thonyc – Whewell's Ghost

Whewell’s Gazette

Your weekly digest of all the best of

Internet history of science, technology and medicine

Editor in Chief: The Ghost of William Whewell

Volume #50

Monday 08 June 2015

EDITORIAL:

Somewhat delayed, you can now admire, read, consume, criticise, use, abuse or simple ignore the fiftieth edition of the weekly #histSTM links list Whewell’s Gazette bringing the best of the histories of science, technology and medicine, which our special team of search owls could dig up over seven days in the Internet, to computer screen all over the world.

The fiftieth edition! When I decided to lay On Giants’ Shoulders the monthly history of science blog carnival to rest and to start this weekly links list in its place, I naively thought that in doing so I would reduce my workload. Each edition being only a quarter of a month would only require a quarter of the effort, right? Unfortunately my own fervour, tendency to perfection and nerd desire for completeness have meant that the Gazette has grown into monster of undreamed of dimensions, consuming far more of my time and energy than On Giants’ Shoulders ever did.

The above should not be seen in anyway as a complaint. Perverse as I am, I enjoy the work and as a good friend of mine used to say, it keeps me off the streets and stops me beating up old ladies. Although I’m now approaching the period of life where the old ladies are more likely to beat me up rather than the other way around.

As long as I have a working computer and the necessary health to continue I see no reason why Whewell’s Gazette shouldn’t continue to collate and present the Internet’s contributions to #histSTM to those eager to consume them. The next two weeks will see the nominal year completed with the fifty-first and fifty-second editions then there will be a brief hiatus, as I shall be off on an adventure more about which more will be revealed on The Renaissance Mathematicus in due time.

Quotes of the week:

“They must often change, who would be constant in happiness or wisdom”. – Confucius

“I don’t know why we are here, but I’m pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves”. – Wittgenstein

“Watch out for the fellow who talks about putting things in order! [That] always means getting other people under your control”. – Diderot

“When scholars work alone, mistakes are made in private. When scholars collaborate, mistakes are made in public, and everyone learns”. – Tom Scheinfeldt (@foundhistory)

“For what could be more beautiful than the heavens which contain all beautiful things?” – Nicolaus Copernicus

Them “You’re too angry. You’ll catch more flies with honey…”

Me “Why the fuck would I want to catch flies.” – @Evie_Eliot

“’Historians’ who put ideology ahead of actual research should simply shut up” – Samuel McLean (@Canadian_Errant)

“‪History doesn’t have to be old. ‪History starts only a few hours ago.” – ESA Space History

“‪History is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation.” – Patrick McRay (@LeapingRobot)

“People remember stories, not facts. Scientists need to use stories or storytellers will (are) make(ing) bad science stick” – Mhari Stewart (@ScienceArtReach)

“Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company.” – Mark Twain

“To talk is the best way not to speak about the essential” – Arjen Dijksmam (@materion)

“Before I begin speaking, there is something I’d like to say.” – Raymond Smullyan

“My daughter just asked why we say “hang up” the phone and now I feel 90”. – Jason English (@EnglishJason)

“Thou lookest like the backe syde of my barrell of small beere!” – Insult 1610 h/t Jonathan Healey (@SocialHistoryOx)

“One 17th century newspaper was described by its critics as ‘an increaser of Bum-fodder’.” – Jonathan Healey (@SocialHistoryOx)

PHYSICS & ASTRONOMY:

Ptak Science Books: Anti-Gravity Anti-Gravitas

Image source: My Ear Trumpet via Ptak Science Books

arXiv.org: Galileo in early modern Denmark, 1600–1650

Slate: Genius move: Max Planck, the unlikely founder of quantum physics, knew how to change his mind.

Big Island Now: Caltech To Shut Down Observatory in September

Phys.org: History of the NASA Skylab, America’s first space station

astro.uni.edu: Ptolemaic System Simulator

AIP: Werner Heisenberg on the scientific style of Bohr and others

Yovisto: Carnot and Thermodynamics

Epoch Times: Music and Physics: The Connections Aren’t Trivial

tuson.com: Astronomer Bart Bok studied the Milky Way

The Hindu: The monsoon watchers

The astronomical observatory in Thiruvananthapuram is one of the oldest in the India. Photo: Anand Narayanan

The Jerusalem Post: Hebrew University unveils new statue of Albert Einstein on Jerusalem campus

arXiv.org: The Marquise du Chatelet: A Controversial Woman of Science

Ptak Science Books: Isaac Newton, Alpha and Omega

Pacific Standard: Without Christianity, What Year Would It Be?

Forbes: Twenty Years of Bose-Einstein Condensation

Ptak Science Books: Early “Image” of Hiroshima – as a Cartoon

Brunellesci: Operations of the Geometric and Military Compass of Galileo Galilei (pdf)

Discover: A History of General Relativity

AZ Daily Sun.com: The View from Mars Hill: The discovery of Charon has Flagstaff roots

Teylers Museum: Fluroscoop naar Becquerel, J. Duboscq

EXPLORATION and CARTOGRAPHY:

arXive.org: The search for longitude: Preliminary insights from a 17th Century Dutch perspective

Mapping London: Hexagonal Map of London

Halley’s Log: Return to sea

The Bodleian’s Map Room Blog: Cartoon Maps

European Revue, Kill that Eagle, Published by Geographia in 1914 and drawn by J. Amshewitz. C1 (407)

Yovisto: Knud Rasmussen – the Father of Eskimonology

MEDICINE & HEALTH:

Early Modern Experimental Philosophy: “Secta Empírica y Dogmáticos Racionales”: medicine and the ESD in early modern Spain

A Covent Garden Gilflurt’s Guide to Life: A Bladder-Stone Operation: A Most Unusual Composition

New York Times: Medicine’s Hidden Roots in an Ancient Manuscript

Forbes: Castration Affected Skeleton of Famous Opera Singer Farinelli, Archaeologists Say

Mosaic: How to mend a broken heart

Discover: Researchers’ Quest for an Artificial Heart

Mad Art Lab: Lymph, There It Is: Florence Sabin, Pioneer Woman of Medical Research (Women in Science 39)

NYAM: An Eye for Conservation: William Clift, Fenwick Beekman, and John Hunter

Northumberland Archives: Mary Ann Fulcher – School Headmistress

Medievalist.net: What’s Wrong with Early Medieval Medicine?

Inside the Science Museum: A mystery object

Advances in the History of Psychology: Remembering Oak Ridge: A Digital Exhibit

A Canadian Treasury of Medical History

The Atlantic: The Tampon: A History

The Walrus: Archaic instruments from the attic of Montreal’s Royal Victoria Hospital

Wellcome Collection: Exhibitions: Treating yourself

TECHNOLOGY:

Inside The Science Museum: Wonderful Things: Ancient Egyptian Curling Tongs

The Public Domain Review: The Forth Bridge: Building an Icon

Detail from “Plans and sections for a bridge of chains proposed to be thrown over the Frith of Forth at Queensferry”, James Anderson, 1818.

Tylers Museum: Instrumentzaal: Set telefoons, naar Bell, door Maldant & Cie, 1880

Nature: Ancient humans brought tools to Europe

Louis Prang and Chromolithography: Lithographer

Today’s Document: Patent Drawing for T. Newman’s Poison Warning Bottle 6/2/1908

The Public Domain Review: The Nightwalker and the Nocturnal Picaresque

Ptak Science Books: Socialism, Civilization, and Fertilizer…and Nazis (1945)

The Renaissance Mathematicus: A twelve-year flash of genius

James Eckford Lauder: James Watt and the Steam Engine: the Dawn of the Nineteenth Century, 1855

Inside the Science Museum: Revealing the invisible

The Enlightened Economist: Inventors and manufacturers, and their economics

AEON: Losing the thread

EARTH & LIFE SCIENCES:

APP: In memoriam: Zofia Kielan-Jaworowska (1925–2015)

Geschichte der Geologie: Die Geburt and der Tod von Kontinente

Amgueddfa Blog: Wallace Goes West…

Embryo Project: Charles Benedict Davenport (1866–1944)

Evolution News: Darwin, Design, and Phototropism

Fossil History: On Being Remembered: Huxley, Busk, & Scientific Friendship

Thinking Like a Mountain: Understanding & Altering the Climate: Historical Perspectives

USGS: The Early History of Seismology (to 1900)

Yovisto: James Hutton – the Father of Modern Geology

Popular Science: The Church of George Church

Embryo Project: Petr Alekseevich Kropotkin (1842–1921)

Trowelblazers: Gertrude Caton Thompson

Science Comma: CHOTS Away! At Down House

The Alfred Russel Wallace Correspondence Project: Annual report on work of the project 14 May 2014–13 May 2015

National Geographic: Read Francis Crick’s $6 Million Letter to Son describing DNA

The Royal Society: The Repository: Nature’s pins and needles

BHL: World Oceans Day: Ernst Haeckel and Art Forms in Nature

Ocean Portal: Art Forms in Nature: Marine Species From Ernst Haeckel

The siphonophores are an order of marine animals in the phylum Cnidaria (the same phylum containing jellyfish).
Credit: Ernst Haeckel, Kunstformen der Natur / Biodiversity Heritage Library

Braintree & Witham Times: Free new exhibition at Chelmsford Museum explores the exotic collections of Alfred Russel Wallace

Trowelblazers: Nieves López Martínez

CHEMISTRY:

Yovisto: Richard Smalley – the Father of Nanotechnology

Buckminsterfullerene C60

META – HISTORIOGRAPHY, THEORY, RESOURCES and OTHER:

Ptak Science Books: An Alphabet of Ages of Scientific Terms

Newsweek: Frankenstein Has Been Given a Bad Rap – And Science Suffers

The Recipes Project: First Monday Library Chat: The Huntingdon Library

NYAM: Recommended Resources

Harvard Gazette: ‘a completely new life was beckoning’: Beyond the reach of monsters, Gerald Holten found infinite possibilities

Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics and Professor of the History of Science, Emeritus Gerald Holton is pictured in his Cambridge home. He first arrived at Harvard in 1943. Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Staff Photographer

AIP: New Oral Histories Website

The Partially Examined Life: Science, Technology and Society IV: Paul Feyerabend

In the Middle: How Do We Write? Dysfunctional Academic Writing

Reflections: Blog of the STS Department at the University of Vienna: The Science of Science Maps

Connected Histories: Digital Resources

The Guardian: Readers suggest the 10 best unsung female scientists

Informs: History and Traditions

How do we tell the history of science?

LSE: The Academic Book of the Future: exploring academic practices and expectations for the monograph

Objects in Motion: Material Culture in Transition: Setting “Objects” in Motion

History Womble: Toe-dipping in the mainstream

Popular Science: My Temple, My Mountain

Enviromental History: Volume 20 Issue 3 July 2015 Table of Contents

Open Culture: The History of Philosophy, from 600 B.C.E. to 1935, Visualized in Two Massive, 44-Foot High Diagrams

ESOTERIC:

Conciatore: Agnolo della Casa

Conciatore: Dear Friends

Conciatore: Artificial Gems

Pastes (glass) set in silver openwork (Portugal c. 1750)
Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
Acq. nr. M.68-1962

Astrolabes and Stuff: Drawing up a medieval horoscope

Beyond the Reading Room: Another Book from the Library of Isaac Newton

Corpus Newtonicum: The world has heeded my plea! Another Newton book found

academia.edu: Dis/unity of Knowledge: Models for the Study of Modern Esotericism and Science

BOOK REVIEWS:

National Geographic: In Age of Science, Is Religion ‘Harmful Superstition’?

Scientific American Blogs: Cross–Check: Book by Biologist Jerry Coyne Goes Too Far Denouncing Religion, Defending Science

Wall Street Journal: Preaching to the Converted

THE: Radium and the Secret of Life, by Luis A. Campos

St John’s History Department: Book Review: Laura J. Snyder Eye of the Beholder

Termessos: The Born Family in Göttingen and Beyond

Viktor Weisskopf, Maria Göppert and Max Born
on bicycles in Göttingen in the 1920s

Popular Science: Professor Povey’s Perplexing Problems

NEW BOOKS:

Ashgate: Renaissance Mad Voyages and the ‘Culture of Play, 1300–1700’ series

Historiens de la santé: When Good Drugs Go Bad: Opium, Medicine, and the Origins of Canada’s Drug Laws

ART:

Royal Museums Greenwich: Strange Creatures: The Art of Unknown Animals at the Grant Museum

The Kongouro from New Holland (Kangaroo), George Stubbs, 1772

The Recipes Project: Clear as Crystal: Leonardo da Vinci’s Walnut Oil

Science Museum: First operation performed using anaesthesia, 1846

Science Museum: The Rise of Anatomy, a dissection in the 14th century

Science Museum: Exhibition: Revelations: Experiments in Photography 20 March–13 September 2015

THEATRE AND OPERA:

Theatre Royal Winchester: Matchbox Theatre in conversation with Michael Frayn (Copenhagen)

FILMS AND EVENTS:

Glasgow Science Festival: Festival of Light: Illuminating James Clerk Maxwell 13 June 2015

Glasgow Science Festival: Science on the Street 13 June 2015

Welcome Collection: Exhaustion Then and Now 11 June 2015

PAINTING OF THE WEEK:

The Surgeon Barber

DAVID TENIERS THE YOUNGER, The surgeon-barber , oil on cloth 57,15 x 73,66 cm The Chrysler Museum of Art,
Norfolk, VA. Gift Walter P. Chrysler, Jr.

TELEVISION:

ITV News: A long-lost microscope

SLIDE SHOW:

VIDEOS:

University of Cambridge: Rebekah Higgitt – Longitude found

Torch Oxford: Aristotle on Perceiving Objects

Youtube: Robert Oppenheimer speaking at UCLA 5/14/1964

Youtube: Albert Einstein statue unveiled in Jerusalem

Ustream: Webcast: Unseen Connections – A Natural History of the Cellphone

Science Museum: Cosmonauts: Birth of the Space Age

De Uzeren Eeuw: Een nieuwe wereld Aflevering 10: Dubois en Lorentz

Youtube: What Range of subjects did Newton study at Cambridge?

Youtube: Information Age: The microchip that changed our world

RADIO:

cbc radio: Ideas: Science Under Siege, Part 1

cbc radio: Ideas: Science Under Siege, Part 2

BBC: Lisa Jardine on Desert Island Discs

Source: The Independent 10 June 2015 Photographer: Unknown

PODCASTS:

History of Philosophy without any gaps: Full of Potential: Thirteenth Century Physics

Open Culture: Listen as Albert Einstein Calls for Peace and Social Justice in 1945

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Gresham College: Lecture: Babbage and Lovelace 19 January 2016

University of Notre Dame: Locating Forensic Science and Medicine. University of Notre Dame Global Gateway, London: 24-25 July 2015

The Alfred Russel Wallace Website: Exhibition: Specimens of Natural History: Komunitas Salihara Gallery Jakarta 15 August–15 September 2015

eä Journal of Medical Humanities & Social Studies of Science and Technology: CfP: Deadline 15 June 2015

Difficult Women Conference: CfP: Difficult Women in the Long Eighteenth Century: 1680–1830 University of York 28 November 2015

University of Umeå: Workshop: CfP: History of field research stations at Umeå University 26–27 August 2015

University of Swansea: Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies Regional Conference: Technologies of Daily Life in Ancient Greece 2–3 July 2015

University of Durham: Feyerabend 2015: Forty Years ‘Against Method’ 15–16 July

York Festival of Ideas: Talk: The Occult Roots of Modern Psychology 13 June 2015

The Hidden Persuaders Project and the Birkbeck Institute for the Moving Image present:

Brainwash: History, Cinema and the Psy Professions 3-4th July 2015

Discover Medical London: Study Tour: Path–ologies: A capital’s contagious geography 29 June 2015

Discover Medical London: Women and Medicine – For dates see website

The Royal Institution: Talk: The story of life – Matthew Cobb & Nick Lane 11 June 2015

Morbid Anatomy: New Conference Devoted to 19th Century Eccentric, Naturalist, Traveler and Taxidermist Charles Waterton, July 31 – August 1, West Yorkshire, England

University of Wales Trinity Saint David: Sophia Centre: Astrology as Art 27-28 June 2015

Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry: An incredibly varied spring meeting, from alchemy to Arrhenius, elixirs to electrons Clare Hall Cambridge 15 June 2015

CHF: Synthesis Lecture Series: Joseph Gabriel, “Medical Monopoly: Intellectual Property Rights and the Origins of the Modern Pharmaceutical Industry”

Objects in Motion: Material Culture in Transition: About 18–20 June 2015

University of Kent: Conference: Science and Engineering in Cultural Context 25–26 June 2015

LOOKING FOR WORK:

University of Valencia: Master in History of Science and Scientific Communication

RCN Foundation: Monica Baly Bursary for Scholarship in Nursing History

King’s College London: Research and Teaching Associate History of Science and Medicine

Whewell’s Gazette

Your weekly digest of all the best of

Internet history of science, technology and medicine

Editor in Chief: The Ghost of William Whewell

Volume #51

Monday 15 June 2015

EDITORIAL:

Another seven days have rushed past leaving in their wake a plethora of article and blog posts on the histories of science, technology and medicine scattered across the width and breadth of cyberspace, which we have scooped up and present here for your perusal and delectation in the fifty-first edition of your weekly #histSTM links list Whewell’s Gazette.

Historians in general and #histSTM historians in particular would be lost and unable to carry out their research work without the active assistance of a world wide army of archivists and librarians those never tiring workers at the coalface of written records. Archivists and librarians collect, collate, catalogue and make available for the historical researcher all forms of written documents and records and without their work the life of the historians would be immeasurably harder and more strewn with strife than it already is. This being the case this edition of Whewell’s Gazette is humbly dedicated to all the archivists and librarians past, present and future who serve the historian in so many ways.

Quotes of the week:

Dance like there’s nobody watching,

Love like you’ll never be hurt,

Sing like there’s nobody listening,

Mark all as read. – Ed Yong (@edyong209)

“I always have a quotation for everything – it saves original thinking.” – Dorothy L. Sayers

“History of science makes scientific stories richer and more interesting” – Deborah Blum

“Science is nothing but perception”. – Plato

“The mind was dreaming. The world was its dream.” – Jorge Luis Borges

“All my friends who weren’t at Bletchley think that The Imitation Game is wonderful, and all my friends who were think it’s rubbish” – Pamela Rose (Bletchley Girl)

“Leo Szilard never spelled his name Leó Szilárd after he left Hungary. Respect his choice. Avoid bad memes”. – Gene Dannen

“In the bathtub of history the truth is harder to hold than the soap, and much more difficult to find.” – Terry Pratchett

“There is, however, one trifling point on which I differ; viz. that I believe the high value of well-bred males is due to their transmitting their good qualities to a far greater number of offspring than can the female.” – Charles Darwin h/t @KeesJanSchilt

“The man who doesn’t read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them.”– Mark Twain

“Nobel Prizes don’t make one wise, but they’re a fine platform from wh. to reveal who you are” – Thomas Levenson (@TomLevenson)

“To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead” – Thomas Paine

“It is useful to the busy mind of man to be cautious in arguing about things exceeding its comprehension”. – John Locke

“Definition of a college professor: someone who talks in other people’s sleep”. – W H Auden

“Authority without wisdom is like a heavy axe without an edge, fitter to bruise than polish. Meditations Divine and Moral” ― Anne Bradstreet h/t @roos_annamarie

“Solitude is a sublime mistress, but an intolerable wife.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson h/t Andrea Wulf (@andrea_wulf)

Goethe described himself in old age as ‘I appear to myself more and more historical’. h/t Andrea Wulf (@andrea_wulf)

“CBT (Cognitive Beaverial Therapy) is…” (student spelling error in exam) h/t meta4RN

PHYSICS & ASTRONOMY:

Science Notes: Today in Science History – June 8–Giovanni Domenico Cassini

Corpus Newtonicum: Folding Pages (Scenes from the Library of Isaac Newton, Part 2)

Once upon a dog-ear (now folded back, but still clearly visible on both sides of the page).

The Conversation: Our latest scientific research partner was a medieval bishop

Brain Pickings: The Beauty of Uncertainty: How Heisenberg Invented Quantum Mechanics, Told in Jazz

Mental Floss: The Life and Times of Isaac Newton’s Apple Tree

ccat.sas.upenn.edu: Copernicus in China or, Good Intentions Gone Astray

Graham Farmelo: Talking Bohr and the Bomb in Copenhagen

Dannen.com: The Franck Report, June 11, 1945

The Independent: Albert Einstein’s private letters go up for sale at California auction

Restricted Data The Nuclear Secrecy Blog: What remains of the Manhattan Project

The Guardian: Five reasons we should celebrate Albert Einstein

Clerk Maxwell Foundation: James Clerk Maxwell: Maker of Waves

Science Notes: Today in Science History – June 13 – Thomas Young

Standard Daily: Albert Einstein’s Letter explaining the link between Relativity Theory and Japan’s Atomic Bombing sold for $62,500

EXPLORATION and CARTOGRAPHY:

Londonist: Compare Detailed Historic Maps With Today’s London

British Library: Online Gallery: Anglo-saxon Mappa Mundi

Anglo Saxon Mappa Mundi
Cotton MS Tiberius B.V., 56v
Copyright © The British Library Board

British Library: Maps and views blog: A Bohemian rhapsody*?

Library of Congress: World War II Military Situation Maps

JAAVSO Volume 43, 2015: Margaret Harwood and the Maria Mitchell Observatory

Progressive Geographies: Notes towards a critical history of cartography, part 1

Progressive Geographies: #MAPS/// Manifesto for an Alternative Cartography

The Afternoon Map: The First Printed Ottoman Map of Palestine, 1804

The Public Domain Review: The Travels of Ludovico di Varthema (1863)

UKPN Social Science: Coming in from the cold: nineteenth-century exploration and science in the Canadian Arctic

Yovisto: Harry Johnston and the “Scramble for Africa”

Christie’s The Art People: Catalogue: Valuable Books and Manuscripts Including Cartography

Yale News: Hidden secrets of Yale’s 1491 world map revealed via multispectral imaging

Middle East Eye: The Chinese through Abbasid eyes

Halley’s Log: Able seaman wanted!

MEDICINE & HEALTH:

Wonders & Marvels: Vesalius – The Ultimate Wedding Present?

Migraine Histories: On Migraines and the Eyes

Regional Medical Humanities: A Thirst for Knowledge

Circulating Now: Where to Find History of Medicine Collections

Atlas Obscura: Would You Like Some Heroin For Your Cough?

American Druggist and Pharmaceutical Record, v.36, no. 6 March 25, 1900

Ptak Science Books: Newspapers and Music in Bedlamia, 1850’s

Nursing Clio: A Short History of Homeopathy: From Hahnemann to Whole Foods

Over Newser: Madness Stones to New Age Medicine: A History of Drilling Holes in our Heads

The Recipes Project: In vino sanitas

Lapham’s Quarterly: Rogue Wounds

Early Modern Medicine: Inconvenient Incontinence

Diseases of Modern Life: Workshop Report: Working with 19^th-Century Medical and Health Reports

Magic and Medicine: The Casebook Project

The Public Domain Review: Practical Hydrotherapy (1909)

The Public Domain Review: When Chocolate was Medicine: Colmenero, Wadsworth and Dufour

Notches: Astrological Birth Control: Fertility Awareness and the Politics of Non-Hormonal Contraception

Motherboard: A History of the Ice Pick Lobotomy

Medicine, ancient and modern: Thoughts on Galen and Pseudo-Galenic texts

storify: Medical Monopoly: Intellectual Property Rights and the Origins of the Modern Pharmaceutical Industry

Medievalist.net: Medieval Images of the Body

The 9th century scholar Hunayn ibn Ishaq wrote extensively about ophthalmology. This drawing of the eye is based on his works.

