The establishment of the Exploratorium, known as the pioneer of the science center movement, reflects the social history of science education in the United States during the 1960s. Frank Oppenheimer (1912-1985), the founder of the museum, realized the gap between experts and the public while he participated in the Manhattan Project and found the answer from science education in a museum setting. As scientist and educator, Oppenheimer developed his own philosophy of science education, which emphasized the pleasure of discovering nature by tinkering with laboratory apparatus. With his plan to build a new museum, Oppenheimer arrived in San Francisco in 1967, when he soon encountered obstacles in leasing the museum site, “the Palace of Fine Arts.” To obtain the site over many competitors, he strategically contacted the local media, utilized personal connections to eminent physicists, and emphasized the importance of art in the proposed museum. In this process, Oppenheimer devised a “curious alliance” of science, art, and human perception, which became the distinctive characteristic of the Exploratorium. Through the early history of the Exploratorium, this study traces Oppenheimer's invention of a new type of science museum within the context of the experience of scientists in Cold War America.

In 1999, Gum-Ja Bae, inspired by a successful wave of American tobacco litigations in the 1990s, filed a civil lawsuit against KT&G Corporation, a state-sanctioned monopoly for tobacco and ginseng products. This paper examines the history of Korean tobacco litigation by looking at the trans-Pacific circulation of biomedical knowledge and legal strategies. It focuses on the question of addiction, individual choice, and legal responsibility in Korean tobacco litigation, analyzing how the neuroscience of addiction was mobilized for the co-construction of medical knowledge and legal responsibility. The Korean plaintiffs claimed that the neuroscience of addiction― the biological and psychological process of mood alterations, tolerance, and withdrawal symptoms―pointed to the loss of control in nicotine use, placing the burden of responsibility squarely on the tobacco industry. The Korean tobacco industry, however, underscored that nicotine did not cause intoxication that would hamper smokers' ability to act rationally with respect to risks associated with cigarettes. The Korean tobacco industry thus mobilized the multinational tobacco industry's construction of the notion of quitting that stigmatized smokers as weak, irrational, and addictive individuals. In the end, the South Korean court exempted the Korean tobacco industry from responsibility, amplifying the defendant's stigmatization of smokers and their responsibility of risk-taking.

After the liberation from Japanese colonial rule in 1945, all the geological achievements made during the colonial period were handed over to Korean geologists. Korean geologists took up the task of evaluating Japanese geological achievements and setting their own academic goals. This paper traces the process in which the Korean geologists tried to overcome Japanese geology and laid the foundations for their own academic development. The post-colonial situation framed their academic efforts. By emphasizing pure academic research, Korean geologists tried to detach themselves from application-oriented Japanese colonial geology and shape their self-identity as Korean geologists who studied the Korean soil. In doing so, post-colonial Korean geologists held together mutually contradictory efforts of appropriating and breaking off from the colonial legacies, while combining them with diverse social factors to achieve their academic goals.

During the long process of assimilation of the Shixian-li 時憲曆 astronomical method, the bureaucratic structure of Gwansanggam 觀象監 (the Office for Observation of Natural Phenomena) also changed gradually. The personnel in charge of calendar calculation increased, the textbooks for civil service examination for the Gwansanggam officers was newly designated, and the selection process of young candidates for officers was enacted. The most important change in Gwansanggam's structure, however, was the establishment of new positions such as Samryeok-gwan 三曆官 (Officers in Charge of Making Three Calendars) and expansion of their quota. This reorganization of institutional structure was not recorded in the State Codes (大典), because the court could not change the orthodox Codes established by the former kings. Yet the Joseon government needed to establish the new positions to assimilate the Shixian-li method and make annual calendars according to that method. This need was satisfied by the so called Sanwon-jik 散員職 positions ― the official positions receiving “scattered salaries” (sanryo 散料). With these changes, a total of 131 new positions were established in Gwansanggam. Moreover, this new position of Samryeok-gwan became the council members who regulated the Gwansanggam organization after the mid-eighteenth century. The Sanwon-jik positions, such as Samryeok-gwan and Susul-gwan 修述官, played key role in the management of Gwansanggam in the late Joseon period.

It is well-known to historians of mathematics in East Asia that the tianyuan shu 天元術 was one of the distinct features of mathematics in the late Joseon period. Joseon Confucian scholars' studies on the tianyuan shu have yet to be analyzed. From the late seventeenth to the early eighteenth century, there were two extant mathematical works by Korean Confucian scholars concerning the tianyuan shu: Sanhak wonbon 算學原本 by Bak Yul (朴繘, 1621-1668) and Sanhak bonwon 算學本源 by Hwang Yun-seok (黃胤錫, 1729-1791). By analyzing these two works, this paper examines the characteristics of their views and interpretations of the tianyuan shu. The Confucian authors extended the usage of the tianyuan shu into other mathematical fields to which it had never been applied before. They also preferred to use mathematical tables that showed the relationships between the numbers popping up during the performance of the method or the visual diagrams that explained the algorithms.