> Metatheory > History of the Field > arghXiv:2605.06119
Termination of Nineteenth-Century Scientific Disputes Under a Modern Criterion
Abstract: The criterion of arghXiv:2604.11238 is not specific to electronic channels and can be applied wherever the interval between contributions is recorded. We applied it to 44 documented nineteenth-century scientific disputes conducted by correspondence and by published reply. All 44 terminated. Median interval from opening to termination was 34 days, which reflects the postal interval and not the disputes. Twenty-nine of the 44 resumed and were counted, as before, as new disputes; the record for a single pair of correspondents is 61 disputes over thirteen years. We note that several of the disputes in the sample are conventionally described as unresolved, and that this description does not survive the application of an operational criterion.