Science Notes: Today in Science History – 14 June – Karl Landsteiner

TECHNOLOGY:

Irish Examiner: UN marks impact of George Boole

Yovisto: John Smeaton – the Father of Civil Engineering

Smithsonian.com: How Pyrex Reinvented Glass For a New Age

NASA: Robert Goddard: A Man and His Rocket

History Today: Automata in Myth and Science

The mechanical duck, constructed by Jacques de Vaucanson (1709-1782), inventor of silk-weaving machinery. – See more at: http://www.historytoday.com/john-cohen/automata-myth-and-science#sthash.n0bM8N12.dpuf

Ptak Science Books: The Telephone-Wife (Lonely No More), 1925

The Guardian: The secret history of 19^th century cyclists

The Wall Street Journal: The Enduring Genius of the Ballpoint Pen

Ptak Science Books: The Proposed Balloon Car of 1895

Conciatore: Neri in Pisa

Conciatore: Travels To The East

Wales On Line: Napoleon’s telescope found in cellar of Welsh country house

Daily Post: Napoleon’s spyglass found at Plas Neydd on Anglesey

Science Notes: Today in Science History – June 11 Carl von Linde

Ptak Science Books: A Remarkably- and Completely-Disappeared Invention from 1890

Gizmodo: How This Revolutionary Industrial Glass Made Its Way Into Your Kitchen

Scientific American: Inventions: 70 Years That Changed the World, 1845–1915

EARTH & LIFE SCIENCES:

Stir-fried Science: An evolutionary excursion

UCL: Museums and Collections Blog: Specimen of the Week 191: Rhaphorhynchus wing cast

Embryo Project: Francis Harry Compton Crick (1916–2004)

The Conversation: Revealed: the great geologist behind the Origin of Species

Embryo Project: Eric Wieschaus (1947– )

Sotheby’s: Darwin Charles Autograph Letter [1877]

Forbes: This 1783 Volcanic Eruption Changed The Course of History

Embryo Project: Patrick Christopher Steptoe (1913–1988)

European Geosciences Union: Floods as war weapons – Humans caused a third of floods in past 500 years in SW Netherlands

Data is Nature: ‘You Really Do Not See a Plant Until You Draw it’ – Botanical Wall Charts at the Academic Heritage Foundation

Bladstanden – A.A.Van Voorn

I am Safari: Life on the Forest Floor #1 – Wallace’s legacy

Quartz: To revolutionize biology, Charles Darwin got inspiration from the science of rocks

James C Ungureanu: Darwin and the Divine Programmer

Laelaps: A Dinosaur Reading List for Everyone

Yovisto: The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau

The Guardian: The unseen women scientists behind Tim Hunt’s Nobel Prize

Natural History Apostilles: A.P. De Candolle’s anticipation of natural selection (1820)

Niche: #EnvHist Worth Reading: May 2015

CHEMISTRY:

Homunculus: Set for chemistry: a longer view

A chemical manual from c.1894, in which the link to stage magic is clear. (Harry Price Library, UCL)

META – HISTORIOGRAPHY, THEORY, RESOURCES and OTHER:

Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum: Research Resources

The Chronicle of Higher Education: The Attack on Truth

imgur: The History of Science Fiction (created as an entry to a science mapping exhibit at Indiana University)

dataphys.org: List of Physical Visualizations

SciLogs: No, Writing Intelligibly Is Not ‘Dumbing It Down’

National Museums of Scotland: Delving into the past for International Archives Day 2015

The Grand Gallery of the National Museum of Scotland in 1932.

The Grand Gallery of the National Museum of Scotland today. Image © Andrew Lee.

James B Sumner: Sites and resources on history and science communications

The Science and Entertainment Lab: Stories About Science: Symposium Round-up

H-Sci-Med-Tech: Announcing the 2015–2016 Lemelson Center Fellows

The Renaissance Mathematicus: Creating a holy cow

The Renaissance Mathematicus: Now We Are Six

Pooh Sticks E. H. Shepard

academia.edu: Curiosity, Horror and Freedom in the Wunderkammer

The Irish News: Pioneer of science journalism Mary Mulvihill dies aged 55

William & Mary: Whodunit: What learned hand wrote all over Isaac Newton’s masterpiece?

Leaping Robot: Worldly Devils

History NASA: The Impact of Science on Society – James Burke – Jules Bergman – Isaac Asimov

British Society for the History of Mathematics: New Website

HNN: Why Historians Should Use Social Science Insights When Writing History

ESOTERIC:

Conciatore: We were Trojans

Ptak Science Books: Reading Symbolism in Raymond Lull’s Portrait

Source: Ptak Science Books

Independent.ie: Magic, myth and secrecy – WB Yeats and the occult

BOOK REVIEWS:

The Guardian: Life’s Greatest Secret: The Story of the Race to Crack the Genetic Code

THE: Birds and Frogs: Selected Papers, 1990–2014, by Freeman Dyson

The Guardian: A Natural History of English Gardening by Mark Laird review – gorgeous and diverse

The Guardian: Agents of Empire by Noel Malcolm review – a dazzling history of the 16^th-century Mediterranean

NEW BOOKS:

A Canadian Treasury of Medical History: Champagne and Strawberries to Celebrate New Books in Canuk HM and HN

Wellcome Witnesses to Contemporary Medicine: Human Gene Mapping Workshops c.1973–c.1991 Free Download!

Amazon: The Cybernetic Moment: Or Why We Call Out Age The Information Age

Historiens de la santé: August Weismann: Development, Heredity, and Evolution

University of Chicago Press: How Our Days Became Numbered

Harvard University Press: Newton’s Apple and Other Myths about Science

ART:

The Paris Review: True Blue

Full title: The Virgin in Prayer
Artist: Sassoferrato
Date made: 1640-50
Source: http://www.nationalgalleryimages.co.uk/
Contact: picture.library@nationalgallery.co.uk
Copyright © The National Gallery, London

University of Durham: Workshop: ‘Visual Culture in Medical Humanities’ 18 June 2015

National Museum of Scotland: Photography: A Victorian Sensation 19 June–22 November 2015

THEATRE AND OPERA:

Arts Theatre: The Waiting Room Closes 19 June 2015

FILMS AND EVENTS:

THE: Science inspired by fiction

The Guardian: Rare footage surfaces of Amelia Earhart shortly before she vanished

Royal Society: Last Chance: Philosophical Transactions: 350 years of publishing Closes 23 June 2015

National Library of Scotland: Last Chance: The Forth Bridge: Building an icon Closes 21 June 2015

Royal Observatory Edinburgh: Astronomy Evenings

MHS Oxford: Family Friendly: Beam me up, Harry! Discover the story of Harry Moseley

Royal College of Physicians: ‘This calamitous year’: plague, doctors and death

John Baines Tours: Wallace in the Malay Archipelago 8-25 September 2015

PAINTING OF THE WEEK:

BBC: Sir William Crookes (17 June 1832–4 April 1919) by Charles Albert Ludovici

(c) National Portrait Gallery, London; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

TELEVISION:

ISSUU.com: Actes D’hisòria De La Ciència I De La Tècnica: Volume 7 2014: Science on Television

BBC: Catching History’s Criminals: The Forensics Story

SLIDE SHOW:

VIDEOS:

Youtube: National Geographic: From Patents to Profits – American Genius

Youtube: The Royal Institute Channel

HUMLab: HUMlab Seminars Video Archive

Strata Smith: The Man & The Map

V&A: Printing and Binding a Handmade Book

Museo Galileo: Galileo’s disciples

RADIO:

BBC Radio 4: Science Stories

PODCASTS:

ODNB: Roy Porter Historian

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

University of Manchester: Symposium: The university reimagined: past and Present 16 September 2015

LMU: Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society: Workshop: Back to a Sustainable Future: Visions of Sustainability in the History of Design 19 June 2015

University of Aarhus: Society for Philosophy of Science in Practice (SPSP) Fifth Biennial Conference 24-26 June 2015

UCL: Seminar: History of the Psychological Disciplines Series 16 June 2015

Galileo Teacher Training Program: Eratosthenes Experiment 15-17 June 2015

University of Manchester: How do we tell the history of science? 19 June 2015

Rijks Museum: Conference Art and Science in the Early Modern Low Countries 17-18 September 2015

HSTM Network Ireland: Conference: Food as Medicine 9-10 October 2015

University of Wuppertal: Workshop: Before Montucla: Historiography of Science in the Early Modern Era 3–4 March 2016

edtechteacher: Summer Workshop: Teaching History with Technology 23–24 July 2015

Ant Spider Bee: CfP: A Campfire Conversation About Small Data and Big Stories, ASEH 2016

Notches: CfP: Histories of Sexuality in Latin America

The Programming Historian: Training Programme: Programming Historian Live, British Library 19 October 2015

LOOKING FOR WORK:

National Science Foundation: NSF Historian

ETH Zurich: Professor of History of Exact Sciences

Universitat de València: Programa de Doctorado en Estudios Históricos y Sociales sobre Ciencia, Medicina y Comunicación Científica

Universitat de València: Máster Universitario en Historia de la Ciencia y Comunicación Cientifica

University of Sussex: Research Fellow in Digital Humanities/Digital History (Fixed Term)

Whewell’s Gazette

Your weekly digest of all the best of

Internet history of science, technology and medicine

Editor in Chief: The Ghost of William Whewell

Volume #52

Monday 22 June 2015

EDITORIAL:

We are proud to present the fifty-second edition of Whewell’s Gazette your weekly #histSTM links list, bringing all the best in the histories of science, technology and medicine from out of the depths of cyberspace onto computer screens all over the world.

Number fifty-two means that we have completed a nominal year. The calendar year was completed last week, as there was no edition for the week of Monday 25 May. Looking back over the completed year one can see that the production of #histSTM blog post and articles around the Internet is in a very healthy state being both extensive and diverse and covering a bewildering range of topics at a multitude of levels from totally popular to totally serious and very academic. It is to be hoped that the Internet #histSTM community continues to flourish and will, we hope, grow over the next year and for many years to come. We also hope that Whewell’s Gazette will continue to bring its readers, and may they too flourish and grow, all that it can find on its weekly expeditions through the depths of cyberspace.

As already announced last week, and posted in more detail on The Renaissance Mathematicus, out long suffering and intrepid chief sub-editor is going off to unsettle the good folks in the Bay Area of California for ten days so there will be a two week hiatus here at Whewell’s Gazette, with the fifty-third edition due to appear first on Monday 13 July, the fates willing.

Bill Watterson

Quotes of the week:

The Old English word for ‘solstice’ is ‘sunstede’, from sun + stede meaning ‘fixed place, position’ (cf. steadfast, homestead, Hampstead). – Eleanor Parker (@ClerkofOxford)

“Those who do not remember the past are condemned to misquote it”. – Erik Champion (@nzerik)

“It angers me when people use ‘critical thinking’ to mean ‘holds the same opinions that I do’” – @Canadian_Errant

“To think of any phase in history as altogether irrational is to look at it not as an historian but as a publicist, a polemical writer of tracts for the times”. — Collingwood, “The Idea of History” (1946) h/t @gabridli

“A man may be a Newton in either the political or mathematical world and still be a child in the ways of religion” – John Tyndall (1841)

“Hardware, n.: The parts of a computer system that can be kicked”. h/t Mike Croucher (@walkingramdomly)

“Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.” – Alfred, Lord Tennyson

“It is the vice of a vulgar mind to be thrilled by bigness” – E. M. Forester h/t Christene D’Anca (@ChristeneDAnca)

“I’ve never felt I could claim to be a writer in that full sense. It just seems arrogant” – Anthony T. Grafton

“Through space the universe grasps me and swallows me up like a speck; through thought I grasp it” – Blaise Pascal , Penséees (1670)

“Do not look at stars as bright spots only. Try to take in the vastness of the universe” – Maria Mitchell h/t @hist_astro

“The truly learned are easily distinguished by their manners.” – Barthélemy Faujas de Saint-Fond, 1799 h/t Rebekah Higgitt (@beckyfh)

“To have pleasure, you need a bit of passion, a great & interesting purpose, a determined desire to learn” – Voltaire h/t Andrea Wulf (@andrea_wulf)

“How I love people who say what they think! People who only half-think are only half alive’”– Voltaire h/t Andrea Wulf (@andrea_wulf)

“There comes a time when you realize that everything is a dream, and only those things preserved in writing have any possibility of being real” – James Salter h/t Chris White (@bombaylychee)

Event of the Week:

June 16 1963

Science Notes: Today in Science History – June 16 – Valentina Tereshkova

Tereshkova in 1969
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Yovisto: The First Woman in Space – Valentina Treshkowa

PHYSICS & ASTRONOMY:

AIP: Voices of the past reimagined

Phys Org: What is Halley’s Comet?

Starts With a Bang: A Quantum of Parody: The Journal of Jocular Physics, a Cosmic Birthday Tribute to Niels Bohr

AHF: Hans Bethe

Smithsonian.com: Los Alamos’s “Atomic Secretary” Was Never Told What the Manhattan Project Was For

Dannen.com: Recommendations on the Immediate Use of Nuclear Weapons, June 16, 1945

Yovisto: William Parsons and his Large Telescope

The largest telescope of the 19th century, the Leviathan of Parsonstown.
Source: Wikimedia Commons

The Sydney Morning Herald: Renaissance man emerged from shadows

Science Notes: Today in Science History – 18 June – William Lassell

AIP: Allan Sandage Interview

The Conversation: When science gets ugly – the story of Philipp Lenard and Albert Einstein

Phillipp Lenard in 1900. Source: Wikimedia Commons

Voices of the Manhattan Project: Stanisluas Ulam’s Interview

The Conversation: From Newton to Hawking and beyond: a short history of the Lucasian Chair

arXiv.org: Edgar Allan Poe: the first man to conceive a Newtonian evolving universe

Wellcome Trust Blog: Image of the Week: The Earth’s orbit around the Sun

NASA: Veteran NASA Spacecraft Nears 60,000^th Lap Around Mars, No Pit Stops

Symmetry: Mathematician to know: Emmy Noether

Muslim Heritage: Arabic Star Names: A Treasure of Knowledge Shared by the World

The Renaissance Mathematicus: For those who haven’t been paying attention

EXPLORATION and CARTOGRAPHY:

J D Davies: The Lost Journal of Captain Greenvile Collins, Part 1

Yovisto: “Because it’s there” – George Mallory and Mount Everest

1921 Everest Expedition; Mallory at right on rear row; Bullock at left on rear row
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Halley’s Log: Halley writes from the Downs

French of Outremer: The Oxford Outremer Map

MEDICINE & HEALTH:

BBC: Wales: What role did disabled people play during industrial revolution?

NYAM: The Legacy of Aloysius “Alois” Alzheimer

The Recipes Project: The Vegetarian Society, Victorian Style

Yovisto: Hubertus Strughold – the Father of Space Medicine

Mo Costandi: An Illustrated History of Trepanation

The operation of Trepan, from Illustrations of the Great Operations of Surgery: Trepan, Hernia, Amputation, Aneurism and Lithotomy, by Charles Bell, 1815. (John Martin Rare Book Room at the Hardin Library for the Health Sciences, University of Iowa.)

Remedia: Britain’s Sonic Therapy: listening to birdsong during and after the First World War

io9: This Fungus Was A Medieval Mass Murderer

The Paris Review: Monkey Glands for Everyone

Nursing Clio: The International History of Women’s Medical Education: What Does Imperialism Have To Do With It?

Stylisticienne: On his heid-ake: A Medieval Migraine

Strange Remains: The Macabre History of Harvard Medical School

Thomas Rowlandson: Resurrection Men, 18th century.
Source: Wikimedia Commons

The Royal Institution: Doctors – all over royalty like a rash

TECHNOLOGY:

Stuff Mom Never Told You: The Blog: 15 Rare Photos of Black Rosie the Riveters

Conciatore: Thévenot Continues East

DPLA: We, Robots: Robots from the 1920s to the 1990s

History Today: Mysticism and Machines

A scene from Karel Čapek’s 1920 play R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots), showing three robots.

Democrat & Chronicle: George Eastman House collection honored

Yovisto: Henry Ford and the Ford Motor Company

Ptak Science Books: Empty and Missing Things9: the Skeleton of the Statue of Liberty

Tycho’s Nose: The violent history of train-wreck publicity

Conciatore: Weights and Measures

Science Notes: Today in Science History – June 22 – The standard metre and kilogram

davidsharp.com: Manchester Baby Simulator

BBC: Remembering the US’s first female rocket scientist

Mary Sherman Morgan, c. 1950s
Source: Wikimedia Commons

EARTH & LIFE SCIENCES:

Capitalism’s Cradle: How Microfinance helped farmers adjust to the Great Irish Famine

The Public Domain Review: Nature Through Microscope and Camera (1909)

Homunculus: Christiaan Huygens – the first astrobiologist?

Embryo Project: Charles Robert Cantor (1942– )

The Friends of Charles Darwin: The great Darwin fossil hunt

Embryo Project: Francois Jacob (1920–2013)

Paige Fossil History: The Rickety Cossack: A Great Title & Moment in History

The Public Domain Review: A Bestiary of Sir Thomas Browne

Look and Learn: The young naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace had three escapes from death

Alfred Russel Wallace watched the Helen go down consumed by fire

The History Girls: Dr Merryweather’s Un-Merry Weather

Natural History Apostilles: Lamarckism in Naval Timber and Arboriculture (Matthew 1831)

Science Notes: Today in Science History – 20 June – Frederick Gowland Hopkins

Ptak Science Books: An Annotated Poetry of Clouds

British Library: Science Blog: Fishing from the Earliest Times: A very brief history

Wonders & Marvels: Cabinet of Curiosities: Ancient Animal Tales

Forbes: Without a Doubt, Kennewick Man Was Native American, Anthropologists Say

CHEMISTRY:

Science Notes: Today in Science History – June 17 – William Crookes

Illustration portrait of William Crookes in 1875 (age 43). Credit: Popular Science Monthly Volume 10, 1876.

Science Notes: Today in Science History – June 19 – Friedrich Wilhelm Adam Sertürner

META – HISTORIOGRAPHY, THEORY, RESOURCES and OTHER:

The many-headed monster: What is history for: Doing history/thinking historically

Medicine, ancient and modern: Thoughts on Galen and Pseudo-Galenic Texts

Indian science.org: Science and Social Movements in India

The Royal Society: Email newsletters

New York Times: Naomi Oreskes, a Lightning Rod in a Changing Climate

Naomi Oreskes in her office at Harvard University’s Science Center. She has been praised by climatologists for communicating climate science to the public.
Kayana Szymczak for The New York Times

The Chronicle of Higher Education: Scholars Talk Writing: Anthony Grafton

io9: Incredible Pictures of Early Science Labs

Capitalism’s Cradle: Can Policy boost Innovation? Lessons from 18^th Century Scotland’s Linen Industry

The Renaissance Mathematicus: Three strikes and you’re out!

Indian Journal of History of Science: Why Did Scientific Renaissance Take Place in Europe And Not In Indian (pdf)

The Atlantic: Who’s Afraid of the Metric System?

The Telegraph: In pictures: 10 trailblazing British women in science and maths

Dame June Goodall
Photo: AP

The Recipes Project: Exploring CPP 10a214: The Place of Devotion

The H-Word: The Geneva Protocol at 90: An Anchor for Arms Control?

Pay Scale: STEM is Important, But Let’s Not Forget About the Humanities

Conciatore: Old Post Road

Nature: Books and Art

HSHS: BJHS Preview: Issue 2, 2015

Science & Religion: Exploring The Spectrum

BBC: The women whom science forgot

Dublin Science Gallery: Fail Better

Alembic Rare Books: Watermarks & Foolscaps: Exploring the History of Paper Production

storify: Objects in Motion: Materiality in Transition

ESOTERIC:

BOOK REVIEWS:

Science Book a Day: Interviews Michael Gordin

Babelia: La exploración de la mirada

The Public Domain Review: A Journey in Other Worlds: A Romance of the Future (1894)

Notches: The Origins of Sex: An Interview With Faramerz Dabhoiwala

Metascience: What’s so great about Feyerabend? Against Method, forty years on (oa)

Popular Science: The New Wild

Reviews in History: The Oxford Handbook of Environmental History

WSJ: They Really Do Speak Another Language

NEW BOOKS:

Historiens de la santé: Thomas Bartholin: The Anatomy House in Copenhagen

BSHS: He is no loss: Robert McCormick and the voyage of HMS Beagle

JISC: Scientific Controversies: A Socio-Historical Perspective on the Advancement of Science

Historiens de la santé: Stress in Post-war Britain. 1945–1985

ART & EXHIBITIONS

Strange Remains: The ‘Rembrants of anatomical preparation’ who turned skeletons into art

Engraving of a tableau by Frederik Ruysch (1744) Etching with engraving Image credit: . National Library of Medicine.

The Guardian: The impossible world of MC Escher

RCS: Surgeons at Work: The Art of the Operation Hunterian Museum 31 March–19 September

Modern Art Oxford: Lynn Hershman Leeson: Origins of the Species 29 May–9 August 2015

THEATRE AND OPERA:

National Theatre: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time at the Gielgud Theatre

Theatre Royal Haymarket: The Elephant Man

FILMS AND EVENTS:

Slate: Watch the Evolution of Movie Dinosaurs From 1914 through Today: (They’ve Definitely Improved.)

Popular Science: A Brief History of Science Gone Mad:

The Fly-Human Hybrid
James Vaughan/CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

UCL: Grant Museum of Zoology: Strange Creatures: The art of unknown animals: Closes 27 June 2015

Science Museum: Revelations: Experiments in Photography 20 February–13 September 2015

io9: An Animated Musical About Lilian Todd, First Woman to Design an Airplane

Dudley News: Groundbreaking map celebrates its 200^th birthday at Dudley Museum display

CHF: The Museum at CHF

Discover Medical London: Walking Tour: Sex and the City Dates see website

Discover Medical London: Walking Tour: “Path-ologies”: A capital’s contagious geography

Oxford University Museum of Natural History: Evolution of Mammals 27 June 2015

Bath Chronicle: Brought to Light: the 18th Century Book Explosion Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution 2 May–5September

Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution: Bath and the Nile Explorers Closes 27 June 2015

Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution: Online-Exhibition: Mr. Darwin’s Fishes

PAINTING OF THE WEEK:

BBC: A Barber-Surgeon Attending to a Man’s Forehead

(c) Wellcome Library; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

TELEVISION:

BBC Four: Catching History’s Criminals: The Forensics Story

SLIDE SHOW:

VIDEOS:

Youtube: Always/Never: The Quest for Safety, Control, and Survivability – Part 1

TED: Steve Silberman: The forgotten history of autism

British Library: Voices of Science

Silicon Republic: Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell: Well-behaved women rarely make history

Museo Galileo: Mutimedia Helioscope

RADIO:

BBC: Science Stories

PODCASTS:

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Birkbeck Cinema: The Hidden Persuaders Project and the Birkbeck Institute: Workshop: Brainwash: History, Cinema and the Psy Professions 3-4 July 2015

Educación Científica, Educación Humanística: CfP: Llamada de la participación

Advances in the History of Psychology: CfP: Contribute to the Psychologist “Looking Back” Column!

University of Boulder: CHPS: 31^st Boulder Conference on the History and Philosophy of Science: Emergence: 16-18 October 2015

University of Wuppertal: CfP: Before Montucla: Historiography of Science in the Early Modern Period 3-4 March 2015

UCL: Workshop: Psychoanalytic Filiations: Mapping the Psychoanalytic Movement 18 July 2015

Center for Khmer Studies, Siem Reap, Cambodia: CfP: 6^th International Conference on The History of Medicine in Southeast Asia (HOMSEA 2016) 13–15 January 2016

German Chemical Society: Paul Bunge Prize 2016: History of Scientific Instruments: Call for Entries

Notches: CfP: Histories of Asian/Asian American Sexualities

Framing the Face: CfP: Workshop: Friends Meeting House, Euston Road London: 28 November 2015

LOOKING FOR WORK:

Science Museum: Research Fellow History of British nuclear power in international context

Centre for History at Sciences Po Paris: Assistant Professor in Environmental History

Whewell’s Gazette

Your weekly digest of all the best of

Internet history of science, technology and medicine

Editor in Chief: The Ghost of William Whewell

Year 2, Volume #01

Monday 13 July 2015

EDITORIAL:

Whewell’s Gazette the weekly #histSTM links list returns today, after a short break, with the first edition of its second year bringing you all the best that out editorial staff could sweep up of the histories of science, technology and medicine in the Internet over the last seven days. During that period many of our supporters and readers, who also supply much of the material collected here, were gathered together in Swansea for the annual conference of the BSHS discussing lots of interesting topics from the history of science. One central theme that is a principal interest of our long-suffering chief sub-editor was, how can science communicators use history of science?

