not very well known. Because he had not experienced a conventional academic curriculum, he remained ‚at the margins’ of the scientific community. In 1925 he aimed for a breakthrough with his first monograph Elements of Physical Biology. The basic idea of this study was to understand nature in terms of energy. Lotka’s mathematical approach was highly innovative, although he had borrowed certain notions from his former teacher, the physical chemist Wilhelm Ostwald. This article focuses on the very process of how a new idea developed and spread through the scientific community, and tries to determine to what extent the author—with his personality, his intentions and feelings—was part of this process. This includes looking at the emotional strain that followed the publication of Lotka’s masterpiece. Considering his anxieties, worries and distress during the period of reception, and his efforts to make sure his book was acknowledged by its audience, the article sheds light on often neglected aspects of scientific work such as identification, intention, mimicry, originality, and rivalry. The case study deals with a systematic blindness in the history of science: it takes into account the actors of science, their personality and their strategic moves, in order to come to a better understanding of the close connection between their work and their actions. In addition, the history of Lotka’s worries about the reception of his book might help us challenge the postulate of „publish or perish“ in today’s science.