Many of those present in Swansea are highly active on Twitter and tweeted this discussion in great detail. Katherine McAlpine, a curator, collected and storified those tweets and we present her efforts in place of an editorial for this edition.

storify: How do we tell the history of science?

As a bonus a couple of other BSHS15 tweet storifies.

storify: #bshs15 outtakes – the hype (and) en route

storify: #bshs15 The first full day

“It never helps historians to say too much about their working methods. For just as the conjuror’s magic disappears if the audience knows how the trick is done, so the credibility of scholars can be sharply diminished if readers learn everything about how exactly their books came to be written. Only too often, such revelations dispel the impression of fluent, confident omniscience; instead, they suggest that histories are concocted by error-prone human beings who patch together the results of incomplete research in order to construct an account whose rhetorical power will, they hope, compensate for gaps in the argument and deficiencies in the evidence.” – Keith Thomas h/t Sharon Howard

Quotes of the week:

“Your password must contain a ferrous metal, an embarrassing sexual memory, at least one Norse god and the seeds of its own destruction”. – @daniel_barker

“First rule of Thesaurus Club. You don’t talk, discuss, converse, speak, chat, confer, deliberate, gab, or gossip about Thesaurus Club”. – @SwedishCanary

“How long until we find out if Pluto has feathers?” – Tom Swanson {@Swansontea)

“”Genital” is an anagram of “gelatin.” I wonder who’s responsible for that”. – Allen Stairs (@AllenStairs)

“The pen is writier than the sword”. – Liam Heneghan (@DublinSoil)

“People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day.” – A.A. Milne (Winnie-the-Pooh)

“Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them in.” – Schopenhauer

“Part of making progress in science is about recognizing which problems are ready to be solved” – Frank Wilczek h/t Philip Ball

“‘Easy’ is a word to describe other people’s jobs.” – John D. Cook (@JohnDCook)

“When you treat people like children, you get children’s work.” – John D. Cook (@JohnDCook)

“It’s tempting to cover up boring with polish, but it rarely works.” – Seth Godin h/t @JohnDCook

“I’ve never known any trouble that an hour’s reading didn’t assuage.” ― Charles de Secondate.

“A man is responsible for his ignorance.” ― Milan Kundera

“The print codex is merely one form of “the book.” It is mutable, in both text & form. The change agent is human, not technological”. Shannon Supple (@mazarines) Tweet from #sharp15

“The age of innocent faith in science and technology may be over.” Barry Commoner (1966). h/t Michael Egan (@EganHistory)

“Science is about as emotion-free as poetry”. – Tom McLeish (@mcleish_t)

“In science, most ideas are obvious. It’s how to TEST them that requires cleverness”. – John Hawks (@johnhawks)

“Since it pissed off so many nerds yesterday, let me reiterate: evolutionary psychology is shoddy science used to uphold retrograde beliefs”. – Bailey (@the_author)

“Nature composes some of her loveliest poems for the microscope and the telescope”. – Theodore Roszak h/t @hist_astro

Birthdays of the Week:

90^th Anniversary of the Scopes Trial 10 July Peddling and Scaling God and Darwin: Ninetieth Anniversary of the Scopes Trial

The teacher at the center of proceedings, John Thomas Scopes
Source: Wikimedia Commons

The New York Times: The Scopes Trial: Remembering When Teaching Evolution Went to Court

Smithsonian.com: The Scopes Trial Redefined Science Journalism and Shaped It to What It Is Today

Robert Fitzroy born 5 July 1805

Stay Thirsty: A Conversation with Juliet Aykroyd about Darwin & Fitzroy

FitzRoy later in life (probably mid-fifties).
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Dolly the Sheep

Embryo Project: Nuclear Transplantation

Dolly’s taxidermied remains
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Embryo Project: Ian Wilmut (1944– )

Science Notes: Today in Science History – July 5 – Dolly the Sheep

Nikola Tesla born 10 July 1956

Mental Floss: The Time Nikola Tesla Paid for His Hotel Room With a “Death Ray”

Excluded Middle: Nikola Tesla’s Earthquake Machine

Science Notes: Today in Science History – 10 July – Nikola Tesla WSJ: The Wizard of Houston Street

Tesla wearing a folk costume, c. 1880
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Engineering and Technology History Wiki: Initial Tesla Polyphase

PHYSICS & ASTRONOMY:

Smithsonian.com: Urban Explorations: The Great Moon Hoax Was Simply a Sign of Its Time

Yovisto: Henrietta Swan Leavitt and the Light of the Cepheids

Yovisto: Macquorn Rankine and the Laws of Thermodynamics

arXiv.org: The Collaboration of Mileva Maric and Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein and his wife Mileva Maric
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Motherboard: A Visual Tribute to Isaac Newton’s ‘Principia’

Universe Today: Who Was Nicolaus Copernicus?

AHF: J. Carson Mark

Voices of the Manhattan Project: Dorothy Wilkinson’s Interview

Science Notes: Today in Science History – 7 July – Giuseppe Piazzi

Voices of the Manhattan Project: Ralph Gates’s Interview

Atlas Obscura: Cincinnati Observatory

Plutovian: Planet X is 1200 times bigger than Earth – approximately

academia.edu: Learned modesty and the first lady’s comet: a commentary on Caroline Herschel (1787) ‘An account of a new comet’

AIP: Oral Histories: John Wheeler – Session I

AHF: John Wheeler

The Irish Times: The Grubbs: 19^th-century Irish stargazers

Thomas Grubb: his apparent lack of formal education did not prevent him from tinkering with telescopes and becoming an astronomical observer
Source: Irish Times

The New York Times: Reaching Pluto, and the End of an Era of Planetary Exploration

Black Hills Pioneer: 50 years of deep discovery

Pugwash: The Russell-Einstein Manifesto 9 July 1955

Voices of Manhattan: Ray Gallagher’s Accounts of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki Missions

APS Physics: This Month in Physics History: Einstein and Women

The New York Times: Venetia Phair Dies at 90; as a Girl, She Named Pluto

academia.edu: A Book, a Pen, and the Sphere: Reading Sacrobosco in the Renaissance

Muslim Heritage: Glances on Calendars and Almanacs in the Islamic Civilization

Traditional Turkish Calendar (1452). This kind of calendar was based on a cycle of 12 months, each corresponding to a different animal. This calendar for the year of the monkey by Hamdi Mustafa b. Sunbul was presented to Mehmed II. Topkapi Palace Museum Library, MS B 309.

International Year of Light 2015 – Blog: Heaven on Earth

AHF: Remembering the Trinity Test

Christie’s The Art People: Newton, Sir Isaac (1643–1727) Philosophae Naturalis Principia Mathematica

National Geographic: Why Do We Call Them the ‘Dog Days’ of Summer?

Phys.Org: What is Halley’s Comet?

Discover: The Man Who (almost) Discovered Pluto…and Also (Almost) Discovered the Expanding Universe

EXPLORATION and CARTOGRAPHY:

BHL: The Description de L’Égyte: The Savants of Napoleon’s Egyptian Campaign Canadaland: Q&A with Paul Watson, Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist, on why he just Resigned from the Toronto Star (The Franklin Ships Erebus & Terror)

Linguistic Geographies: The Gough Map of Great Britain

MEDICINE & HEALTH:

Atlas Obscura: The Pest House Medical Museum

From the Hands of Quacks: The Reed Hearing Test

Clinical Curiosities: History of Medicine at BSHS15

Forbes: Why Were Cases Of Autism So Hard To Find Before the 1990s?

Yovisto: Camillo Golgi and the Golgi Apparatus

The Recipes Project: Of Quacks and Caustics

Titlepage: Novum lumen chirurgicum
Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images
images@wellcome.ac.uk
http://wellcomeimages.org

Dr Alun Withey: Religion & the Sickness Experience in Early Modern Britain

Fiction Reboot–Daily Dose: Are we running out of Bodies? Dissection, Cadavers, and Medical Practice

Notches: The Sacred Precincts of Marital Bedrooms: Religion and the Making of Griswold

Embryo Project: Wilhelm His, Sr. (1831–1904)

Christie’s The Art People: The ‘Google Maps’ of the human body

Objects in Motion: Material Culture in Transition: The Skeleton Trade: Life, Death and Commerce in Early Modern Europe

Circulating Now: Medieval Herbals in Movable Type Nautilus: The Split Personality of the Color Yellow

NPR: The Salt: From Medicine to Modern Revival: A History of American Whiskey, In Labels

Nain, Mam and Me: Allenburys hygienic baby bottle: a picture of domestic bliss Concocting History: The snake-goddess, the satyr and the parturient: Jean Chièze’s Hippocratic illustrations

TECHNOLOGY:

Motherboard: This Is What 70 Years of Computing Sounds Like

Conciatore: True Colors

Aldrovandi’s pica marina
Source: Conciatore

Conciatore: Don Giovanni in Flanders

Conciatore: The Material of All Enamels

Teylers Museum: Berliner Gramophone 4 sound clips

Canada Science and Technology Museum: Cycling: The Evolution of an Experience, 1818–1900

Smithsonian.com: Five Epic Patent Wars That Don’t Involve Apple

Science Notes: Today in Science History – 11 July – NASA’s Skylab space station returns to Earth

BuzzFeed: 11 Female Inventors Who Helped Power The Information Age

Harry Kalish / Chemical Heritage Foundation (CC BY-SA 3.0) / Via commons.wikimedia.org

Wordnik: Come Fly With Me: 9 Common Words with Aviation Origins

EARTH & LIFE SCIENCES:

The Alfred Russel Wallace Website: Wallace Medal LA Times: Alexander von Humboldt: The man who made modern nature

Palaeoblog: Born This Day: Ernst Mayr

MSN News: The story of John Money: Controversial sexologist grappled with the concept of gender

Yovisto: Albert von Kölliker and the Origins of Embryology

xroads.viginia.edu: Alexander Wilson

Science Notes: Today in Science History – 6 July – Rabies Vaccine

Evolution Institute: Truth and Reconciliation for Social Darwinism

The Sloane Letters Blog: The Sad Kiss of 1722

Atlas Obscura: Thomas Jefferson Built This Country on Mastodons

Drawing of an early 19th century attempt at a mammoth restoration. Note the upside-down tusks. (Image: WikiCommons/Public Domain)

The Alfred Russel Wallace Website: Early evolution pioneers’ artwork now online

The H-Word: Sexism in science: did Watson and Crick really steal Rosalind Franklins’ data?

Wonders & Marvels: History is Sometimes Made by Great Men (and Women)

Embryo Project: Studies in Spermatogenesis (1905), by Nettie Maria Stevens

PRI: Meet the man who gave the name to the creatures we now know as dinosaurs

Medievalist.net: Avalanches in the Middle Ages

Tand Online (OA): The Rat-Catcher’s Prank: Interspecies Cunningness and Scavenging in Henry Mayhew’s London

Cambrian News Online: 17^th century nature under the microscope

Paige Fossil History: Additional Pieces of Neandertal 1: History Aiding Science

The Guardian: Conjoined piglets and two-faced kittens: Victorian oddities – in pictures

Preserved conjoined piglets, European, 19th century
Photograph: Rosamund Purcell

The Recipes Project: A Cartography of Chocolate

Medievalist.net: Medievalist helps scientists rewrite climate records

Niche: ICHG 2015: Environmental, but not necessarily environmental history

The Scientist: Water Fleas, 1755

CHEMISTRY:

Open Culture: Marie Curie’s Research Papers Are Still Radioactive 100+ Years Later

Science Notes: Today in Science History – 9 July – Loenzo Romano Carlo Avogadro di Quarengna e di Cerreto

Back Re(Action): Liquid Helium

Heike Kamerlingh Onnes (left) and Johannes Diderik van der Waals in 1908 in the Leiden physics laboratory, in front of the apparatus used later to condense helium. (Source: Museum Boerhaave, Leiden)

META – HISTORIOGRAPHY, THEORY, RESOURCES and OTHER:

Nautilus: The Nautilus Weekly Science Quiz: How Much Science Is In The Constitution?

The Recipe Project: First Monday Library Chat: The Boots Archive

Niche: ICHG 2015: Big Ideas in Historical Geography and “Door Crashers”

The Chronicle of Higher Education: Scholars Spin Their Own Nursery Rhymes (Without the Happy Endings)

Jack and Jill Went up the hill To fetch a pail of water and met an anonymous peer reviewer they threw down the well Douglas Hunter

Nautilus: How Science Helped Write the Declaration of Independence

flickr: University of Victoria Libraries

The Telegraph: A Clerk of Oxford’s guide to a bright old world

homunculus: Does anyone have any questions?

Royal Society: Conservative attitudes to old-established organs: Oliver Lodge and Philosophical Magazine

Digital Bodleian: Makes These Extraordinary Library Collection Available Online For The Very First Time…

Translation and Print: Translations and the making of Early English Print Culture (1473–1660)

CHF: Episode 200: Distillations Turns 200

PLOS Blogs: J. Andrew Bangham (1947–2014): Enterprising scientist who broke new ground in computational biology and image analysis

Andrew teaching in Italy

British Naval History: Why I Became a Historian: Peter Hore

Ether Wave Propaganda: The Benefits of Technology: Productivity as a Measure

ESOTERIC:

distillatio: On the word “Alchumy”, “Alconamye” and variations thereof in English

BOOK REVIEWS:

Popular Science: Chilled – Tom Jackson

Science Book a Day: The Door in the Dream: Conversations with Eminent Women in Science

Science Book a Day: The Earth: From Myths to Knowledge British Journal for the History of Science: Book Reviews

TLS: Dissent of man: Piers J. Hale Political Descent: Malthus, mutualism, and the politics of evolution in Victorian England

Morbid Anatomy: The Call of Abandoned Souls: Guest Post and New Book By Ivan Cenzi of Bizzaro Bazar

The Financial Times: ‘A Beautiful Question’, by Frank Wilczek

The New York Review of Books: How You Consist of Trillions of Tiny Machines

NEW BOOKS:

Historiens de la santé: Indian Doctors in Kenya, 1895–1940: The Forgotten History The Guardian: Colouring-in books boom continues with volume of mathematical patterns

Barnes & Nobel: History of Chemistry Books

Occult Minds: Forthcoming publications

ART & EXHIBITIONS

University of Lincoln: Exhibition to celebrate the life and legacy of George Boole forefather of the information age

Glucksman: Boolean Expressions: Contemporary art and mathematical expression 25 July–8 November 2015

John Craig Freeman: Platonic Solids

Gulf Times: Three great Muslim inventors

Shackleton 100: By Endurance we Conquer: The Polar Museum: Shackleton and his men 22 September 2015–18 June 2016

M Library Blogs: New Online Exhibit: Beer Brewing and Technology

Cecilia Brunson Projects: A Garden for Beatrix 20 May-July 24 2015

Lucia Pizzani A Garden for Beatrix Series

Life: Artatomy 5 June-6 September 2015

Science Museum: The Science and Art of Medicine

Grain: Album 31: Exhibition: 19 June-29 August 2015

The National Library of Wales: ‘The Secret Workings of Nature’ 7 July 2015–9 January 2016

Explore Art at Gracefield Arts Centre: Dumfries Crichton Royal – A Hidden Gem 18 July–22 August 2015

Chelmsford Museum: World of Wallace Last Chance closes 19 July

London Museum of Health and Medicine: The Riddle of Shock 17 July 2015–30 June 2016

THEATRE AND OPERA:

Young Vic: A Number 3 July-15 August 2015

Theatre Royal Haymarket: The Elephant Man 19 May-8 August 2015 Arts Theatre: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein 14 July–31 July 2015

FILMS AND EVENTS:

Science Museum: Beyond Vision: Photography, Art and Science symposium 12 September 2015

The Guardian: Guardian Masterclasses: Everything you need to know about science communication

The Royal Institution: To infinity and beyond: the story of the spacesuit 30 July 2015

Shadow and Act: Film Based on Story of Black Women Mathematicians Who Worked for NASA During the Space Race, in the Works

Margot Lee Shetterly
Image Credit: NASA/David C. Bowman

Morbid Anatomy Museum: Morbid Anatomy One Year Anniversary Festival of Arcane Knowledge and Devil’s Masquerade Party Fundraiser with MC Even Michelson!

Discover Medicine: Walking Tour: The Making of Thoroughly Modern Medicine

Discover Medicine: Walking Tour: Healers and Hoaxers

The List: Lecture: Faith and Wisdom in Science York Minster 22 July 2015

Bethlem Museum of the Mind: He Told Me That His Garden… 16 July 2015

PAINTINGS OF THE WEEK: “Newton” by William Blake, 1795–c. 1805

Newton 1795/c.1805 William Blake 1757-1827 Presented by W. Graham Robertson 1939 http://www.tate.org.uk/art/work/N05058

Dr. Philippe Pinel at the Salpêtrière, 1795 by Tony Robert-Fleury. Pinel ordering the removal of chains from patients at the Paris Asylum.

TELEVISION:

Forbes: Review: ‘First Peoples’ Series Chronicles Origins And Spread of Modern Humans SLIDE SHOW:

VIDEOS:

Youtube: Revelations: The science of making a daguerreotype Museo Galileo: Pre-telescopic astronomy

Astronomy Central: Discovery: 100 Greatest Discoveries 1 of 9 Astronomy {History… Youtube: AHF: Trinity Test Preparations Youtube: AHF: Moving the Plutonium Core RADIO:

BBC: HG and the H-Bomb

BBC: The Life Scientific: Dorothy Bishop

BBC Radio 4extra: Georg Mendel – A Monk and Two Peas

Voices of the Manhattan Project: Nuclear War Radio Series

BBC Radio 4:Science Stories: Seeing is Believing – The Leviathan of Parsonstown

PODCASTS:

Science Friday: The Ultimate Geek Road Trip

Route layout by Randal Olson

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

National Maritime Museum: Conference: Ways of Seeing 17 July 2015

St Anne’s College Oxford: Workshop: Texts and Contexts: The Cultural Legacies of Ada Lovelace 8 December 2015

University of Leeds: CfP: Alternative Histories of Electronic Music

George Boole 200: Get Involved: Celebrate the life and legacy of George Boole with UCC: Boole2School 2 November 2015

University of Winchester: CfP: Death, Art and Anatomy Conference 3-6 June 2016

Royal Society: Cells: from Robert Hooke to Cell Therapy – a 350 year journey 5-6 October 2015

Society for the Social History of Health: CfP: Health, Medicine and Mobility: International Migrations in Historical Perspective University of Prince Edward Island: 24-26 June 2016

Flamsteed Astronomy Society: Flamsteed Lecture

BSHS: Ayrton Prize

The Renaissance Diary: Call for Contributions: Literary & Scientific Cultures of Early Modernity

University of Bucharest: Master Class: Isaac Newton’s philosophical projects 6-11 October 2016

LOOKING FOR WORK:

The Royal Society: Newton International Fellowship

Royal Museums Greenwich: Curator of Cartography

University of Toronto: Assistant Professor – History of Technology

Whewell’s Gazette

Your weekly digest of all the best of

Internet history of science, technology and medicine

Editor in Chief: The Ghost of William Whewell

Year 2, Volume #02

Monday 20 July 2015

EDITORIAL:

Welcome to the second edition of the second year of Whewell’s Gazette, the weekly #histSTM links lists, which brings you all that we could gather of the histories of science, technology and medicine throughout the Internet in the last seven days.

The last week has seen a great triumph for science and technology with the successful flypast of Pluto by the space probe New Horizons after more than nine years en route. This prompted many articles on the history of the discovery of Pluto and its discoverer Clyde Tombaugh.

However this week also saw the seventieth anniversary of what many consider to be the greatest ever fall from grace of science and technology with the detonation of the first atomic bomb at the Trinity nuclear test on 16 July 1945.

These two episodes show that science and technology being human activities are far from being the neutral subjects that many would like to claim them to be. Humans create science and technology and humans determine how they will be put to use. The achievements of both the New Horizons and the Manhattan Project teams are viewed objectively amongst the greatest technical triumphs that our approximately four thousand years of science have delivered. However whereas the one is a cause for jubilation the other, releasing as it did undreamed of forces of destruction, can only be viewed with horror by any rational human being.

The Triumph – Pluto:

Not that Pluto!

Johns Hopkins: Happy 100^th Birthday, Clyde Tombaugh

Clyde Tombaughs notebook

io9: When We Discovered Pluto, It Changed How We Saw The Solar System

Cosmographia: Pluto – Predicted

Nautilus: A Visual History of Humanity’s Exploration of Pluto

PACHSmörgåsbord: Interview with Clyde Tombaugh, March 31, 1996

Clyde Tombaugh with his “automobile” telescope

Timothy Hughes: Rare & Early Newspapers: Planet Pluto officially discovered

The Mitchell Archives: The Discovery of Pluto

The New York Times: Says Pluto’s Size is That of Mars

Glass positive of The new planet Pluto; Lowell Observatory 42-inch Reflector

Academy of American Achiements: Clyde Tombaugh Photo Gallery

Modern Mechanix: Pluto is an Exceedingly Minor Planet (Nov, 1934)

Mammoth Tales: On Planet X and Naming Names

The Atlantic: The Women Who Rule Pluto

The H-Word: Seeing Pluto: strain, pain and ‘awesome’ science

Paige Fossil History: Retaining Childhood Curiosity: Pluto & Scientific Achievement

True Anomalies: Pluto, Mars, Moon, Earth

The Guardian: Pluto and other historical first pictures of planets

The New York Times: Summer of Science

The level of detail on the latest #PlutoFlyby images is astounding!
Source: Twitter originator unknown

The Fall From Grace – Trinity:

Dannen.com: Oak Ridge petition, mid-July 1945

Dannen.com: Oak Ridge petition, 13 July 1945

Dannen.com: July 17, 1945. Leo Szilard’s petition against using the atomic bomb

Ptak Science Books: The Atomic Bomb and Satan’s Release, 1947

Dannen.com: Target Committee, Los Alamos, May 10-11, 1945

Voices of the Manhattan Project: Lilli Hornig’s Interview

Voices of the Manhattan Project: George Kistiakowsky’s Interview

The Washington Post: Senator: Compensate residents near site of atomic bomb test

The Trinity explosion, 16 ms after detonation. The viewed hemisphere’s highest point in this image is about 200 metres (660 ft) high.
Source: Wikimedia Commons

The Trinity test bomb was the model dropped over Nagasaki. The bomb dropped over Hiroshima was never tested–not enough U-235 to spare. Audra J. Wolfe (@ColdWarScience)

ARD Mediathek: Zündung der ersten Atombombe am (16.7.1945) podcast

The New York Times: The First Light of Trinity

Restricted Data: Brig. Gen. Thomas Farrell, on the Trinity test, July 16, 1945

Ptak Science Books: Eyewitness Account “Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima” April 1946

The Boston Globe: The deterrent that wasn’t

AHF: News Articles on Trinity Test

Restricted Data: Trinity at 70: “Now we are all sons of bitches”

Quotes of the week:

“And remember, with great power comes great utilities bill”. – Peter Broks (@peterbroks)

“It’s the right idea, but not the right time.” – John Dalton.

“I don’t exactly know what I mean by that, but I mean it.” – J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“Personally, I’m always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.” – Winston Churchill

“You have to be nice to humans and when they don’t behave properly you can’t kill them” – Matthew Cobb (@matthewcobb)

“It took 100s of years to map the continents on Earth; it took just 50 years to see all the planets up close”. – John Grunsfeld

“In astronomy, looking over a long distance also means looking through expanses of time”. – Marek Kukula (@marekkukula)

“Frederick Great asked young Humboldt if he planned to conquer world like namesake Alexander the Great: ‘yes sir, but with my head’” h/t Andrea Wulf (@andrea_wulf)

“That men do not learn very much from lessons of history is the most important of all lessons that history has to teach.” – Aldous Huxley

“A coffee cup is homeomorphic to a donut”.

“A coffee cup with a broken handle is homeomorphic to a donut with a bite taken out”. – @TopologyFact

“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed”. –Hemingway

“Nature never deceives us; it is we who deceive ourselves”. – Rousseau

“All a musician can do is to get closer to the sources of nature, and so feel that he is in communion with the natural laws” – John Coltrane

“I can’t understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I’m frightened of the old ones.” – John Cage

“Physics is the unfolding of the laws of the intelligible world, pure mathematics is the unfolding of laws of human intelligence”. – J Sylvester

Birthdays of the Week:

John Dee born 13 July 1527

The Renaissance Mathematicus: John Dee, the “Mathematicall Praeface” and the English School of Mathematics

A 16th-century portrait by
an unknown artist
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Royal College of Physicians: Scholar, courtier, magician: the lost library of John Dee

English Historical Fiction Authors: “This Rough Magic”: The Secrets of the Tudor-Era Seers

PHYSICS & ASTRONOMY:

Science Notes: Today in Science History – 15 July – Jocelyn Bell Burnell

Jocelyn Bell Burnell in 2009
Source Wikimedia Commons

Starchild: Jocelyn Bell Burnell

AIP: Leon Lederman

arXiv.org: Records of sunspots and aurora during CE 960–1279 in the Chinese chronicle of the Song Dynasty

Forbes: History of Science Notes: For Whom The Prague Tolls

NASA Mars Exploration: Mars @ 50

Royal Museums Greenwich: A Glimpse of Mars Through Fractured Illusion: The Materiality of the Stereo Image

Daily Sabah: Astrolabe: the 13^th Century iPhone

Science 2.0: Big Science: Ernest Lawrence Gets His Hagiography

The New Atlantis: The Unknown Newton (Introduction)

The New Atlantis: The Unknown Newton (Articles)

Astronomy Magazine: Pioneering Rosetta mission scientist Claudia Alexander dead at 56

Claudia Alexander
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Los Angeles Times: Claudia Alexander dies at 56; JPL researcher oversaw Galileo, Rosetta missions

Teyler’s Museum: Planetarium, George Adams, London

EXPLORATION and CARTOGRAPHY:

Atlas Obscura: Curiouser and Curiouser: The World’s Most Unusual and Beautiful Maps

Yovisto: Edward Whymper and the Matterhorn

Yovisto: Salomon August Andrée’s Artic Baloon Expedition of 1897

S. A. Andrée and Knut Frænkel with the crashed balloon on the pack ice, photographed by the third expedition member, Nils Strindberg

Ptak Science Books: The Unstoppable Mawson (1914)

Royal Museums Greenwich: Looking across the Atlantic in 18^th-century maps

I Like: The Map That Came To Life

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

MEDICINE & HEALTH:

Forensic Anna:thropology: the sent of death

Conciatore: Francesco and Bianca

Remedia: Cinchona

17th century jar of quinine. The jar is believed to be from the pharmacy of the Milosrdnych Bratri Monastery and Hospital Brno, in the Czech Republic. L0057596 Credit: Science Museum, London, Wellcome Images

Morbid Anatomy: Fabulous Senior Thesis Project Inspired by Remmelin’s Flap Anatomy

The Telegraph: The pioneering surgeon who healed men scarred by war, a new monument created in his honour – and the remarkable twist of fate that links them

academia.edu: Médecine et hellénisme à la Renaissance: Le problème du grec chez Baillou

Nain, Mam and Me: Allenburys milk foods: a triumph of industrialisation

The Atlantic: The Victorian Anti-Vaccination Movement

A cartoon from a December 1894 anti-vaccination publication
Courtesty of The Historical Medical Library of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia

The Guardian: CIA torture is only part of medical science’s dark modern history

Mosaic: Step-by-step: prosthetic legs through the ages (gallery)

The Sloane Letters Blog: On Hans Sloane’s Copies of De Humani Corporis Fabrica

RCS: William Clowes – A prooved practice for all young chirurgiens, 1588

CHoM News: Bernard D. Davis Papers Processing Has Begun, as part of Maximizing Microbiology Project

Collectors Weekly: Bloodletting, Bone Brushes, and Tooth Keys: White-Knuckle Adventures in Early Dentistry

TECHNOLOGY:

Invention: A twist of Fate: The Invention of the Rubik’s Cube

Today’s Document: Eli Barum & Benjamin Brooks Still Patented 13 July 1808

Thick Objects: Remaking a local object: The Kirschmann coaxial colour mixer

National Museum of American History: Galileo Pendulum Clock Model, Replica

Nautilus: The Rube Goldberg Machine That Mastered Keynesian Economics

Schematic diagram of the MONIAC machine
LSE Library collections, Meade/16/3

web.stanford.edu: The Defecating Duck, Or The Ambiguous Origins of Artificial Life

The Guardian: The world’s first hack: the telegraph and the invention of privacy

The National Museum of Computing: EDSAC Shortlisted for prestigious ICON Award

Ptak Science Books: Heavy Electricity, 1879

Conciatore: Vitrum Flexile

Teyler’s Museum: Sound Synthesizer, after Helmholtz, Rudolph Koenig Paris

Vox: 7 horrifying attempts at building a better mousetrap

Yes, this is an actual mousetrap patent from 1882.
Google patents

Barron’s: Optical Inventions Opened the Modern World (google title and click on first link to circumnavigate pay wall!)

BBC: Flying Scotsman nearing end of decade-long overhaul

The York Press: Flying Scotsman restoration enters final stage

The New York Times: The Bicycle and the Ride to Modern America

Canadian Science and Technology Museum: Cycling: The Evolution of an Experience, 1818–1900

Science Notes: Today in Science History – 19 July – Percy Spencer and the Microwave Oven

EARTH & LIFE SCIENCES:

Nature: Deciphering the evolution of birdwing butterflies 150 years after Alfred Russel Wallace

Embryo Project: Friedrich Tiedemann (1781–1861)

Environmental History Resources: Timeline of environmental history

Recipes Project: How to brew beer with a ‘paile of cold water’

The Bigger Picture: William Stimpson and the Smithsonian’s First Aquarium

An aquarium has recently become “a necessary luxury in every well-appointed household, both of Europe and America.” Henry D. Butler, The Family Aquarium (New York, 1858). Colored frontispiece, Biodiversity Heritage Library.

Yovisto: Carl Woese and the Archaea

Embryo Project: Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov (Elie Metchnikoff) (1845–1916)

big think: Charles Darwin Would Be Ashamed of ‘Social Darwinism’

History of the Marine Biological Laboratory: The MBL Embryology Course 1939

Smithsonian Libraries: The Body Electric: Inspiring Frankenstein

OUP Blog: Alice down the microscope

Down the Microscope and what Alice found there. Biochemical Society, December 1927 by the Wellcome Library, London. CC-BY-4.0 – See more at: http://blog.oup.com/2015/07/alice-microscope/#sthash.t8XwoS6I.dpuf

The Royal Society: The Repository: A bad break in the Lakes

The New York Times: David M. Raup, Who Transformed Field of Paleontology, Dies at 82

David M. Raup in 1981. Credit William Franklin McMahon/The LIFE Images Collection, via Getty Images

Why Evolution is True: David M. Raup, 1933–2015

The Nation: Can We Cure Genetic Diseases Without Slipping Into Eugenics?

AMNH: Epitonium scalare

10 Things Wrong With Environmental Thinking: The Pastoral, literal and environmental, defined

NPR: The Salt: We Didn’t Build This City on Rock’N’Roll. It Was Yogurt

Data is Science: Thomas Sopwith’s Stratigraphic Models

CHEMISTRY:

Science Notes: Today in Science History – 13 July – August Kekulé

1979 East German stamp of Kekulé, in honour of the sesquicentennial of his birth.
Source: Wikimedia Commons

storify: Science on Tap: A History of the Chemical Elements for (Big) Kids

META – HISTORIOGRAPHY, THEORY, RESOURCES and OTHER:

Ether Wave Propaganda: If You Read Joseph Agassi, Man and Nature Become More Complex

Niche: ICHG 2015: History and Geography in a Digital Age

JHI Blog: The Archival Agenda: Thinking Through Scientific Archives at the Royal Society

Museum of HSTM Blog: Gillinson Room Project

storify: Science in Public 2015

Environmental History Resources:

Bishop Blog: Publishing replication failures: some lessons from history

THE: Can history and geography survive the digital age?

The History Vault: Reading Anatomy in Francis J. Cole’s Collection

Francis J Cole
Source: Franklin, K. J

Conciatore: Montpellier

Public Domain Review: Cat Pianos, Sound-Houses, and Other Imaginary Musical Instruments

University of Leicester: From Citizen Science to Citizen Humanities – 19^th Century history in the digital age

Punk Rock Operations Research: Life was simple before World War II. After that, we had systems

A view from the bridge: Of mud pies, muscle and science education

Faith and Wisdom in Science: The Faith and Wisdom in Science Story in Three Steps

Spitalfields Life: Kirby’s Eccentric Museum, 1820

This wonderful boy, who in early age outstripped all former calculators, was born in Morton Hampstead on 14th June 1806

ESOTERIC:

tspace.library.utoronto.ca: Cultural Uses of Magic in Fifteenth-Century England (pdf)

BOOK REVIEWS:

Philadelphia City Paper: “What’s the Matter with Pluto?”

Back Re(Action): Eureka by Chad Orzel

Los Angeles Review of Books: James K. A. Smith on The Territories of Science and Religion

NEW BOOKS:

Historiens de la santé: Psychiatry in Communist Europe

Remedia: Charismatic Substances

CHF: Pure Intelligence: The Life of William Hyde Wollaston

Historiens de la santé: The Evolution of Forensic Psychiatry: History, Current Developments, Future Directions

Historiens de la santé: Plague and Empire in the Early Modern Mediterranean World. The Ottoman Experience, 1347–1600

Wiley Online Library: The International Handbooks of Museum Studies

ART & EXHIBITIONS

Irish Tech Times: Boolean expressions: Art meets maths to celebrate George Boole bicentennial at Lewis Glucksman Gallery, UCC

tatsuo-miyajima-life-palace-tea-room-designboom-04

George Boole 200: The Life and Legacy of George Boole

The Irish Times: George Boole exhibition opens in UCC to mark bicentennial

Royal College of Physicians: Re-framing disability: portraits from the Royal College of Physicians

Natural History Museum: Images of Nature

The Queen’s Gallery, Palace of Holyroodhouse: Gold Last Chance closes 26 July 2015

The Royal Society: Seeing Closer: 350 years of microscopy 29 June–23 November 2015

THEATRE AND OPERA:

What’s on Stage: Jonathan Holloway’s Jekyll & Hyde Starts 28 July 2015

Winterbourne Opera: Gounod’s Faust 28 July–1 August 2015

Worthing Theatres: Dr Bunhead’s Secret Science Lab 24-25 July 2015

National Theatre: The Curious Incidence of the Dog in the Night-Time 21-29 July 2015

FILMS AND EVENTS:

Wellcome Collection: Minds and Bodies 23 July 2015

Royal Observatory Edinburgh: Astronomy Evenings Every Friday

Discover Medical London: Walking Tour: Sex and the City

PAINTINGS OF THE WEEK:

Gregor Johann Mendel (20 July 1822 – 6 January 1884)

From the Album Benary

TELEVISION:

HSS: PBS Series to Portray the History of Chemistry

SLIDE SHOW:

BHL: Sloths!

VIDEOS:

Youtube: The History and Philosophy of Science in 6 Easy Steps – Intro

Fusion: Why would a scientist inject gonorrhoea pus into his own penis?

Youtube: Unnatural histories Amazon

Royal Society Objectivity

Youtube: The Phoenix Index

The Telegraph: Apollo 11:12 key steps to the moon in video

RADIO:

BBC Radio 4: Natural Histories

PODCASTS:

Filament Communication: Episode 3: Matthew Cobb on writing science history

Folger Shakespeare Library: The Shakespearean Moons of Uranus

British Academy: Who reads Geography or History anymore? The challenge of audience in a digital age

Big Picture Science: It’s All Relative

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Framing the Face: CfP: One-day workshop Friend’s Meeting House Euston Road London 28 November 2015

Royal Society: 4^th Notes and Records Essay Award

Imperial & Global Forum: CfP: Colonialism, War & Photography

University of York: Medical History William Bynum Essay Prize

HSS: Preliminary Program 2015 History of Science Society Meeting San Francisco 19–22 November

University of Toronto: HPS100 Trailer – Why History & Philosophy of Science?

Wikimedia: Wikipedia Science Conference: The Henry Wellcome Auditorium London 2-3 September 2015

University of Wuppertal: CfP: Workshop: Early modern Jesuit science in a digital perspective – The Jesuit Science Network 26–27 November 2015

V&A Museum: On the Matter of Books and Records: Workshop: 23 November 2015 – Programme

University of Oxford: CfP: 6^thSHAC Postgraduate Workshop: Alchemy and Chemistry in Sickness and in Health 30 October 2015

H-Sci-Med-Tech: Call for Reviewers

Advances in the History of Psychology: CfP: Special Issue of HoP on History of Psychotherapy in North and South America

LOOKING FOR WORK:

Manchester University: CHSTM: Taught master’s in history of science, technology and medicine Applications close 31 July 2015

Notches: Assistant Editor Positions at Notches

Eccles Centre for American Studies: Eccles Centre Writers in Residence – 2016 Awards Applications Open

London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine: Research Assistant #histMed

Jacobs Foundation: Jacobs Science Writers Fellowship

Atomic Heritage Foundation: Program Manager

Whewell’s Gazette

Your weekly digest of all the best of

Internet history of science, technology and medicine

Editor in Chief: The Ghost of William Whewell

Year 2, Volume #0

Monday 27 July 2015

EDITORIAL:

This week brings you the third edition of the second year of Whewell’s Gazette your weekly #histSTM links list containing all that could be rounded up of the histories of science, technology and medicine from the Internet over the last seven days.

Recent years has seen an upsurge in the search for women in #histSTM who can and should function as role models for young women contemplating a career in a STM discipline. Unfortunately this search has produced a disturbing historical side effect. More and more articles appear, especially in the Internet, complaining about how one or other of these women was denied the acknowledgement she had earned for work or even had that acknowledgement stolen by a man. Why should I call this development unfortunate? It is unfortunate because in almost all cases the articles are not based on historical facts but on myths leading to massive distortion of the true story and a complete misrepresentation of what actually took place. Yes, many women have had difficulties getting recognition for their achievements in STM but spreading myths is not the right way to go about correcting the problem. A classic example of this problem is the story of Rosalind Franklin, who was born 25 July 1920, and her involvement in the discovery of the structure of DNA.

Rosalind Elsie Franklin
Source: Wikimedia Commons

The standard myth, repeated ad nauseam, is that James Watson was shown an X-ray image of DNA, Photo 51, taken by Franklin without her knowledge or permission and in a moment of epiphany realises that DNA is a double helix. This leads to the claim that it was Franklin and not Watson and Crick who discovered the structure of DNA. The story is completely false although it should be acknowledged that Watson’s book The Double Helix is the origin of this myth. For the true story of what happened you should read Matthew Cobb’s article in the Guardian or for greater detail his book Life’s Great Secret, the review of which is below in the book reviews section. The First chapter is available to read in the Sunday Times (first link under Earth & Life Sciences).

The Guardian: Sexism in science: did Watson and Crick really steal Rosalind Franklin’s data?

Physics Today: Rosalind Franklin and the double helix

ODNB: Franklin, Rosalind Elsie (1920–1958)

Quotes of the week:

“There is nothing good or evil save in the will”. – Epictetus

“Never send to know for whom the web trolls; it trolls for thee”. – Scott B. Weingart

(@scott_bot)

“The set of all sets that wouldn’t be part of any set that would have them as a member. (Groucho’s Paradox)” – Scott B. Weingart (@scott_bot)

“I bet when we do make contact with an advanced alien race, their first message to us will be “Who are U2 and why do we have their album?”” – Dean Burnett {@garwboy)

“She decided to teach postcolonial theory instead of seventeenth-century poetry.

Because, well, you know, easier Said than Donne”. – William Germano (@WmGermano)

“Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something”. – Plato

“We know a lot more than we can prove.” – Richard Feynman

“Always acknowledge your sources. It will never diminish you”. – @upulie

Q: How many academics does it take to change a lightbulb?

A: Change???

Peter Coles (@telescoper)

“What is written without effort is generally read without pleasure”. – Samuel Johnson

“If you wish to be a writer, write”. – Epictetus

“To be clear. I am a woman and a historian (and many other things). I am *not* a ‘woman historian’. How many ‘men historians’ do you know?” – Joanne Paul (@Joanne_Paul_)

“If you fancy yourself at the telephone, there is one in the next room.”—G. H. Hardy

“In the interest of PC shouldn’t we talk about ‘diameter disadvantaged’ rather than dwarf planets?” – Thony Christie (@rmathematicus)

“On 1 April 1898 Beatrix Potter’s paper “On the Germination of the Spores of Agaricineae” was presented at the Linnean Society”.

“Beatrix Potter was not in attendance to hear her paper in the Linnean Society since women were excluded”. – Liam Heneghan (@DublinSoil)

“Science is competitive, aggressive, demanding. It is also imaginative, inspiring, uplifting. You can do it, too.” – Vera Rubin

“Success depends upon previous preparation, and without such preparation there is sure to be failure”. – Confucius

“Memory is the treasury and guardian of all things”. – Cicero

Birthdays of the Week:

Richard Owen born 20 July 1804

Richard Owen and his gorgonops by pelycosaur

Letters from Gondwana: Owen, Dickens and the ‘Invention’ of Dinosaurs

The Friends of Charles Darwin: Sir Richard Owen: the archetypal villain

ucmp.berkeley.edu: Richard Owen (1804–1892)

NHM: Richard Owen

Deviant Art: Richard Owen and his Gorgonops

Moon landing 20 July 1969

“Stanley Kubrick was hired to fake the moon landing, but his perfectionism made them film it on location on the moon”. – Duncan MacMaster (@FuriousDShow)

“The moon is a rock against which the hope of many an imagined discovery has been shattered.” – LJ Wilson, 1925 h/t Meg Rosenburg (@trueanomalies)

A mounted slowscan TV camera shows Armstrong as he climbs down the ladder to surface
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Science Notes: Today in Science History – 20 July

Leaping Robot Blog: “Sir, That’s Not A Footprint…”

Forbes: The Locations of Every Moon Landing [Infographic]

DPLA: Apollo 11 Flight plan

Science Notes: Today in Science History – 21 July – Alan Shepard

Esquire: How Apollo Astronauts Took Out the Trash

Science Notes: Today in Science History – 24 July– The Return of Apollo 11

Command module Columbia of Apollo 11 after splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. Credit: NASA

PHYSICS & ASTRONOMY:

University of Glasgow: Special Collections: Book of the Month: Nicolaus Copernicus De Revolutionibus

Medievalist.net: The Night the Moon exploded and other Lunar tales from the Middle Ages

Quanta Magazine: Famous Fluid Equations Are Incomplete

reddit: Ask Historians: The Manhattan Project

History Ireland: ‘The Hue and Cry of Heresy’ John Toland, Isaac Newton & the Social Context of Scientists

Cosmology: 1838: Friedrich Bessel Measures Distance to a Star

C. A. Jensen, Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel, 1839
(Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek)

Darin Hayton: Astrolabes or Mariner’s Astrolabe – A Primer

AIP: From the Physics Today Archives (Pluto)

The Washington Post: The man who feared rationally, that he’d just destroyed the world

AMNH: Vera Rubin and Dark Matter

Brain Pickings: Pioneering Astronomer Vera Rubin on Science, Stereotypes, and Success

Vera Rubin

Dannen.com: Recommendations on the Immediate Use of Nuclear Weapons, June 16, 1945

Restricted Data: “We all aged ten years until the plane cleared the island”

Smithsonian.com: Can Sound Explain a 350-Year-Old Clock Mystery

The Getty Iris: Decoding the Medieval Volvelle

Astronomical Vovelle, from Astronomical and Medical Miscellany, English, late fourteenth century, shortly after 1386. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Ms. Ludwig XII 7, fol. 51

Physics Today: The Dayside: A tale of two papers

Restricted Data: The Kyoto Misconception

Dannen.com: Harry S. Truman, Diary, July 25, 1945

Dannen.com: Official Bombing Order, July 25, 1945

Darin Hayton: The Astronomy Exam at Haverford College in 1859

Atlas Obscura: The Lunar Colonies of Our Wildest Dreams

EXPLORATION and CARTOGRAPHY:

British Library: Maps and views blog: The Kangxi atlas in the King’s Topographical Collection

Library of Congress: Railroad Maps, 1820–1900

[Detail] State of Alabama. October. 2nd. 1866

Cyprus Mail: Mapping out a journey

The Commercial Space Blog: Did RADARSAT-2 Find HMS Erebus?

Maps of the State Library of NSW: Embroidery: World with all the modern discoveries ca. 1785

MEDICINE & HEALTH:

NYAM: Good eyes are your protection

Migraine Histories: Oliver Cromwell’s Migraine

Dittrick Museum Blog: By the Light of the Fever-, Gout- and Plague-Inducing Moon: Lunar Medicine

Frontispiece from Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae showing the moon reflecting the sun’s light like a mirror.

Collectors Weekly: Healing Spas and Ugly Clubs: How Victorians Taught Us to Treat People With Disabilities

Mosaic: Growing up as the world’s first test-tube baby

Science Notes: Today in Science History – 25 July – Louise Joy Brown’s birthday

Nursing Clio: Anne Bradstreet’s Elegies for her Grandchildren

Conciatore: Donato Altomare

NYAM: Spoiled by a Certain Englishman? The Copying of Andreas Vesalius in Thomas Geminus’ Compendiosa

Adam and Eve in the Academy’s copy of the 1559 English edition of Geminus’ Compendiosa.

CHSTM: News and Notes: Revolutions in the Atmosphere: Benjamin Rush’s Universal System of Medicine

Advances in the History of Psychology: History and the Hoffman Report: A Round-Up

TECHNOLOGY:

Conciatore: San Giusto Alle Mura

Idle Words: Web Design: The First Hundred Years

Science Notes: Today in Science History –22 July – First solo flight around the world

Wiley Post waving to the crowd before taking off to make the first solo flight around the world. As he waved, he said “So long, see you in about six days!” Credit: Still taken from British Pathé newsreel 1933.

The Renaissance Mathematicus: A double bicentennial – George contra Ada – Reality contra Perception

Rachel Laudan: Roman Glass: Transformation by Fire

The H-Word: Humphry Davy and the “safety lamp controversy”

Stephenson’s lamp (left) and Davy’s wire gauze lamp (right). On 25 January 1816, Davy reported to the Royal Society that prototypes of his gauze lamp had been tested “in two of the most dangerous mines near Newcastle, with perfect success”. From George Clementson Greenwell, A Practical Treatise on Mine Engineering (1869).

Amiga 30: 30^th Anniversary Event

Public Domain Review: The Mysteries of Nature and Art

History Today: George Stephenson’s First Steam Locomotive

Getting up steam: Stephenson’s ‘Blucher’, 1814

Rachel Laudan: My Great Grandmother’s Industrially Processed Food

EARTH & LIFE SCIENCES:

The Sunday Times: Matthew Cobb, Life’s Greatest Secret: Chapter 1: Genes Before DNA

Alembic Rare Books: All The Animated Beings in Nature: An Illustrated Natural History Dictionary Published in 1802

Brian Pickings: Gorgeous 19^th-Century Illustrations of Owls and Ospreys

The Guardian: Natural History Museum’s Dippy the dinosaur to go on holiday

Darwin Project: Darwin’s Scientific Women

Smithsonian Libraries: Crocodiles on the Ceiling

The Sloane Letters Blog: Straight From the Horse’s Mouth

Public Domain Review: Bird Gods (1898)

facebook: Paleontologists and their Prehistoric Pets

Notches: Red War on the Family: An Interview with Erica Ryan

NCSE Blog: The Very Hungry Jurist, Part 2

The EBB & Flow: The first null model war in ecology didn’t prevent the second one

Forbes: The Man Who Named The Dinosaurs Also Debunked Tales of Sea Serpents

The Guardian: Archaeologists find possible evidence of earliest human agriculture

Dan Hicks: Archaeology, Austerity and Why Historic Environment Records Matter

Data is Nature: From Constants of Optical Mineralogy

CHEMISTRY:

Voices of the Manhattan Project: Joseph Katz’s Interview

Voices of the Manhattan Project: Richard Baker’s Interview

Forbes: Forgotten Faces of Science: Percy Julian [Comic]

Source Forbes

Science Notes: Today in Science History – 23 July – Sir William Ramsey

Science Notes: Today in Science History – 26 July – William “Bill” Mitchell

META – HISTORIOGRAPHY, THEORY, RESOURCES and OTHER:

Now Apperaring: What is a fair review?

Royal Society: Notes and Records: Fit for print: developing an institutional model of scientific periodical publishing in England, 1665–ca.1714

Royal Society: Notes and Records: Journals, learned societies and money: Philosophical Transactions, ca. 1750–1900

The Best Schools: Sheldrake–Shermer Dialogue on the Nature of Science May thru July 2015

Conciatore: The Neighbors

storify: Delivering Impact: A collection of tweets from sessions at the BSHS annual conference and the SIP conference 2015

homunculus: Understanding the understanding of science

Sage Journals: PUS: …and the new editor of Public Understanding of Science will be…?

Rational Action: Warren Weaver on the Epistemology of Crude Formal Analysis: Relativistic Cosmology and the ‘General Theory of Air Warfare’

Willem de Sitter and Albert Einstein discuss the equations governing the dynamics of the universe

The New Yorker: In The Memory Ward

Aby Warburg (second from left) was the spirit behind the iconographic studies that dominated much of twentieth-century art history.
CREDIT COURTESY THE WARBURG INSTITUTE

the many-headed monster: The antiquarian listens: unexpected voices of the people

Journalism & Communication Monographs: Atomic Roaches and Test-Tube Babies: Bentley Glass and Science Communications

ESOTERIC:

History of Alchemy: Pico della Mirandola

distillatio: What makes a negromancer an alchemist?

The Recipes Project: Nicander’s snake repellent recipe. Part 1. Practical myth and magic

Tiresias, apparently not yet aware of having become a woman, beats up a pair of frisky snakes. Woodcut illustration, 1690 CE. Source: Wikimedia Commons

BOOK REVIEWS:

Science Book a Day: The Weather Experiment: The Pioneers who Sought to see the Future

The New York Times: Taking on ‘The Vital Question’ About Life

Science Book a Day: De humani corporis fabrica libri septem (On the fabric of the human body in seven books)

Der Spiegel: Die Roboter aus dem Morgenland

Dynamic Ecology Theory and Reality: An Introduction to Philosophy of Science by Peter Godfrey-Smith

The Dispersal of Darwin: The Story of Life: A First Book about Evolution

The Guardian: Life’s big surprises: The Vital Question and Life’s Greatest Secret reviewed

The Page 99 Test: Ill Composed

NEW BOOKS:

Amazon: Making “nature”: The History of a Scientific Journal

The University of Chicago Press: Osiris, Volume 30: Scientific Masculinities

Historiens de la santé: Working in a world of hurt: Trauma and resilience in the narratives of medical personal in warzones

University of Pittsburgh Press: New Natures: Joining Environmental History with Science and Technology Studies

Math Geek: The New “Sine” of Mathematical Geekdom

OUP: Animal, Vegetable, Mineral? How eighteenth-century science disrupted the natural order

Historiens de la santé: Historical epistemology and the making of modern Chinese medicine

Historiens de la santé: Bodies, Speech, and Reproductive Knowledge in Early Mdern England

Historiens de la santé: Norm als Zwang, Pflicht und Traum: Normierende versus individualisierende Bestrebungen in der Medizin

ART & EXHIBITIONS

The J. Paul Getty Museum: Touching the Past: The Hand and the Medieval Book 7 July–27 September 2015

Abingdon County Hall Museum: Star Power: 50 years of Fusion Research

MHS Oxford: ‘Dear Harry…’ – Henry Moseley: A Scientist Lost to War

Science Museum: Churchill’s Scientists

NHM: Britain’s First Geological Map

THEATRE AND OPERA:

The H-Word: The Skriker: global warming, eco-fairytales, and science on the stage

Maxine Peake in the eponymous role in The Skriker at The Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester. Photograph: Christopher Thomond for The Guardian

Royal Exchange Theatre: The Skriker Closes: 1 August 2015

Arts Theatre: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein Closes 31 July 2015

Young Vic: A Number 3 July–15 August 2015

FILMS AND EVENTS:

Nature: Experimental psychology: The anatomy of obedience

trailers.apple.com: Experimenter: The Stanley Milgram Story

MHS Oxford: From Semaphore Flags to Telephones 1 August 2015

Discover Medical London: Walking Tour: Harley Street: Healers and Hoaxers

Wellcome Collection: Discussion: The Thing Is… Conflict Medicine 30 July 2015

PAINTINGS OF THE WEEK:

George Stephenson – invented a Miner’s Safety Lamp in the second half of 1815 (simultaneously with Humphry Day)

TELEVISION:

BBC 4: Secret Knowledge: Wondrous Obsessions: The Cabinet of Curiosities

Fox 25: “Galileo’s World” exhibit at OU!

Channel 4: The Saboteurs

ITV: The Day They Dropped the Bomb

SLIDE SHOW:

VIDEOS:

Youtube: Kepler’s First Law of Motion – Elliptical Orbits (Astronomy)

Youtube: Picturing Galileo

Youtube: What Was The Young Earth Like? – Big History Project

Youtube: Professor Povey’s Perplexing Problems – Official Video

Critical Karaoke: Telstar 1: “A Day in the Life”

TED: Steve Silberman: The forgotten history of autism

RADIO:

BBC Radio 4: Making History: Tom Holland, Andrea Wulf and Dr Paul Warde discuss issues from environmental history

PODCASTS:

Ottoman History Project: Islamic Hospitals in Medieval Egypt and the Levant

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

edX: Internet course: The Book Histories Across Time and Space

University of York: Medical History William Bynum Essay Prize

go fund me: Dr Claudia Alexander Memorial Fund for academic scholarships in STEM

UCL STS: CfP: Workshop: Technology, Environment and Modern Britain 27 April 2015

The Warburg Institute: Conference: Ptolemy’s Science of the Stars in the Middle Ages 5-7 November 2015

ICHST 2015: 25^th International Congress of History of Science and Technology Rio de Janeiro 23-29 July 2017

Durham University: Where science and society meet: University Museums Group and University Museums in Scotland joint conference 23-24 September 2015

Royal Society: Open House Weekend History of Science Lecture Series 19-20 September 2015

The Birkbeck Trauma Project: Conference: Cultures of Harm in Institutions of Care: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives 15–16 April 2016

All Souls College Oxford: CfP: Charles Hutton (1737–1823): being mathematical in the Georgian period 17-18 December 2015

H-Sci-Med-Tech: CfP: Women and Science (Forum–Early Modern Women: An Interdisciplinary Journal)

H-Announce: Call for Contributions to a Special Issue of Environment and History on Parks and Gardens 31 December 2015

Macquarie University Sydney: CfP: Foreign Bodies, Intimate Ecologies: Transformations in Environmental History 11–13 February 2016

Ada Lovelace: Celebrating 200 years of a computer visionary: Student scholarship available for symposium

KOME: Call for articles in science studies

LOOKING FOR WORK:

The Royal Institution: Christmas Lectures Assistant

University of Leeds: Leeds Masters Scholarship Scheme

University of Warwick: Teaching Fellow in the History of Medicine

University of Nottingham: British Academy Fellowship for historical geography scholar

Whewell’s Gazette

Your weekly digest of all the best of

Internet history of science, technology and medicine

Editor in Chief: The Ghost of William Whewell

Year 2, Volume #04

Monday 03 July 2015

EDITORIAL:

Another seven days another edition of your weekly #histSTM links list Whewell’s Gazette bring you the best of the histories of science, technology and medicine garnered from the last seven days throughout the Internet.

There is a tradition to date the beginning of the scientific revolution to 1543 because two classic books were published in that year Copernicus’ De revolutionibus and Vesalius’ De fabrica. The latter was instrumental in bringing the study of anatomy to the fore in medicine in the Renaissance.

The historian of astronomy spent many years conducting a census of the surviving copies of the first two editions of De revolutionibus providing an important research tool for his fellow historians.

Daniel Magoesy and Mark Somos are conducting a worldwide survey of all extant copies of Vesalius’ Fabrica If your library has a copy please help the gentlemen in their endeavour.

University of Glasgow Library: Vesalius’ 1543 Fabrica: who owned it and how was it used?

On View: Center for the History of Medicine: Andreas Vesalius

“In 1543 Vesalius suggested that when preparing a anatomically skeleton one might as well keep the ear bone for a necklace…” h/t Mathe Bjerragaard (@museumgoggles)

Quotes of the week:

“Being a historian can sometimes be like painting a portrait of someone based solely on the contents of their handbag. We only know so much”. – Greg Jenner (@greg_jenner)

“A home without books is a body without soul”. – Cicero

“Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous”. –Confucius

“pico-newtons per square micron — that’s a nice fancy term for a pascal ….” – @Eaterofsun

“Today’s diploma is tomorrow’s wallpaper. But today’s learning is tomorrow’s wisdom.” – John Piper h/t @JohnDCook

“A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices”. – William James

“I admit that mathematical science is a good thing. But excessive devotion to it is a bad thing.” – Aldous Huxley

“I love the philosophy of science”. – Alfredo Ovalle (@Fredthegrand)

“A hangover is the wrath of grapes.” ― Dorothy Parker

“One can even set up quite ridiculous cases. A cat is penned up in a steel chamber, along with the following device (which must be secured against direct interference by the cat): in a Geiger counter there is a tiny bit of radioactive substance, so small, that perhaps in the course of the hour one of the atoms decays, but also, with equal probability, perhaps none; if it happens, the counter tube discharges and through a relay releases a hammer which shatters a small flask of hydrocyanic acid. If one has left this entire system to itself for an hour, one would say that the cat still lives if meanwhile no atom has decayed. The psi-function of the entire system would express this by having in it the living and dead cat (pardon the expression) mixed or smeared out in equal parts”. – Ernst Schrödinger h/t Paul Halpern (@phalpern)

Birthdays of the Week:

Jeremiah Dixon born 27 July 1733

Charles Mason (right) and Jeremiah Dixon (left, with sextant)

On Display Blog: Playing with Museum Representations of 18^th Century American Encounters

Jeremiah Dixon (17733–1779) – A Biographical Note

Library of Congress: A plan of the west line or parallel of latitude, which is the boundary between the provinces of Maryland and Pensylvania : a plan of the boundary lines between the province of Maryland and the Three Lower Counties on Delaware with part of the parallel of latitude which is the boundary between the provinces of Maryland and Pennsylvania

The National Archives Catalog: Journal of Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon

Beatrix Potter born 28 July 1866

Brain Pickings: Beatrix Potter, Mycologist: The Beloved Children’s Book Author’s Little-Known Scientific Studies and Illustrations of Mushrooms

The Birch Wathen Lenox STEM Initiative

Maria Mitchell born 1 August 1818

Maria Mitchell, painting by H. Dasell, 1851
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Brain Pickings: Pioneering 19^th-Century Astronomer Maria Mitchell on Education and Women in Science

Motherboard: How a Victorian Astronomer Fought the Gender Pay Gap, and Won

Patheos: Not in vain do we watch the setting and rising of stars

Vassar College Library: Maria Mitchell

Yovisto: Maria Mitchell and the Comets

PHYSICS & ASTRONOMY:

Grandma Got STEM: Sophie Brahe

Yovisto: The Astronomical Achievements of Sir George Biddell Airy

George Biddell Airy caricatured by Spy in Vanity Fair Nov 1875
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Science Notes: Today in Science History – 28 July – Otto Hahn

ESA: Space Science: 28 July 1851: First photo of a solar eclipse

Physics: Focus: Invention of the Maser and Laser

Taylor & Francis Online: This Day in Physics

Voices of the Manhattan Project: Bob Caron’s Tape to Joe Papalia

Nature: History: From blackboards to bombs

Time: Edwin Hubble: A Classic Portrait of a Genius at Work

Astronomer Edwin Powell Hubble looking though the eyepiece of the 100-inch telescope at the Mt. Wilson Observatory.
MARGARET BOURKE-WHITE—THE LIFE PICTURE COLLECTION/GETTY IMAGES

io9: Michael Faraday Was the World’s Most Badass Insurance Investigator

The Renaissance Mathematicus: σῴζειν τὰ φαινόμενα, sozein ta phainomena

AIP: I. I. Rabi – Session I

Corpus Newtonicum: To the unknown scribe – Isaac Newton’s assistants

Jardine’s book of martyrs: The Supernova of 1667: Cassiopeia A was observed in Scotland

Taylor & Francis Online: ‘Land-marks of the universe’: John Herschel against the background of positional astronomy. (oa) (pdf)

Dannen.com: Bomb Production Schedule, July 30 1945

Science Notes: Today in Science History – 31 July – Lunar Prospector crashes into the Moon

AIP: A profile in American Innovation

Voices of the Manhattan Project: Lew Kowarski’s Interview – Part 2

Ideas Beta: What options were there for the United States regarding the atomic bomb in 1945?

Washington Post: Five myths about the atomic bomb

Dannen.com: Einstein to Roosevelt, August 2, 1939

The Renaissance Mathematicus: Sorry Caroline but Maria got there first!

Caroline Herschel at age 92

EXPLORATION and CARTOGRAPHY:

British Library: Online Gallery: Galway Ireland 1611

British Library: Online Gallery: Chester 1585

British Library: Online Gallery: North East Corner of Kent 1585

The Hakluyt Society Blog: Essay Prize Series Part 1: Printing the Pacific

Halley’s Blog: Halley writes from Spithead

New York Public Library: Sea Blazers and Early Scriveners: The First Guidebooks to New York City

Sfera. Dati, Gregorio (1362-1436)

The Map House: Map of the Month

City Lab: A New Yorker’s Delightfully Stereotypical Map of America

cbcnews: Franklin expedition to Arctic included cannibalism, researches say

Medievalist.net: The World in 1467

Yovisto: Jean-François de La Pérouse and his Voyage around the World

NASA: Beyond Earth: This Month in Exploration – August

Medievalist.net: Ten Beautiful Medieval Maps

The Mappa Mundi of Saint Beatus of Liébana (c.730 – c.800)

La Catoteca: Las más antiguas representaciones cartográficas de las corrientes marinas

MEDICINE & HEALTH:

Nursing Clio: A weekly check-up of gender, medicine, and history in the news

Isulin Nation: Dr Banting: Called a Failure, Discovers Insulin

Banting and Dog 1923
Banting House National Historic Site of Canada
I often stare at an old photograph of Dr. Frederick Banting, the discoverer of insulin, to get ideas. I am inspired by his sheer tenacity. Against all odds, he succeeded in bringing insulin treatment into the world. I am completely in awe of how he had an idea and gave up everything right down to his old Ford to continue his research. He may have been trained as a surgeon with a special interest in orthopedics, but he forever changed the way diabetes is treated.
After Dr. Banting finished his residency at the Sick Children’s Hospital in Toronto and the hospital failed to give him an appointment on staff, he set up practice in London, Ontario. Unfortunately, during his first month of practice, he only saw one patient. He needed a paying job, so he took a position as an assistant professor of physiology at the University of Western Ontario.

Yale Books Unbound: Illness from the Patient’s Perspective

New Statesman: “Hunger, filth, fear and death”: remembering life before the NHS

The H-Word: Aliens, immigrants, religion, and the health service in Britain

A ward in the Manchester Jewish Hospital, early twentieth century. Photograph taken from the collection of the Manchester Jewish Museum, based in a former Spanish and Portuguese synagogue, the oldest in the city. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/Manchester Jewish Museum/ Christopher Thomond

New Scientist: Plague may not be solely to blame for Black Death’s mortality

EurekAlert!: Barrow scientists ‘rewrite’ history books

Public Domain Review: Reenactment of First Operation under Ether (ca. 1850)

Advances in the History of Psychology: Networking the Early Years of the American Journal of Psychology

The Recipes Project: Swimming in Broth: Medicated Baths in Eighteenth-Century Europe

The Lancet: An once of prevention

History Today: Heroin A Hundred-Year Habit

New York Times: Howard W. Jones Jr., a Pioneer of Reproductive Medicine, Dies at 104

History of Modern Biomedicine: The Development of Narrative Practices in Medicine c.1960–c.2000 (pdf)

TECHNOLOGY:

Conciatore: Olearius on Glass

Conciatore: Turquoise Glass

Conciatore: Art of Fire

houzz: The Sketches of Earl S. Tupper’s Pre-Tupperware Inventions

More Intelligent Life: The Proto-Internet

INTELLIGENT LIFE MAGAZINE JULY / AUG 2015
Early internet map – The Eastern Telegraphic System and its General Connections.

Ptak Science Books: Tubular, Streamlined Boat Construction, 1935/6

Science Notes: Today in Science History – 29 July – NASA

flickr: Cycling found by the community fr…

History of Technology: SHOT Newsletter

My medieval foundry: Latten maille and the uses of brass in war

NASA History: The NACA’s First Victory

NASA Law

boingboing: “The Computer Girls,” 1967 Cosmopolitan magazine article on women working with technology

Smithsonian.com: A Brief History of Pierre L’Enfant and Washington, D.C.

Modern Mechanix: “Boat Tunnel” for Habor Crossing (Aug, 1932)

EARTH & LIFE SCIENCES:

Thurrock Gazette: Down Memory Lane Free lecture on town’s top scientist Wallace

Remedia: Meat

Ri Science: Finger Prints

Nature: Archaeology: The milk revolution

International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature: Who is the type of Homo sapiens?

New Scientist: Megafauna extinction: DNA evidence pins blame on climate change

NYAM: Robert Hooke’s Micrographia (Item of the Month)

The title page of Hooke’s Micrographia.

Forbes: Ancient Stories Provided An Early Warning About Potential Seattle Earthquakes

The Sloane Letters Blog: Eighteenth-Century English Gardens and the Exchange with Europe

H-Environment: Wells. ‘Car Country’, Roundtable Review, Vol. 5, No. 5 (pdf)

Science Friday: Science Diction: The Origin of the Word Clone

Vox: A Renaissance painting reveals how breeding changed watermelons

Christie Images LTD 2015/Shutterstock
The watermelon, then and now.

The Siberian Times: First glimpse inside the Siberian cave that holds the key to man’s origins

NCSE: Listening to the Grand Canyon’s Story

Notches: Queers, Homosexuals, and Activists in Early Nineteenth-Century Britain

Notches: Archives of Desire: A Lavender Reading of J. Edgar Hoover

BHL: Notes & News from the BHL Staff: The Conchologists: Searching for Seashells in 19^th Century America

Say, Thomas. American Conchology. pl. 29. (1830-38). http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/7959406.

Georgian Gent: Edward Jenner, completely cuckoo! And news of a new book

The Dispersal of Darwin: Recent Darwin/evolution articles from the Journal of the history of Biology

NCSE: Fact, Theory, and Path Again, Part 1

Embryo Project: Hedgehog Signaling Pathway

Natural History Apostilles: Further comments on spinach and iron: part 1

Natural History Apostilles: Further comments on spinach and iron: part 2

Forbes: Leonardo a Vinci’s Geological Observations Revolutionized Renaissance Art

Londonist: Who is Old Father Thames?

Dirty Father Thames comes from a poem in Punch magazine, in 1848.

Nautilus: Once Upon a Gemstone

Yovisto: Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and the Evolution

Atlas Obscura: Francisco Hernandez: The Coolest Explorer You’ve Never Heard Of

CHEMISTRY:

Science Notes: Today in Science History – 27 July – John Dalton

Dalton in later life by Thomas Phillips, National Portrait Gallery, London (1835).
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Yovisto: Stephanie Kwolek and the Bullet-proof vest

Stephanie Kwolek, “I don’t think there’s anything like saving someone’s life to bring you satisfaction and happiness”, “Women in Chemistry”, Chemical Heritage Foundation
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Yovisto: Primo Levi and The Periodic Table

META – HISTORIOGRAPHY, THEORY, RESOURCES and OTHER:

JHI Blog: Paranoid Reading and Reparative Reading in the Archive (I)

ICRC: Now open: ICRC archives from 1966–1975

IEEE Spectrum: When Innovation Fails

Roger Smith: The Fontana/Norton History of the Human Sciences: Full, corrected text now freely available on line

UBC: Online Companion to Same-Sex Desire in Early Modern England, 1550–1735: An Anthology of Literary Texts and Contexts

The Cullen Project: The Medical Consultation Letters of Dr William Cullen

Mausoleum, bearing a profile in relief, erected in the mid-nineteenth century over Cullen’s grave in the burial-ground at Kirknewton, Midlothian by the Royal College and the physician’s descendants.

The #EnvHist Weekly

Physics World.com: Curing the Curie Complex

AHF: July Newsletter

The Atlantic: Why Aren’t There More Women Futurists?

Collecting and Connecting: I prefer not to talk about it

Wynken de Worde: how to destroy special collections with social media

The Conversation: How to value research that crosses more than one discipline

SciLogs: How Do You Define Science Communications

Mail Online: Anger after Science Museum which has been free since 2001 announces it is to start charging families to use Lauchpad gallery

Slate: When Science Doesn’t Have a Simple Answer

Mint on Sunday: Separating Fact from Ancient Indian Science Fiction

Victorian Web: John Tyndall: Address Delivered Before the British Association Assembled at Belfast With Additions, 1874

John Tyndall circa 1850
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Advances in the History of Psychology: Historiography in the Social History of Medicine: Records at the NIH and the UK Web Archive

ESOTERIC:

distillatio: Some notes on “Misticall words and Names Infinite” by Humphrey Locke

BOOK REVIEWS:

Science Technology and Society: Raf de Bont Stations in the Field: A History of Place-Based Animal Research, 1870–1930

WSJ: Preaching to the Converted (Google title and click on first link to beat paywall)

Inside Higher Ed: On the Verge of De-Extinction

Washington Post: The vast and complicated universe inside a seashell

The Guardian: A Beautiful Question: Finding Nature’s Deep Design by Frank Wilczek

The Wall Street Journal: Petal to the Metal (Google title and click on first link to beat paywall)

THE: The Matter Factory: A History of the Chemistry Laboratory, by Peter J. T. Morris

Science, Technology, and Society: Making Marie Curie: Intellectual Property and Celebrity Culture in an Age of Information

Los Angeles Review of Books: Two-Way Monologue: How to Get Past Science vs. Religion

The American Scholar: It Takes a Laboratory

Kiwiwalks in Speculative Fiction: “The Voice of the Dolphins” by Leo Szilard

NEW BOOKS:

NPL: The Birth of Atomic Time – Essen’s memoirs published

ART & EXHIBITIONS

UCL: Queen of the Sciences: A Celebration of Numbers and the London Mathematical Society February–December 2015

Royal Museums Greenwich: Prize for Illustration 2015 – Eleanor Taylor

The Finch & Pea: The Art of Science: Radical Elements

The Guardian: Bridges 2015: a meeting of maths and art – in pictures

NHM: Amazonian artwork by pioneers of evolutionary theory now online

London art trail: What’s In Your DNA?

RCS: Surgeons at Work: The Art of the Operation 31 March–19 September

MOSI: Meet Baby Runs every Tuesday and Wednesday

art at the heart of the RUH: Fusion – Where Two Minds Collide 17 July –2 October

THEATRE AND OPERA:

Bedlam Theatre: ADA August 5-6, 8-11, 13-18, 20-25, 27-30

Platform Theatre: Jekyll and Hyde Last Chance 8 August 2015

FILMS AND EVENTS:

Math Jokes 4 Mathy Folks: Fermat’s Room

Advances in the History of Psychology: ‘37’ – A Forthcoming Film on the Kitty Genovese Case

Eccles Centre (British Library) Summer Scholars Series 2015: Over the Ice: When Polar Explorers Took to the Skies & Sea Birds, Lost Bodies, and Phantom Islands on the Event Horizon of the New World 7 August 2015

New York Public Library: Eye of the Beholder: Johannes Vermeer, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, and the Reinvention of Seeing, with Laura J. Snyder, Fulbright scholar, professor at St. John’s University, and also the author of “The Philosophical Breakfast Club” and “Reforming Philosophy” 4 August 2015

Royal Society: Seeing closer: 350 years of microscopy

Discover Medical London: Walking Tour: Harley Street: Healers and Hoaxers

Royal Observatory Edinburgh: Astronomy Evenings

PAINTINGS OF THE WEEK:

Albrecht Dürer Rhinocerus

TELEVISION:

SLIDE SHOW:

VIDEOS:

The History of Modern Biomedicine: Josephine Arendt

Guardian: Life’s big surprises: two videos and a question

Youtube: Harry Potter and the History of Alchemy

Gizmodo: How It Felt to Work at Bell Labs in the 60s

Youtube: Triple Helix DNA

OU: Youtube: What can we earn from Ancient Greek medicine?

CHF: Youtube: Women in Chemistry: Stephanie Kwolek

Medievalist.net: Hildegard’s Cosmos and Its Music: Making a Digital Model for the Modern Planetarium

RADIO:

BBC World Service: Salt and its Diverse History – Part One – Part Two

BBC World Service: The Colour Purple

BBC Radio 4: The Life Scientific: E O Wilson

Youtube: Erwin Schrödinger – “Do Electrons Think?” (BBC 1949)

PODCASTS:

Historical Climatology: A Conversation with Dr. Geoffry Parker

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Engaging With Communication: Celebrating 30 years of mobile phone in the UK University of Salford 12 September 2015

Portal to the Heritage of Astronomy: Hawaiian, Oceanic and Global Cultural Astronomy: Tangible and Intangible Heritage Hilo Hawai’i 16–20 August 2015

University of Bucharest: Master-Class: Isaac Newton’s Philosophical Projects 6–11 October 2015

Open University: Open Learn: The body in antiquity

SSHM: CfP: Workshop: Framing The Face Friend’s Meeting House Euston London 28 November 2015

h-madness: CfP: Cultures of Harm in Institutions of Care Historical and Contemporary Perspectives

Institute for Collaborative Research in the Humanities Belfast: Gruelling Ordeals: The Irish Workhouse Diet, 1850–1950 12 October 2015

AAHM: CfP: Annual Meeting Minneapolis 28 April–1 May 2016

Economic History Society: CfP: Urban History Group 2016: Re-Evaluating the Place of the City in History Robinson College Cambridge 31 March–1 April 2016

Science Museum London: Who Cares? Interventions in ‘unloved’ museum Collections: The Conference 6 November 2015

Mosaic the science of life: Call for pitches: Digg and Mosaic want you!

The Warburg Institute: Ptolemy’s Science of the Stars in the Middle Ages 5–7 November 2015

Economic History Society: CfP: Annual Conference Robinson College Cambridge 1–3 April 2016

h-madness: CfP: The Victorian Brain Victorian Network Deadline: 15 August 2015

Food as Medicine: Historical perspective Programme

LOOKING FOR WORK:

University of Warwick: Teaching Fellow in the History of Medicine

University of Warwick: Teaching Fellow in the History of Science and Medicine

University of Greenwich: MPhil/PhD Scholarship – Professions and the Press 1690–1920

Scientific Instrument Society: Research grants

University of Leicester: AHRC funded PhD Studentship: The Changing Cultures of Government Science Since 1979: Exploring Privatisation and Commercialisation through Life Histories

University of York: Chair in Sociology/Science and Technology Studies

Christ’s College Cambridge: Junior Research Fellow

Whewell’s Gazette

Your weekly digest of all the best of

Internet history of science, technology and medicine

Editor in Chief: The Ghost of William Whewell

Year 2, Volume #05

Monday 10 August 2015

EDITORIAL:

Another seven days of all that the Internet has to offer in #histSTM gathered together for your delectation in the latest edition of Whewell’s Gazette the weekly links list for the histories of science, technology and medicine.

Three weeks ago in our editorial we described the Trinity Test on 16 July 1945, as the greatest ever fall from grace of science and technology. Three weeks after this test science, technology, politics and ethics were hurled into a vortex of conflict in the mushroom cloud that rose over Hiroshima as the first atomic bomb used in war exploded above that Japanese city on 6 August 1945, killing at least 140 000 people. Three days later this crime against humanity was compounded, as the second, and till now last, atomic bomb used in warfare exploded above Nagasaki killing another 70 000.

There are very few moments in history that ‘changed the world for ever’ as the purveyors of hyperbole are all to fond of parroting but the moment when that first atomic bomb exploded over Hiroshima is truly one such.

Now seventy years later the Internet has spat out many words documenting this inhuman tragedy. We have collected many of them together for this edition of Whewell’s Gazette that is humbly dedicated to the victims and survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The watch of Kengo Nikawa which stopped forever at 8.15 on the day the nuclear bomb fell on Hiroshima.

“It was like something out of hell, and I didn’t feel like taking many pictures.” — Yoshito Matsushige

“’Little Boy’ kills 140000 on August 6 in Hiroshima, ‘Fat Man’ kills 70000 on August 9 in Nagasaki at first moment”.

“The use of the atomic bomb on Japan will come to be seen as one of the greatest blunders in all of history.” – Leo Szilard

The bomb was dropped at 11:02 a.m., 1,650 feet above the city [Nagasaki]. The explosion unleashed the equivalent force of 22,000 tons of TNT. h/t @ferwen

Dannen.com: International Law on the Bombing of Civilians

Dannen.com: Groves-Oppenheimer Transcript, August 6, 1945

Dannen.com: A Petition to the President of the United States

Dannen.com: Oak Ridge Petition, July 13, 1945

Dannen.com: Oak Ridge Petition, mid-July, 1945

Dannen.com: The Franck Report, June 11, 1945

The Nuclear Secrecy Blog: Were there alternatives to the atomic bombings?

The Nuclear Secrecy Blog: The Kyoto misconception

The Nuclear Secrecy Blog: Were there alternatives to the atomic bombings?

The Nuclear Secrecy Blog: The Hiroshima Phone Call (1945)

The Nuclear Secrecy Blog: A Day Too Late

The Nuclear Secrecy Blog: Atomic Editorial Cartoons (August 1945)

The New Yorker: Nagasaki: The Last Bomb

Tech Times: Interview: Alex Wellerstein and David Saltzberg Discuss Getting History and Science Right on ‘Manhattan’

IDEAS: What options were there for the United States regarding the atomic bomb in 1945?

Voices of the Manhattan Project: Ray Gallagher and Fred Olivi’s Interview – Part 1

Voices of the Manhattan Project: Lawrence Litz’s Interview (2012)

Voices of the Manhattan Project: The Hiroshima Mission

Voices of the Manhattan Project: Jacob Besser’s Lecture

Voices of the Manhattan Project: Ray Gallagher’s Accounts of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki Missions

AHF: William “Deak” Parsons

AHF: Using the Atomic Bomb – 1945

Scientific American: Cross Check: Bethe, Teller, Trinity and the End of the Earth

Scientific American: Cross Check: Historian Contemplates “Ugly” Reality of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

AP Was There: US drops atomic bombs on Japan in 1945

The National Security Archive: The Nuclear Vault: The Atomic Bomb and the End of World War II

L.A. Times: New evidence of Japan’s effort to build atom bomb at the end of WWII

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: Seven decades after Hiroshima, is there still a nuclear taboo?

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: The harrowing story of the Nagasaki bombing mission

The Boston Globe: The deterrent that wasn’t

Smithsonian.com: How Physics Drove the Design of the Atomic Bombs Dropped on Japan

Chicago Tribune: Was using an atomic bomb necessary to end WWII?

BBC: Hiroshima marks 70 years since atomic bomb

British Library: Sound and vision blog: Memories of Hiroshima and After

New York Times: Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Survivors Pass Their Stories to a New Generation

The Curious Wavefunction: The enduring legacy of Leo Szilard, father of the atomic age

Priceonomics: Leó Szilárd: A Forgotten Father of the Atomic Bomb

Ars Technica: The bomb and a new scientific and technical landscape

Scientific American: Survivor of the Hiroshima Nuclear Bomb Recalls the Bombing and Its Aftermath

Scientific American: Survivor of the Nagasaki Atom Bomb Describes His Experience

Members.peak.org: Leo Szilard, Interview: President Truman Did Not Understand

Jappan Times: How the Japan Times reported the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Bulletin of Atomic Scientists: Nuclear Notebook: Nuclear Arsenals of the World

The Bigger Picture: Science Service, Up Close: Covering the Atom, August 1945

History Today: Truman and the Bomb

Newclear Thinking: Remembering Hiroshima: Death, Tourism, and Social Media

Discover: On the70th Anniversary of Hiroshima Bombing Photos Document the Devastation. Plus: Personal Reflections

Circulating Now: The First Calamity of the Nuclear Age

Oregon Live: Hiroshima at 70: The Oregonian’s front page coverage of 1945 atomic bomb was chilling, apocalyptic (photos)

The Conversation: The little-known history of secrecy and censorship in wake of atomic bombings

Smithsonian Institution Archive: The Manhattan Project Videohistory Collection

The New York Times: Nagasaki, the Forgotten City

The Guardian: Nuclear fallout: the mental health consequences of radiation

Roger Williams University Docs: The United States Strategic Bombing Survey: The Effects of Atomic Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, June 30, 1946

Pressing Issues: When Truman Failed to Pause in 1945 – and the War Crime That Followed

The Irish Times: The Irish eyewitness to the atomic bomb at Nagasaki

Quotes of the week:

Can we please get over the idea that “many technologies” “progress” exponentially? – Patrick McCray (@LeapingRobot)

“It is a rare occurrence that a census taker has ever heard of a physicist…one is often tempted to register as a chemist” – A. W. Hull, 1944

“The æther will come back. This old and faithful comrade of the human mind in its imaginative flights cannot be dead forever” – K. Darrow 1944

‘Books are deadlier than drugs. It is a pity that we do not burn our libraries once a century.’ – (Sunday Express, 1922) h/t @harbottlestores

“The scientist is not a person who gives the right answers he is one who asks the right questions”

“The sources of history are threefold: written, spoken, & neither written nor spoken. The last falls to the archaeologist.” – C.R. Fish 1910 h/t @ProfDanHicks

“Journalists: Ban “scientists say” from your lexicon. You wanna know why? Scientists say.” – Josh Rosenau (@JoshRosenau)

“Reading an underlined library book is like being interrupted during a great conversation by a yappy dog. You, underliner, are the yappy dog.

“There is something reassuring in the fact that those who deface library books by underlining them rarely make it out of chapter one”. – Liam Heneghan (@DublinSoil)

“I wonder if I’ll live long enough to witness people understanding that science and engineering are not the same thing”. – Bev Gibbs (@bevgibbs)

“Remember, there is a happy space between impostor syndrome and unrepentant bullshitting. Find it & live there…” – David Andress (@ProfDaveAndress)

“Why does philosophy matter?”

“I don’t know, why does science matter?”

“Well because scie…”

“Annnnnnnd you are doing philosophy”

“The learning and knowledge that we have, is, at the most, but little compared with that of which we are ignorant”. – Plato

“As an ‘extremely young earth’ creationist, I’m not sure I believe that the eighties actually existed”. – @gravbeast

“The father of Zoology was Aristotle … but the name of its mother has not come down to us” – Ambrose Bierce

“There is nothing more necessary to the man [sic] of science than its history” – Lord Acton, quoted by Popper and now by David Wootton

“And what should the scientist & citizen learn from the hist of sci?” Wootton adds in The Invention of Science. “That nothing endures.” h/t Philip Ball (@philipcball)

“Technology is neither good nor bad, nor is it neutral.” – Melvin Kranzberg

“What astrologers say about the influence of the constellations should really be attributed to the Sun”. – Athanasius Kircher

“The most damaging phrase in the language is: “we have always done it this way”.” – Grace Hopper

Birthdays of the Week:

P.A.M. Dirac born 8 August 1902

Paul Dirac with his wife in Copenhagen, July 1963
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Graham Farmelo: The Strangest Man

Science Notes: Today in Science History – August 8 – Paul Dirac

AIP: P. A. M. Dirac – Session I

Yovisto: Paul Dirac and the Quantum Mechanics

PHYSICS & ASTRONOMY:

NPR: Cosmos & Culture: Pinning Down One Scientist’s Legacy

Vintage Ads: Atomic Ads, a Sunday Sampler

AIP: Marlan Scully

Tand Online: John Tyndall and the Early History of Diamagnetism (oa) (pdf)

Irish Philosophy: What has Hamilton to do with philosophy?

Early Modern Experimental Philosophy: Crucial Instances in the Principia

Starts With a Bang: Einstein, Edison and an Aptitude for Genius

Yovisto: Victor Franz Hess and the Cosmic Radiation

Collections Online: Letter from Benjamin Franklin to [John Franklin] (copy), 25 December 1750

AIP: Roger Penrose

Yovisto: Sir Roger Penrose and the Singularity

ESA: GAIA: A History of Astrometry – Part I Mapping the Sky From Ancient to Pre-Modern Times

Stone tablet of Shamash, the Sun-god, from the ancient Babylonian city of Sippar. Credit: © Trustees of the British Museum.

ESA: GAIA: A History of Astrometry – Part II Telescope Ignites the Race to Measure Stellar Distances

Yovisto: Ernest Lawrence and the Cyclotron

EXPLORATION and CARTOGRAPHY:

British Library: Collection items: Anglo-Saxon world map

History Extra: The Northwest Passage search: behind the scenes of the expedition that found Franklin’s HMS Erebus

Atlas Obscura: 7 Gorgeous Sea Maps From the Age of Exploration

Frederik De Wit’s 1654 Dutch Sea Atlas. Image courtesy of the Harvard Map Collection

Yale News: Hidden secrets of Yale’s 1491 world map revealed via multispectral imaging

British Library online Gallery: Depiction of the Isle of Wight 1600

Medievalist.net: Medieval Maps of Britain

MEDICINE & HEALTH:

William Savage: Pen and Pension: Daily Medicine: Georgian-style

NPR: How a Scientist’s Slick Discovery Helped Save Preemies’ Lives

Nurcing Clio: A Pot of Herbs, A Plastic Sheet, and Thou: A Historian Goes for a “V-Stream,”

Forbes: Why Did My Grandmother Try LSD for Multiple Sclerosis in the 1960s?

Derelict Places: Selly Oak Hospital

Vesalius Fabrica: A Guide to the Historiated Capitals of the 1543 Fabrica

R Cap A continuation of the theme of Q. Three medical putti dissecting a thorax.

Yovisto: Johann Friedrich Struensee – A Royal Affair

Yovisto: Joseph Carey Merrick – the Elefant Man

Ask the Past: How To Use Chocolate, 1672

The Recipes Project: Swimming in Broth: Medicated Baths in Eighteenth-Century Europe

CHSTM: News and Notes: Treating the Black Body: Race and Medicine in American Culture, 1800–1861

Advances in the History of Psychology: BBC Mind Changers: New Episodes on Carol Dweck and B.F. Skinner

Advances in the History of Psychology: BBC Mind Changers: Carl Rogers and the Person-Centred Approach

New York Times:Louis Sokoloff, Pioneer of PET Scan, Dies at 93

Conciatore: Filippo Sassetti

NYAM: Adventures in Rare Book Cataloging

Anthony Rhys: Victorian Photographs of Disability

MetaFilter: RIP Frances O. Kelsey, Ph.D., M.D.

BBC: Anti-thalidomide hero Frances Oldham Kelsey dies at 101

Dr Kelsey received a presidential award from John F Kennedy in 1962

NPR: Frances Kelsey, FDA Officer Who Blocked Thalidomide, Dies at 101

The Cut: What the 17^th Century Can Teach Us About Vaginas

Photo: Getty Images

TECHNOLOGY:

Slide Rule Museum: Circular Slide Rules and selected Disc Charts

Mashable: 1890–1968 Flying Cars

Atlas Obscura: The History of Vending Machines Goes Back to the 1^st Century

Iowa State University Library Special Collections Department Bog: Engineering the Home: Domestic Comfort via Science

Science Notes: Today in Science History – 4 August – Phoenix Mars Lander

NYC Department of Records: Hindenburg (Airship)

Yovisto: On the Road with Bertha Benz

Bertha Benz and the ‘Patent Motorwagen’

Yovisto: Road Trippin’ with Alice Ramsey

Alice Ramsey
(1886 – 1983)
Image: Library of Congress

Independent: The London: After 350 years, the riddle of Britain’s exploding fleet is finally solved

Conciatore: Decolorization of Glass

Neatorama: The Wonderful World of Early Computers

The Renaissance Mathematicus: Made in Nürnberg

Schöner Celestial Globe 1535
Source: Science Museum London

Wired: Birth of the Microphone How Sound Became Signal

Science Notes: Today in Science History – 6 August – Electric Chair

History Today: The First Execution by Electric Chair

DSFP’s Spaceflight History Blog: Failure Was an Option: What If an Apollo Saturn Rocket Exploded on the Launch Pad?

KCET: When Oil Derricks Ruled the L.A. Landscape

ESA: History Of Europe in Space: ESA’s ‘First’ Satellite: COS-B

Atlas Obscura: The Almost Perfect World War II Plot to Bomb Japan With Bats

EARTH & LIFE SCIENCES:

jardine’s book of martyrs: The Scottish Hurricane of 1675

Dr Jennifer Evans: A Little find in the archive

The Sloane Letters Blog: Shell Games: Martin Lister and the Conchological Collections of Sir Hans Sloane

Melo aetheopica, Sloane 2374, Natural History Collection next to its portrayal by Susanna Lister in the Historiae, Table 801. Note she altered the perspective so it is possible to see the distinguishing characteristic of the umbilicus. Photo by Anna Marie Roos, © The Natural History Museum, London.

Bucknell University: Archive to Arctic

BBC Earth: How do we know that evolution is really happening?

Natural History Apostilles: On spinach & iron: König 1926

Natural History Apostilles: On spinach & iron: Richardson 1848 & Wolff 1871

NCSE: Fact, Theory, and Path Again, Part 2

Forbes: This 1831 Geological Journey Was Decisive For Darwin’s Scientific Career

Letters from Gondwana: The Legacy of the Feud Between Florentino Ameghino and P. Moreno

RCS: Hamsters in the Library

The Sloane Letters Blog: Public and Private Gardens in the Eighteenth Century

Public Domain Review: Shells and other Marine Life from Albertus Seba’s Cabinet of Natural Curiosities (1734)

The Guardian: Sir Jack Goody obituary

National Geographic: Phenomena: Curiously Krulwich

Making Science Public: Carbon Pollution

Heritage Daily: Bones of the Victims at Roman Herculaneum

AGU Blogosphere: 16^th century Italian earthquake changed river’s course

Partial reproduction of a 16th century painting showing the position of the Po River (corso principale del Po) and Ferrara (yellow arrow) before the river changed course.
Credit: Egnazio Danti

Smithsonian Libraries: Underworlds: Fossils and Geology: What lies beneath?

The New York Times: The Great Victorian Weather Wars

Nautilus: The Dueling Weathermen of the 1800s

BBC: Tyndal’s climate message, 150 years on

Embryo Project: William Bateson (1861–1926)

Embryo Project: Ernst Haeckel’s Biogenetic Law (1866)

CHEMISTRY:

Science Note: Today in Science History – 3 August – Richard Willstäter

Richard Willstätter (1872-1942) 1915 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Oesper Collections: The Oesper Collections in the History of Chemistry

Science Notes: Today in Science History – August 9 – Amedeo Avogadro

Amedeo Avogadro (1776-1856) Italian chemist known for his gas law and the constant that bears his name.

META – HISTORIOGRAPHY, THEORY, RESOURCES and OTHER:

The Guardian: Terrawatch: The lost art of specimen illustration

Steven Gray’s Blog: On Pigeonholing

Double Refraction: Are scientists who do history like tourists? Thoughts on Steven Weinberg’s analogy

the many-headed monster: What is History? Or: Doing history/thinking historically

Chemical and Engineering News: Science Historians Revive Ancient Recipes

LIFE CASTING
In the 16th century, encasing living objects—such as flowers in metal was a popular endeavor.
Credit: Making & Knowing Project

The Recipes Project: First Monday Library Chat: Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford

Dictionary of Medieval Names from European Sources

JHI Blog: Paranoid Reading and Reparative Reading in the Archive (II)

Lady Science: Archive

MIT Technology Review: Tech’s Enduring Great-Man Myth

The Royal Society: Notes and Records: 350 Years of scientific periodicals Table of Contents

Ether Wave Propaganda: Joseph Agassi’s Philosophy and Influence Resist Simple Answers

The Scientist: Foundations: Science History

George Boole 200*: About George Boole

Frontiers in Psychology: Fifty psychological and psychiatric terms to avoid: a list of inaccurate, misleading, misused, ambiguous, and logically confused words and phrases

Ptak Science Books: Books are Weapons in the War of Ideas

The #EnvHist Weekly

Wellcome Collection: A cat among the collection

Excavating Jacquetta Hawkes

BHL: The Arcadia Fund Awards Grant to Support The Field Book Project

academia.edu: Legislating Truth: Maimonides, the Almohads and the 13^th Century Jewish Enlightenment

ESOTERIC:

Conciatore: Reports from Parnassus

Rafael – El Parnaso (Vatican, Rome, 1511)
Apollo on Parnassus, (fresco detail).

History of Alchemy: Episode 70: Distillation

Atlas Obscura: Edison’s Last Breath at the Henry Ford Museum

BOOK REVIEWS:

Cell Press: The untenability of faithism

H–Environmental Roundtable Reviews: Kendra Smith-Howard Pure and Modern Milk: An Environmental History since 1900

H-Net: Kenneth Garden The First Islamic Reviver: Abu Hamid al-Ghazali and His Revival of the Religious Sciences

The Lancet: How chemists came to matter

Nature: Books & Arts Special

Reviews in History: Notebooks, English Virtuosi, and Early Modern Science

Chris Aldrich: Musings of a Modern Day Cyberneticist: Breaking the Code – The Economist

The Dispersal of Darwin: The Annotated Malay Archipelago

Science Book a Day: The Nature of Technology: What It Is and How It Evolves

NEW BOOKS:

OUP: Mathematicians and Their Gods: Interactions between mathematics and religion

The Geological Society of America: Recollections of a Petrologist: Joseph Paxson Iddings

The Royal Society: Shortlist for 2015 Winton Prize for Science Books announced

Nature: A scintillating shortlist for the Royal Society prize

Springer: Leibniz’s Metaphysics and Adoption of Substantial Forms

HSS: Isis Books Received April–June 2015

Enfilade: William Hunter’s World

Truman State University Press: Bridging Traditions: Alchemy, Chemistry, and Paracelsian Practices in the Early Modern Era

Routledge: Domestic Disturbances, Patriarchal Values

EM Spanish History Notes: Skaarup, Anatomy & Anatomists in EM Spain

ART & EXHIBITIONS

Journal of Art in Society: Science Becomes Art

Joseph Wright of Derby, An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump (1768)

Royal College of Physicians: Power and beauty: seals, charters and the story of identity 1 September–23 December 2015

New Walk Museum and Gallery Leicester: World of Wallace: Alfred Russel Wallace and his life in the field 22 August–25 October 2015

CHF: The Artist in the Laboratory:

The Hans India: Hyd gallery to be in National Museum map show 11 August–11 October

University of Glasgow Library: Skeletons and Injections: William Hunter’s Lectures on Anatomy and Aesthetics

The Irish Times: The limits of reason: Boolean links between art and science

Chicago Booth Museum: Exhibit Explores Ancient Money and Business

Science Museum: Cosmos and Culture 23 July 2009–31 December 2015

Wellcome Collection: Medicine Man Permanent Exhibition

MOSI: Meet Baby Runs every Tuesday and Wednesday

THEATRE AND OPERA:

The Guardian: Not actually a scientist

“The Element In The Room” being performed at the Tangram Theatre. Photograph: Alex Brenner

Young Vic: A Number: Closes 15 August 2015

National Theatre: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

FILMS AND EVENTS:

Royal College of Physicians: Free drop in tours – monthly, every first Wednesday 1.30pm

Wellcome Library: John Quekett, Victorian Microscopist 11 August 2015

Bethlem Museum of the Mind: Open and Expand Your Mind: A Museum Object Handling Drop-In Session 13 August 2015

PAINTING OF THE WEEK:

Frontispiece of the Rudolphine Tables

Tabulae Rudolphinae: quibus astronomicae …

TELEVISION:

BBC Four: Genius Of the Ancient World: Socrates 12 August 2015

Discover Medical London: Walking Tour: London’s Plagues

SLIDE SHOW:

VIDEOS:

AEON Video: Kempelen’s chess–playing automaton

Youtube: Eddie Izzard Venn

Youtube: Susannah Gibson: “Animal, Vegetable, Mineral?”

Climate Denial Crock of the Week: We are The Asteroid

RADIO:

G. C. Gosling: NHS History on Radio 4

PODCASTS:

History of Philosophy without gaps: Juhana Toivanen on Animals in Medieval Philosophy

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

University of Nottingham: Conference: Science, Society and the State (1870–1935) 4 September 2015

University of Bucharest: CfP: Bucharest Colloquium in Early Modern Science 6–7 November 2015

Wikimedia UK: Booking open for Wikipedia Science Conference 2–3 September 2015

University of Oxford: Medicine of Words: Literature, Medicine, and Theology in the Middle Ages 11–12 September 2015

Bodleian Libraries: Gough Map Symposium 2015: Mr Gough’s ‘curious map’ of Britain: old image, new techniques 2 November 2015

Madison: CfP: Workshop: Pharmacopoeias in the Early Modern World 1–2 April 2016

Victorian Persistence: Text, Image, Theory: CfP: Becoming Animal with the Victorians Université Paris Diderot 4–5 February 2016

V & A Museum: Conference: On the Matter of Books and Records: Forms, Substance, Forgeries, and Meanings Beyond the Lines 23 November 2015

Barcelona: CfP: 2016 Joint ESHHS/Cheiron Meeting

National Library of Medicine: Workshop: Images and Texts in Medical History 11-13 April 2016

THATCamp: The History of Science Society hosts its second annual THATCamp on November 19 2015

Pursey House Oxford: Library and Information History Group Conference 2015: Libraries and the Development of Professional Knowledge 19 September 2015

University of Leuven: Conference: What do we loose when we loose a library? 9-12 September 2015

Early Modern Women: An Interdisciplinary Journal: Call for Papers Women and Science Issue

itp: Colloquium: Celebrating 30 years of the mobile phone in the UK University of Salford 12 September 2015

Contagions: CfP: Medieval Landscapes of Disease ICMS Kalamazoo MI 12–15 May 2016

Technology and Culture: Call for Abstracts: Special Issue Africanizing the History of Technology

LOOKING FOR WORK:

British Museum: Director of Scientific Research

Wellcome Trust: Wellcome Trust Centres

Environmental Humanities: Four new Associate Editors

Yale University: Professor History of Science

University of Warwick: Department of History, Centre for History of Medicine Research Fellow (2 posts)

University of Warwick: Department of History, Centre for History of Medicine Research Fellow (Public Engagement) (2 posts)

AIP: Research Assistant

CRASSH: Visiting Fellows at CRASSH Early Modern Conversations: Religions, Cultures, Cognitive Ecologies

British Library: Applications are invited for Eccles British Library Writer in Residence Award 2016

University of Vienna: Four-year doctoral studentship in Epistemology and Philosophy of Science

Science Museum Group: Website Editor

I am going into hospital tomorrow for a minor operation on my right shoulder. As I won’t be home again till Monday, assuming all goes well, and as I am a one hand (right) one finger typist and do not know when I shall be able to type again there will be no edition of Whewell’s Gazette this coming Monday, 17 August. Hopefully, normal service will be resumed on Monday 24 August with Whewell’s Gazette 2,6.

Whewell’s Gazette

Your weekly digest of all the best of

Internet history of science, technology and medicine

Editor in Chief: The Ghost of William Whewell

Year 2, Volume #06

Monday 23 August 2015

EDITORIAL:

After a brief surgical break Whewell’s Gazette the weekly #histSTM is back bringing you all that the Internet has to offer in the histories of science, technology and medicine or at least all that we could find of it.

I entered the Internet #histsci community somewhat more than seven years ago. Five years ago one of my, by then, good #histsci colleagues, Rebekah Higgitt, announced that she would be co-leading a major research project into the activities of the British Board of Longitude in the long eighteenth century.

Over the last five years this research project carried out by the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich and Cambridge University has been incredibly active and I have got to know most of those involved through their diverse activities. These include Richard Dunn, Alexi Baker, Katy Barrett, Sophie Waring, Katherine McAlpine and Nicky Reeves. The project has finally come to an end and the results have been quite stunning. This small group of dedicated scholars have produced an amazing amount of absolutely first class history of science material.

If you don’t know it already you can spend many a happy hour reading the contributions to the project’s blog, an exemplary use of Internet communication. The latest contribution to the blog is a farewell to the project written by Maritime Museum team co-leader Richard Dunn.

If you want to know what the participants have been doing for the last five years then go to the Board of Longitude Project: Project Outcomes Page, you will knocked out by their productivity.

This project has set standards for anybody contemplation research into a #histSTM subject and can be held up as a role model for all such researchers. We at Whewell’s Gazette wish to congratulate all those involved and wish them well in their future endeavours.

Quotes of the week:

“The only qualification for being a writer is actually writing. All else is angst and bullshit.” – Henry Rollins h/t @cultauthor

“Hellenologophobia is a fear of Greek terms”. – @weird_hist

“Yet again twttr reminds me how many scientists think that all science works the same way their sub sub field of science does”. – Justin Kiggins (@neuromusic)

“Old math teachers never die, they just lose control of their functions.” – @intmath

“autocorrect, can you please stop changing ‘scicomm’ to ‘sickroom’? thank you” – Tori Herridge (@ToriHerridge)

“Shelf-righteous adj: a feeling of superiority about one’s bookshelf” – Powell’s Compendium of Readerly Terms

“Dear Apple, if I change back something you’ve autocorrected, Don’t. Autocorrect. It. Again.” – Eric Marcoullier (@bpm140)

“I’m starting a new band called Terrifying German Bibliography. Our first album will be called Intimidating Footnotes” – Kirsty Rolfe (@avoiding_bears)

“logic is like a secret society in this country. Hardly anyone knows how to use it.” –‪@Goethelover h/t @jondresner

“Ask a man his philosophy and he’ll be annoying for an hour; teach a man to do philosophy and he’ll be annoying for life”. – Keith Frankish (@keithfrankish)

“I quite realized,” said Columbus,

“That the earth was not a rhombus,

But I am a little annoyed

To find it an oblate spheroid.”

E. Bentley h/t @JohnDCook

Birthday of the Week:

Denis Papin baptised (born?) 22 August 1642

Denis Papin holding the plans for his steam engine.
Unknown artist 1689
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Science Notes: Today in Science History – August 22 – Denis Papin

Yovisto: Denis Papin and the Pressure Cooker

Papin’s steam digester 1679
Source: Wikimedia Commons

The Renaissance Mathematicus: A household name

Jean Léopold Nicolas Frédéric (Georges) Cuvier born 23 August 1769

Georges Cuvier Portrait by François-André Vincent, 1795
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Embryo Project: Georges Cuvier (1769–1832)

Embryo Project: Essay: The Cuvier-Geoffroy Debate

Letters From Gondwana: Mary Anning’s Contribution to French Paleontology

Yovisto: Georges Cuvier and the Fossils

Forbes: How do we know what extinct species looked like?

Cuvier´s secret reconstruction of the Anoplotherium commune, shown in lifelike pose with its skeleton, musculature, and body-outline.
Source: Forbes

PHYSICS, ASTRONOMY & SPACE SCIENCE :

Corpus Newtonicum: Newton in Atlantis

arXiv.org: Greek Astronomy PhDs: The last 200 years (pdf)

Inside the Science Museum: How to land on Venus

Scientific American: Cocktail Party Physics: In Memoriam: Jacob Bekenstein (1947–2015) and Black Hole Entropy

Jacob Bekenstein
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Shtetl–Optimized: Jacob Bekenstein (1947–2015)

ESA: The History of Sounding Rockets and Their Contribution to European Space Research (pdf)

Berkeley News: Pursuing charm in a singularly unfeminine profession

A Covent Garden Gilflurt’s Guide to Life: A Watercolour Meteor

Paul Sandby The Meteor of August 18, 1783, as seen from the East Angle of the North Terrace, Windsor Castle.

History Extra: Life of the Week: Marie Curie

The Columbian: Vancouver woman’s Manhattan Project memories

The Local: Seven brainteasers to honour Schrödinger

Science Notes: Today in Science History – August 20 – Fred Hoyle

National Radio Astronomy Observatory: Pre-History of Radio Astronomy

Yovisto: Viking 1 and the Mission to Mars

Restrcted Data: The Nuclear Secrecy Blog: Hiroshima and Nagasaki at 70

Science Notes: Today in Science History – August 23 – Charles-Augustin de Coulomb

EXPLORATION and CARTOGRAPHY:

Slate Vault: The Roads Around Late–18^th–Century London. Mapped in Close-Up Detail

Atlas Obscura: John Harrison’s Marine Chronometers

Harrison’s first sea clock (H1)
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Yovisto: How High/Low Can You Go? – The Explorer Auguste Picard

The Renaissance Mathematicus: Der Erdapfel

Behaim’s Erdapfel
Source: Wikimedia Commons

A Covent Garden Gilflurt’s Guide to Life: Captain Cook Lands on Possession Island

NOAA: Who first charted the Gulf Stream?

MEDICINE & HEALTH:

History Matters: Donald Trump: Galenic Enthusiast?

Yovisto: Thomas Hodgekin – a Pioneer in Preventive Medicine

Yovisto: The Contraceptive Pill – One of the Most Influential Inventions of the 20^th Century

The Recipes Project: Valuing “Caesar’s and Sampson’s Cures”

Rattle-snake with section of rattle and tooth, from Mark Catsby, (1731) The Natural History of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands.
Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images

The Recipes Project: Adjudicating “Caesar’s Cure for Poison”

Ptak Science Books: Electropathic Pathology: the Invisible Quackhood of the Electric Brush (1884)

drive.google.com: Quistorp and ‘Anaesthesia” in 1718

Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry: From the Archive: Witchcraft and Healing in the Colonial Andes, 16^th-17^th Centuries

Journal of the American Revolution: For to Cure for the Etch

Thomas Morris: Brain of hare and turd of dog

Pinterest: Inside the Vintage Medicine Cabinet

Thomas Morris: Wine, the great healer

Wellcome Library Blog: Diary of an Asylum Superintendent

Thomas Morris: Leeches: for external and internal use

TECHNOLOGY:

Yovisto: Gabriel Lipmann and the Colour Photography

Yovisto: Pierre Vernier and the Vernier Scale

Ptak Science Blog: An Automatic Page Turner, 1887

Yovisto: Making Photography Really Operational – Louis Daguerre

Christie’s The Art People: Mechanical miracles: The rise of the automaton

Engines of Our Imagination: No. 1703: IBM 360 Computer

Motherboard: The Soviet Architect Who Drafted the Space Race

Design for the technology module of the Mir space station (1980). Image: Galina Balashova Archives

Slate: The Mechanical Chess Player That Unsettled the World

The chess-playing Turk baffled and amazed Europe until it was revealed to be a hoax: the figure was actually controlled by a man hidden inside the box. Photographs: Bridgeman Images; AKG-Images

Yovisto: William Murdock ‘enlights’ the 19th century

C&EN: Timeline: A Brief History of the Internet and Chemistry

The New York Review of Books: They Began a New Era

Yovisto: Paul Nipkow and the Picture Scanning Technology

The Guardian: Letters reveal Alan Turing’s battle with his sexuality

Yovisto: E.F. Codd and the Relational Database Model

The Telegraph: England’s last master cooper seeks apprentice

EARTH & LIFE SCIENCES:

Niche: The Herbarium: An Interior Landscape of Science

Der Beutelwolf–Blog: Alfred Russel Wallace

Letters from Gondwana: Climate Change and the Evolution of Mammals

Jonathan Saha: Animals in the Asylum

The Telegraph: Anger over Natural History Museum plans to bulldoze wildlife garden

Mental Floss: The Adventurous Life of Jane Dieulafoy, Pioneering Archaeologist, Artist, and Feminist

Jane Dieulafoy
Image: Eugène L. Pirou

Notches: “What can I do to be normal?” Queer Female Desires in Letters to Dr. Alfred Kinsey

The Victor Mourning Blog: Mary Vaux Walcott

Culture 24: The starfishes, octopuses and squid of scientists’ 70,00-mile 19^th century journey to the deep sea

Public Domain Review: When the Birds and the Bees Were Not Enough: Aristotle’s Masterpiece

Embryo Project: George McDonald Church (1954)

Embryo Project: Eugenical Sterilization in the United States (1922), by Harry H. Laughlin

Paige Fossil History: Fossils vs Marine Biology: Which History of Science is More Fun

New York Times: John Henry Holland, Who Computerized Evolution, Dies at 86

Expedition Live: A Marvel of Unpreparedness

Forbes: Geology and Ancient Fossil’s Inspired H.P. Lovecraft to Write His Best Horror Story

Londoner Culture: The man who brought us drinking chocolate and his Chelsea past

Sir Hans Sloane

Darwin Live: Celebrating the Life of Alfred Russel Wallace

Public Domain Review: Tempest Anderson: Pioneer of Volcano Photography

National Geographic: Phenomena: The Rise and Fall of America’s Fossil Dogs

AMNH: Shelf Life: Kinsey’s Wasps

CHEMISTRY:

Conciatore: Vitriol of Venus

Conciatore: Tartar Salt

Conciatore: Sulfur of Saturn

Science Notes: Today in Science History – August 21 – Jean Servais Stas

Jean Servais Stas (1813-1891) Belgian Chemist Credit: OEuvres Complètes, Jean Baptiste Depaire, 1894

Science Notes: Today in Science History – August 17 – Walter Noddack

Science Notes: Today in Science History – August 19 – Helium

Yovisto: Jules Janssen and the Discovery of Helium

1868 Pierre Jannsen observes new spectral line during a solar eclipse-later linked w:new element (He)

The Conversation: How science lost one of its greatest minds in the trenches of Gallipoli

Othmeralia: Lavoisier

Yovisto: Jöns Jacob Berzelius – One of the Founders of Modern Chemistry

META – HISTORIOGRAPHY, THEORY, RESOURCES and OTHER:

Royal Society: Notes and Records: Fit for print: developing an institutional model of scientific publishing in England, 1655–ca. 1714

Historical Reflections: Appetite for Discovery: Sense and Sentiment in the Early Modern World

The Newyorker: What is Elegance in Science?

in propria persona: law, tech, history: Historians need to stop obsessing over writing books

Smithsonian Libraries: Dibner Library of the History of Science and Technology

The Huntingdon: The Dibner History of Science Program

OHSU: Oral History Program

Brill: Journal of the Philosophy of History Contents

Lady Science: Subscribe to email newsletter

Centre for the History of Emotions: Major new grant to explore emotional health

academia.edu: The Catholic Cosmos Made Small: Athanasius Kircher and His Museum in Rome

Portrait of Kircher at age 53
from Mundus Subterraneus (1664)
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Wolfram Alpha: Timeline of Systematic Data and the Development of Computable Knowledge

Oxford Today: From Hindu Paintings to Hebrew Manuscripts – the Digital Treasures of the Bodleian Library

New @ Northeastern: In Italy, students get a history lesson in science

Leaping Robot: Shifting Gears and Changing Rooms

University of London, Institute of Historical Research: Research Seminar: Questioning Theories of History Autumn Term 2015

Capitalism’s Cradle: “And it all started here in the US of A”

Long Reads: Our Sex Education: A Reading List

ESOTERIC:

Yovisto: Johann Valentin Andreae and the Legend of the Rosicrucians

Johannes Valentinus Andreae
Source: Wikimedia Commons

BOOK REVIEWS:

The Atlantic: Rewriting Autism History

New York Times: ‘Neuro Tribes’ by Steve Silberman

New York Times Book Reviews Podcast

John Elder Robinson: Neurotribes – Steve Silberman’s new book on the history of autism

Nature: Autism: Seeing the spectrum entire

The Economist: Horrible history: The treatment of autistic children in the 20^th century was shocking

Wired: How Autistic People Helped Shape the Modern World

Science Book a Day: NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity

The Guardian: Neurotribes review – the evolution of our understanding of autism

Science Book a Day: Einstein’s Masterwork: 1915 and the General Theory of Relativity

The Renaissance Mathematicus: To Explain the Weinberg: The discovery of a Nobel Laureate’s view of the history of science

Alembic Rare Books: How Men (and Women) Fly: Gertrude Bacon & Early Aviation

Science Book a Day: The Art of Medicine

Brain Pickings: Wheels of Change: How the Bicycle Empowered Women

Scientific American: Einstein’s Dice and Schrödinger’s Cat

Forbes: New Book Explores Biogeography and the Human Adventure

NEW BOOKS:

Ashgate: Australia Circumnavigated: The Voyages of Matthew Flinders in HMS Investigator, 1801–1803

Juxtapost: Eva Wirtén Making Marie Curie: Intellectual Property and Celebraty Culture in an Age of Information

University of Pennsylvania Press: Early Modern Cultures of Translation

ART & EXHIBITIONS

The Sydney Morning Herald: The League of Remarkable Women exhibition aims to break down barriers for women in science

JHI Blog: Reflections on “Treasured Possessions” and Material Culture

University of Lincoln: The Life and Legacy of George Boole

Union Station: Da Vinci The Exhibition Opens October 23

Dundee Science Centre: Nature’s Equations – D’Arcy Thompson and the Beauty of Mathematics 21 August–25 October

Museum of Science and Industry: Meet Baby Every Tuesday and Wednesday

Royal Society: Seeing Closer: 350 years of microscopy 29 June–23 November

Wellcome Library: Kiss of Light 12 May–23 October

Museum of the Mind: The Maudsley at War: The Story of the Hospital During the Great War 6 July– 24 September 2015

THEATRE AND OPERA:

Pleasance Courtyard Edinburgh: The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Survival of (R)Evolutionary Theories in the Face of Scientific and Ecclesiastical Objections: Being a Musical Comedy About Charles Darwin 26 August

Bedlam Theatre Edinburgh: Ada Runs until 30 August 2015

National Theatre: The Hard Problem

FILMS AND EVENTS:

Discover Medical London: Walking Tour: Women and Medicine

Lady Mary Wortley Montague

Discover Medical London: Walking Tour: Sex and the City

U.S. National Library of Medicine: The Movies: The Human Body in Pictures: The Blood Vessels and Their Function

Science Museum: Beyond Vision: Photography, Art and Science symposium 12 September 2015

Wellcome Collection: Discussion: The Blue Corpse 27 August 2015

MHS Oxford: Lecture: Harry’s Nobel Prize 25 August 2015

Royal Observatory Greenwich: The Great Eclipse Expedition Mystery 27 August 2015

Oxford Biomedical Research Group: Open Doors – How blood flows to and around the brain Tour: 11 September 2015

PAINTING OF THE WEEK:

John Cooke’s 1915 painting of the ‘Piltdown Gang’

TELEVISION:

BBC Four: The Secret of Quantum Physics

PBS: The Mystery of Matter: Search for the Elements

Forbes: PBS’s The Mystery of Matter and its Message for Chemistry

Youtube: Manhattan Season Two Trailer

BBC Four: Genius of the Ancient World: Socrates

SLIDE SHOW:

VIDEOS:

Youtube: Ri: Cloud Chamber: The Birth of Helium Atoms

Youtube: The Hereford World Map – Mappa Mundi

Youtube: The Man Who Saved Geometry (excerpt)

Vimeo: The Man Who Saved Geometry (complete)

Youtube: Ri: The Race to Crack the Genetic Code with Matthew Cobb

Two Nerdy History Girls: Friday Video: The Clock That Changed the World

Gresham College: Cannabis Britannica: The rise and demise of a Victorian wonder-drug

Youtube: Royal Society: Field Microscope – Objectivity #30

History Physics: Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity

Youtube: Scream – The History of Anaesthetics

Youtube: Betrand Russell – Man’s Peril

RADIO:

BBC Radio 4: Inside Science Matthew Cobb on Life’s Greatest Secret (14m39)

BBC Radio 4: Book of the Week: Spirals in Time

PODCASTS:

Voices of the Manhattan Project: Peter Galison’s Interview

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

University of York: Centre for Global Health Histories: Public Lectures 22 September–12 November 2015

University of Paderborn, International Workshop: The Self-Determined Individual in the Enlightenment 14 September 2015

Historiens de la santé: CfP: The Animal Turn in Medieval Health Studies International Medieval Congress University of Leeds 3–7 July 2016

Manchester Medieval Society: CfP: Gender and Medieval Studies Conference University of Hull: 6–8 January 2016

University of the Pacific: The Invention of Nature – Talk and Book Signing with Andrea Wulf

Royal Society: Open House Weekend – History of Science Lecture Series 19 September 2015

Royal Historical Society: Public History Prize

Bucharest Colloquium in Early Modern Science: CfP: 6–7 November 2015

University of Klagenfurt: International Conference on Science, Research and Popular Culture Programme 17–18 September 2015

University of London, Birkbeck: CfP: Religion and Medicine: Healing the Body and Soul from the Middle Ages to the Modern Day 15–16 July 2016

SocPhiSciPract: CfP: 2^nd Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Group in India 19–21 December 2015

NYU Polytechnic School of Engineering: CfP: History of Computing – International Communities of Invention and Innovation 25–29 May 2016

History of Science Society: Call for Posters: HSS Meeting San Francisco 17 August 2015

IRH–UNIBUC: Master-class on Isaac Newton’s Philosophical Projects

Amherst College: Books and Prints between Cultures, 1500–1900 18–19 September 2015

The Royal Society: Lecture: A 13^th century theory of everything

ADAPT: CfP: Hands on History: Exploring New Methodologies for Media History Research Geological Society London 8–10 February 2016

LOOKING FOR WORK:

Princeton University: Call for Applications: Fellowships at Davis Center 2016–17 Risk and Fortune

University of Utrecht: PhD Candidate History of Art, Science and Technology

University of Utrecht: Postdoc History of Art, Science and Technology

USA Jobs: Department of the Air Force: Historian

The Royal Society: Newton International Fellowship

Aarhus University: Intuitions in Science and Philosophy: 2 Postdocs & 1 PhD Studentship

Whewell’s Gazette

Your weekly digest of all the best of

Internet history of science, technology and medicine

Editor in Chief: The Ghost of William Whewell

Year 2, Volume #07

Monday 31 August 2015

EDITORIAL:

Like the proverbial bad penny Whewell’s Gazette the weekly #histSTM links list keeps turning up and we’re back again with another week of the best of the histories of science, technology and medicine gathered up over the last seven days from the Internet.

In my youth I had a polymathic interest in all things scientific and there was no way that I could take up a serious study of all the areas that interested me. I could however, like many, many others, at least teach myself the basic of the various sciences by reading popular science magazines. One of the main ones that I read almost religiously for many years was Scientific American. My memories of Scientific American is of a modern journal bringing me understandable synopsises of the latest developments in the sciences and also of the history of science. From time to time I get reminded that Scientific America is in the meantime a part of the history of science itself.

The first edition of Scientific American appeared 170 years ago on 28 August 1845, as the journal has reminded us this week.

From Volume 1, Number 1 of Scientific American, August 28, 1845.

Scientific American: On Scientific American’s 170^th Anniversary, a Nod to Founder Rufus Porter

Scientific American: Celebrating 170 Years of Scientific American

I no longer read Scientific American but I do hope that other young science fans are still getting a view of the larger picture of the sciences from America’s oldest continuously published magazine.

Quotes of the week:

“Heaven and hell seem out of proportion to me: the actions of men do not deserve so much.” – Jorge Luis Borges

“Academics: is there a verb for “struggling to pull research notes and thoughts into article form”?” – Katrina Gulliver (@katrinagulliver)

“I ain’t afraid of no ghost, but people who vehemently believe in the paranormal scare me a little”. – Brian Switek (@Laelaps)

“Fortunately there is no encouragement of beatnik behaviour by ordinary people in Britain” – The People, 1960. h/t @matthewcobb

“The task is to understand how reliable knowledge and scientific progress can and do result from a flawed, profoundly contingent, culturally relative, all-too-human process.” – David Wootton h/t @philipcball & @matthewcobb

“A mission statement is no substitute for a mission”. – John D. Cook (@JohnDCook)

“Every time someone gets made a peer in the House of Lords a democracy fairy dies”. – Lily Bailey (@LilyBaileyUK)

Me: What did the professor call the reading list that got out of control?

Library college: I don’t care

Me: Godzyllabus.

Her: Groan. – @librarianshipwreck

“How to write a book pitch: Step 1, order a coffee. Step 2, open blank page and hold pen. Step 3, write tweet about Steps 1 and 2. Ok, done”. – Mike McRae (@tribalscientist)

“The role of the historian is to move the debate forward, no more, no less”. – Frank McDonough (@FMXC1957)

Birthday of the Week:

Antoine Laurent de Lavoisier born 26 August 1743

Portrait of Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier and his wife and assistant Marie-Anne Pierrette Paulze by Jacques-Louis David, ca. 1788

Yovisto: Modern Chemistry started with Lavoisier

Science Notes: Today in Science History – August 26 – Antoine Lavoisier

The Renaissance Mathematicus: The father of…

Madame Lavoisier while assisting her husband on his scientific research of human respiration; she is visible at the table on the far right.

PHYSICS, ASTRONOMY & SPACE SCIENCE:

Science Notes: Today in Science History – August 24 – Louis Essen

Voices of the Manhattan Project: Alexander Langsdorf’s Interview

Yovisto: The Exploration of Saturn

Scientific American: Was Einstein the First to Invent E=mc²?

Corpus Newtonicum: All was light – but was it?

Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathemica, Titlepage and frontispiece of the third edition, London, 1726 (John Rylands Library)

Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage: Follow the Information: Comets, Communicative Practices and Swedish Amateur Astronomers in the Twentieth Century (pdf)

Trinity College Library, Cambridge: Navigating Newton’s Novels: Exhibiting the Value of Personal Libraries

Irish Philosophy: Truth above all things: G.G: Stokes

Science Notes: Today in Science History – August 27 – Ernest Lawrence

Sydney Morning Herald: From Betelguese to Vega, who named the stars?

Harvard Magazine: William Cranch Bond: Brief life of Harvard’s first astronomer 1789–1859

Ptak Science Books: The Preliminary Tower at Trinity, 1945

Trinity Tower
Source: Grove Archive

The National: Look at the stars, there’s still a lot of wisdom there

Atlas Obscura: See Fascinating Relics from the Secret Soviet Space Program

AHF: Francis Birch

Science Notes: Today in Science History – August 30 – Ernest Rutherford

AIP: Rutherford’s Nuclear World

EXPLORATION and CARTOGRAPHY:

The Conversation: Here’s why the Greenwich Prime Meridian is actually in the wrong place

The Hakluyt Society Blog: Matthew Flinders and the Circumnavigation of Australia, 1801–1803

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Yovisto: James Weddell and the Southern Ocean

James Weddell´s second expedition, depicting the brig “Jane” and the cutter “Beaufoy”.
Source: Wikimedia Commons

MEDICINE & HEALTH:

Advances in the History of Psychology: Hermann Helmholtz’s Graphical Recordings of the Speed of Nervous Stimulations

Our Roots: White Caps and Red Roses: History of the Galt School of Nursing, Lethbridge, Alberta 1910–1979

Duke University Libraries: The Devil’s Tale: Promising Cures for Hearing Loss in Early 20^th Century America

Motherboard: How Viking 1 Won the Martian Space Race

Migraine Histories: On Elizabeth Garrett Anderson

John Singer Sargent, Portrait of Elizabeth Garrett Anderson (c.1900) via Wikipedia

Advances in the History of Psychology: The Role of Heredity in George Combe’s Phrenology Work

BuzzFeed: How Oliver Sacks Helped Introduce the World to Autism

Yovisto: Charles Richet and Anaphylaxis

From the Hands of Quacks: Actina: A Wonder of the 19^th Century

NYAM: Dr. William Edmund Aughinbaugh, Medical Adventurer

Embryo Project: The Marine Biology Laboratory

The Wall Street Journal: The Man Who Invented Psychopathy

academia.edu: A Museum of Wonders or a Cemetery of Corpses? The Commercial Exchange of Anatomical Collections in Early Modern Collections (pdf)

Science Notes: Today in Science History August 29 – Werner Forssmann

Brumpic: ‘Birmingham Innovations: The Steam Engine, Electroplating… and the Airbag’ by Jonathan Reinarz

First Southern Birmingham 3

Diseases of Modern Life: ‘Sweet oblivious antidotes’? Lady perfume drinkers of the late 19^th century

TECHNOLOGY:

The Guardian: Technology has created more jobs than it has destroyed, says 140 years of data

Atlas Obscura: The Weird History of Hand Dryers Will Blow You Away

Atlas Obscura: Take a Ride with the Country’s Most Dedicated Elevator Tourist

Thick Objects: Chakhotin’s Microsurgery Device (1912)

Ptak Science Books: A Map of Fordlandia: the “Drama of Transportation”, 1932

io9: No, Da Vinci Wasn’t the First to Dream About Human Flight

Yovisto: Lee De Forest and the Audion

Conciatore: Lime

The Renaissance Mathematicus: Printing mistakes

Johannes Gutenberg in a 16th century copper engraving
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Viewpoints: Innovators Assemble: Ada Lovelace, Walter Isaacson, and the Superheroines of Computing

academia.edu: Antipocras. A Medieval Treatise on Magical Medicine. By Brother Nicholas of the Preacing Friars (c. 1270) Translated by William Eamon (pdf)

Yovisto: The Hyperbolic World of Vladimir Shukhov

Capitalism’s Cradle: Not-so-Anonymous Tinkerers and the Industrial Revolution

Capitalism’s Cradle: Who will watch the Watch-Men? – Celebrating the Watch-Makers of the British Industrial Revolution

AIP: John Mauchly

EARTH & LIFE SCIENCES:

The New York Times: How a Volcanic Eruption in 1815 Darkened the World but Colored the Arts

The deep volcanic crater, top, was produced by the eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia in April 1815 – the most powerful volcanic blast in recorded history. Credit Iwan Setiyawan/KOMPAS, via Associated Press

TrowellBlazers: Gertrude Caton Thompson

Partners of convenience: The Met Office and the BBC

The Genealogical World of Phylogenetic Networks: Spinach and iron fallacy

Ptak Science Books: Early Map of Elevations of Plants and Trees, 1873

“Chart of Principal Vegetable Growths and Chief Staples” from Matthew Fontaine Maury’s Physical Geography,

Twilight Beasts: The last squawk of the dodo

New York Times: Eric Betzig’s Life Over the Microscope

Archaeology: Rethinking the Form and Structure of Hominid Fossils

CHEMISTRY:

Conciatore: Saltpeter

Conciatore: Sulfur

Chemistry World: Agatha Christie, the queen of crime chemistry

As a young woman, Christie worked in a hospital dispensary and gained a first-hand knowledge of drugs of poisons © Bettmann/Corbis

The Vaults of Erowid: The Subjective Effects of Nitrous Oxide by William James

Yovisto: Carl Bosch and the IG Farben

META – HISTORIOGRAPHY, THEORY, RESOURCES and OTHER:

Scientific American: Cross Check: Why There Will Never Be Another Einstein

“I am no Einstein,” Einstein once said. On top of all his other qualities, the man was modest. Photo by Oren Jack Turner courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

the many-headed monster: VoxPop2015: The People’s Conclusion

G.C. Gosling: In Memoriam; or, Getting Personal

Peddling and Scaling God and Darwin: The Church of England and Creationism

RBSC Manuscripts Division News: Expanded Digitization of Islamic Manuscripts

Harvard University: Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments

Crova registering actinometer

The New York Times: The Case for Teaching Scientific Ignorance

Science Insider: How the Franco dictatorship destroyed Spanish science

The Last Word on Nothing: Story, History, Story

The Renaissance Mathematicus: Misusing Galileo to criticise the Galileo Gambit

Galileo demonstrating his astronomical theories. Climate contrarians have virtually nothing in common with Galileo. Photograph: Tarker/Tarker/Corbis

The Ordered Universe Project: AHRC Funding: Ordered Universe

Anzamems Inc: Free Online Courses on the History of the Book

The Recipes Project: Exploring CPP 10a214: Anne Layfield Reading Bishop Andrewes

Roots of Unity: Gauss and Germain on Pleasure and Passion

Marie-Sophie Germain

Making Science Public: Snapshots of the unknown – some holiday souvenirs

University of Oxford: Research: The randomness of archives

Medieval Sicily: Islamic Education and the Transmission of Knowledge in Muslim Society (pdf)

The New Yorker: What is Elegance in Science

AEON: Future Perfect: Social progress, high-speed transport and electricity everywhere – how the Victorians invented the future

ESOTERIC:

MIT Library Special Collections: Faraday and Table-Talk

J. Prichard. A Few Sober Words of Table-Talk About Table-Spirits, and the Rev. N.S. Godfrey’s Incantations. 2nd ed., 1853

alphr: Parapsychology: The rise and fall of paranormal experimentation

Chemistry World: A shared secret?

academia.edu: Transmuting Sericon: Alchemy as “practical Exegesis” in Early Modern England (pdf)

BOOK REVIEWS:

The Guardian: Heroes, monsters and people: When it comes to moral choices, outstanding physicists are very ordinary

THE: Temptations in the Archives: Essays in Golden Age Dutch Culture, by Lisa Jardine

The Atlantic: Before Autism Had a Name

Refinary 29: What You Need to Know About The Hidden History of Autism

PLOS Blogs: NeuroTribes: Steve Silberman on a haunting history and new hopes for autistic people

SFARI: “Neurotribes” recovers lost history of autism

Maclean’s: Steve Siberman on autism and ‘neurodiversity’

San Francisco Chronicle: ‘NeuroTribes’ by Steve Silberman

Boston Globe: NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity

Financial Review: From wild to domesticated: a history of garden evolution

A rare 18th century book containing nature prints.
Getty Images

Big Think: Scientific Revolutions in Optics Made Vermeer a Revolutionary Painter

Science Book a Day: The Hidden Landscape: A Journey into the Geological Past

Inside Higher Ed: An End of Era?

SomeBeans: Stargazers – Copernicus, Galileo, the Telescope and the Church by Allan Chapman

Forbes: Recalling The History of Time and Navigation In The Age of GPS

The Guardian: The Meaning of Science by Tim Lewens review – can scientific knowledge be objective

Science Book a Day: Magnificent Principia: Exploring Isaac Newton’s Masterpiece

H-Environment: Drake, ‘Loving Nature, Fearing the State,’ Roundtable Review

big think: The Science of Why Nature is Beautiful to Us

Open Letters Monthly: After Nature

Financial Times: ‘The Invention of Science: A New History of the Scientific Revolution’, by David Wootton

The Guardian: Brief Candle in the Dark: My Life in Science by Richard Dawkins

The Dispersal of Darwin: Book Review, Guest Post & Giveaway: Ancient Earth Journal: The Early Cretaceous

The New York Times: ‘The Butterflies of North America; Titian Peale’s Lost Manuscript’

NEW BOOKS:

Royal Society: Winton Prize for Science Books

University of Chicago Press: Islam and Travel in the Middle Ages

OUP: The Oxford Handbook of the Bible in Early Modern England, c. 1530–1700

ART & EXHIBITIONS

University of Oklahoma: Galileo’s World: An exhibition without walls

dna india: A cartographer’s horde

Prashant Lahoti with a pilgrimage route map of Shatrunjaya, a holy site for Jains located in Palitana, Gujarat; c. 1750. The map is on display at the National Museum in Delhi Manit Balmiki dna

Science Museum: Revelations: Experiments in Photography Closing Soon!

Herschel Museum of Astronomy: Waterloo and the March of Science 18 June–13 December 2015

THEATRE AND OPERA:

broadwayworld.com: Linda Purl, Brett Rickaby and Peter van Norden to lead Rubicon Theatre’s COPENHAGEN; Sets Sept Opening

Putney Theatre Company: The Effect

The Place: Touch Wood 2015: Programme 1: Goethe’s Faust from a contemporary female perspective

Noël Coward Theatre: Photograph 51

FILMS AND EVENTS:

CHF & Lantern Theatre Company: Women in Science – Science on Stage 19 September 2015

The Ordered Universe Project: Ordered Universe at the Royal Society Public Lectures: Open House 19 September 2015

Walking Tour: Robert Hooke’s 17^th Century City of London 17 September 2015

The Monument depicted in a picture by Sutton Nicholls, c. 1753.
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Science Museum: Time Travelling Operating Theatre 13 September

Discover Medical London: Walking Tour: Homes for Healing

Wellcome Collection: STT Talk: Infectious Diseases 3 September 2015

Bethlem Museum of the Mind: A Diseased Cerebellum, or a Wildness in the Face 5 September 2015

Florence Nightingale Museum: ‘Design for Living’: Life Inside the Tuberculosis Sanatorium 10 September 2015

PAINTING OF THE WEEK:

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Carl Spitzweg – The Geologist 1860

TELEVISION:

SLIDE SHOW:

VIDEOS:

George Boole 200: The Genius of Georg Boole

George Boole
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Vimeo: Countway Objects: Dominic Hall

Ed TED: Quantum mechanics 101: Demystifying tough physics in 4 easy lessons

RADIO:

BBC Radio 4: Forty History of Ideas Animations

ARD Mediathek: Alfred Russel Wallace – Pionier in Darwins Schatten

PODCASTS:

Modern Notion: What Computers Taught Us about Genetics

Ben Franklin’s World: Adam D. Shprintzen, The Vegetarian Crusade: The Rise of the American Reform Movement

Science Friday: Writing Women Back Into Science History

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Notches: CfP: Histories of Sexuality and Religion

University of Pennsylvania: Literary Histories of Science: Race, Gender, and Class 12–15 November 2015

Université Paris Diderot: CfP: Becoming Animal with the Victorians SFEVE Annual Conference 4–5 February 2016

BSHS: CfP: BSHS Postgraduate Conference 6–8 January 2016

University of Notre Dame: CfP: Beyond Tradition: Rethinking Early Modern Europe

The History of Emotions Blog: Conference: ‘Tears and Smiles: Medieval to Early Modern’ 7 October 2015

Medical History Workshop: Workshop: Images and Texts in Medical History National Institutes of Health campus in Bethesda Maryland April 11–13 2016

University of Sussex: International Workshop for ECRs: Call for Participants: Science, Technology and Innovation in Neglected Diseases: Policies, Funding and Knowledge Creation 17–20 November 2015

h-madness: CfP: History 6 Philosophy of Psychology Section & UK Critical Psychiatry Network Joint Conference Leeds Trinity University 22–23 March 2016

Wellcome Library: CfP: Religion and medicine Birkbeck University of London 15–16 July 2016

LOOKING FOR WORK:

Academic Jobs Wiki: History of Science, Technology, and Medicine 2015–2016

University of Toronto: Assistant Professor – History of Technology

BSHS: Special Project Grants

Whewell’s Gazette

Your weekly digest of all the best of

Internet history of science, technology and medicine

Editor in Chief: The Ghost of William Whewell

Year 2, Volume #08

Monday 07 September 2015

EDITORIAL:

We’re back again, one day late, but as the old cliché goes, better late than never. So here you have the latest edition of Whewell’s Gazette you weekly links list for all things #histSTM, bringing all we could scrape together from the outer reaches of cyberspace of the histories of science, technology and medicine.

Our rubric Birthday of the Week, of course, features big name scholars when there is some sort of major anniversary, which generates much Internet activity. However there are always several scholars who have birthdays in any given week and not all of them get featured in this rubric but we try to pick out ones who might not be household names but who we think deserve more public awareness.

This week’s birthday boy, John Dalton, is a perfect example of this. If one were to ask the proverbial average person on the street who Dalton was they would probably come up with something like, “didn’t he used to play for Manchester United?” Dalton was one of the founders of the modern atomic theory of matter but he also made significant contributions to a wide range of other scientific disciplines, including founding the scientific investigation of colour blindness from which he suffered himself.

Dalton remains largely unknown to the public at large but we are of the opinion that he deserves to be up there with Newton and Darwin in public awareness, as a great British scientist.

Quotes of the week:

Don’t poo on science
Caption courtesy of Jack Stilgoe (@Jackstilgoe)

“BoreVore: A predatory creature that paralyzes its prey by going on and on about its specialized diet. Mostly found in Industrialized West”. – @wetbinkt

“Why didn’t you eat your greens? Tell me. Why? Why?”

“Calm down. I wasn’t expecting the spinach inquisition” – Peter Broks (@peterbroks)

“You can’t go against the grain of the universe and not expect to get splinters.” – C. S. Lewis

Archive quote of the day: “…may the Lord deliver me from the Teutonic cult of pedestrian technocracy.” @librarycongress – Patrick McCray (@LeapingRobot)

“The imperfection of all our records of the past is too well known to geologists.” – A R Wallace (1879) h/t @Jamie_Woodward

Birthday of the Week:

Dalton by Charles Turner
after James Lonsdale
(1834, mezzotint)
Source: Wikimedia Commons

John Dalton born 6 September 1766

Yovisto: John Dalton and the Atomic Theory

CHF: John Dalton

From Alchemy to Chemistry: Five Hundred Years of Rare and Interesting Books: Dalton, John (1766–1844) A New System of Chemical Philosophy

In the Dark: The Day of Daltonism

PHYSICS, ASTRONOMY & SPACE SCIENCE:

io9: Every Place We Used to Think Was a Planet (until We Knew Better)

Yovisto: Sir Bernard Lovell and the Radioastronomy

Yovisto: Hermann von Helmholtz and his Theory of Vision

Mental Floss: Meet the Woman Who Discovered the Composition of the Stars

Cecelia Payne
Image Credit: Smithsonian Institution, Wikimedia Commons

Physics Today: Information: From Maxwell’s demon to Landauer’s eraser

Science Notes: Today in Science History – September 2 – Franz Xaver von Zach

History Physics: Carrington Event 1859

The Telegraph: The man who proved Stephen Hawking wrong

Leaping Robot: Astronomy’s History Trap

The Mountain Mystery: Newton and the Speed of Sound

Newton’s speed of sound experiment re-enacted at Trinity College, Cambridge

Science Notes: Today in Science History – September 3 – Carl David Anderson

Restricted Data: The Nuclear Secrecy Blog: Did Lawrence doubt the bomb?

AHF: Richard Tolman

AIP: Edoardo Amaldi

EXPLORATION and CARTOGRAPHY:

Georgian Gentleman: Let’s hear it for Louis-Antoine, Comte de Bougainville, who died on 31 August 1811

Louis-Antoine, Comte de Bougainville

io9: Archaeologists Tracked Lewis and Clark by Following Their Trail of Laxatives

British Library: Maps and views blog: A Rare View of the Siege of Boston (1775–1776)

The Hakluyt Society Blog: Essay Prize Series Part 2: The Manuscript Circulation of Sir Henry Mainwaring’s ‘A Brief Extract’

Vox: All those, confusing geography terms, explained in a gorgeous antique map

Jstor: Livingstone’s Zambezi Expedition

Halley’s Log: Instructions for Halley’s third voyage

MEDICINE & HEALTH:

Science Notes: Today in Science History – August 31 – Hermann von Helmholtz

William Savage: Pen and Pension: Eighteenth-Century Paten Medicines: Kill or Cure?

Discover: A Weapon in the Soil

Cardhouse.com: Vintage condom package design

io9: Strychnine: A Brief History of the World’s Least Subtle Poison

Thomas Morris: Worms on the pillow

The Daily Telegraph: Bubonic plague Sydney: How a city survived the black death in 1900

Rat catchers with a pile of dead vermin in Sydney in 1900. Rats were fetching up to six pence a head during the outbreak.
Picture: State Library of NSW

Surgeons’ Hall Museums: Key Object Page

Royal College of Physicians: ‘My case’: Sir Augusts Frederick D’Esté

The New York Times: Endre A. Balazs, Doctor Who Found a Lubricant for Arthritic Knees, Dies at 95

John Rylands Library Special Collections Blog: Manchester Medical Manuscripts Collection

Science Notes: Today in Science History – September 6 – John James Richard Macleod

TECHNOLOGY:

Conciatore: Glass Salt

Teyler’s Museum: Electric lighter with lamp

The Atlantic: The $1 Pocket Microscope

The Conversation: LOL in the age of the telegraph

An 1809 drawing of the electric telegraph.
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Ptak Science Books: A Lot of Computer Data on One Sheet of Paper (1956)

Capitalism’s Cradle: The Great British (Industrial) Bake-Off

Yovisto: Ferdinand Porsche – Innovation as a Principle

Capitalism’s Cradle: How Norway Conquered Leviathan

Abraham Staghold, a blacksmith, won a £20 premium from the Society of Arts in 1772 for a whale harpoon to be fired from a swivel gun

The Recipes Project: Cooking (Over an Open Fire) In Class

Yovisto: John McCarthy and the Raise of Artificial Intelligence

itv News: Oldest chain bridge in the world’ to re-open in Llangollen

Capitalism’s Cradle: What have Asylum Seekers invented for Us?

Technology’s Stories: Speed!

Early Visual Media: The Stereoscope, Stereo-photography & 3D-Film

EARTH & LIFE SCIENCES:

Letters from Gondwana: “Kunstformen der Natur” (Art Forms of Nature)

Yovisto: Sergei Winogradsky and the Science of Bacteriology

Notches: Her Virginal Members: Chastity and Sexual Desire in the Middle Ages

Aelred of Rievaulx
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Atlas Obscura: Object of Intrigue: Martha, the Last Passenger Pigeon

Historian of Biology William Provine has passed away

NCSE: William B. Provine dies

Natural History Apostilles: The first source for the spinach-iron myth

UCL Museums & Collections Blog: Behind the Mask – Research in the Noel Collection

Public Domain Review: Tribal Life in Old Lyme: Canada’s Colorblind Chronicler and his Connecticut Exile

Science League of America: Huxley’s Paley, Part 1

Yovisto: Max Delbrück and the Genes

Notches: Race, Class, and Sex Education in Early Twentieth-Century South Africa

Royal Historical Society: Joanne Baily ‘Manly bodies in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century England’

Forbes: What Archaeologists Really Think About Ancient Aliens, Lost Colonies, and Fingerprints of God

Native American pictograph (painted rock art) from a panel of images found in Horseshoe/Barrier Canyon, Canyonlands National Park, Utah. (Image via wikimedia commons user Scott Catron, used under a CC BY-SA 3.0 license.)

NCSE: Eric Davidson dies

Bodleian: Marks of Genius: Micrographia

Latintos: Connecting with Alfred Russel Wallace

Mammoth Tales: Mammoths in the News

Making Science Public: Climate wars

Medievalist.net: Pets in the Middle Ages: Evidence from Encyclopedias and Dictionaries

Skulls in the Stars: Spiders and the electric light (1887)

Embryo Project: “The Origin and Behavior of Mutable Loci in Maize” (1950), By Barbara McClintock

CHEMISTRY:

Science Notes: Today in Science History – September 1 – Carl Auer von Welsbach

The University of Glasgow Story: Frederick Soddy

Yovisto: Wilhelm Ostwald and Modern Physical Chemistry

The Guardian: Toxic Shock: Agatha Christie’s poisons

Christie’s toxic tally tops 30 killer compounds, which she uses in a staggering array of creative methods for murder. Photograph: Alamy

META – HISTORIOGRAPHY, THEORY, RESOURCES and OTHER:

JHI Blog: Is There a Philosophy of History Today?

The Recipes Project: Teaching Recipes: A September Series (Vol. II)

Londonis.com: The Geek Goddess of London

Dr Sue Black (photo shared via creative commons).

Scientific American: Cross-Check: Copernicus, Darwin and Freud: A Tale of Science and Narcissism

John Rylands Library Special Collections Blog: Manchester Medical Manuscripts Collection

the many-headed monster: The job market for historians: some data, 1995–2014

The Renaissance Mathematicus: Aristocrats and paupers, farmers and tradesmen –

Where do the scientists come from?

The Atlantic: Introducing the Archive Corps

Countway Library of Medicine: The Archives for Women in Science

University of Leiden: Free Academic Images

MPIHOS: Records of Reception: Framing Knowledge on Asian Art in Early Modern Inventories

MPIHOS: Cabinetizing Art and Knowledge in Early Modern Northern Europe

The #EnvHist Weekly

Medieval Books: Medieval Posters

The H-Word: Britain’s most important historic laboratory is under threat

An early photograph of James Clerk Maxwell’s original Cavendish Laboratory (built 1874). A large archway is due to be knocked through the ground floor of the right-hand wing. From: A History of the Cavendish Laboratory (1910). Photograph: A History of the Cavendish Laboratory (1910)

The Renaissance Mathematicus: The Internet and the history of science community

NYAM: Do You Recognize These Men? Help Us Identify 19^th-century Carte de Visite Photographs

Doc Searls Weblog: Everything we know is provisional

ESOTERIC:

Conciatore: The Dregs

Conciatore: Alchemy in the Kitchen

Tesoro del Mondo, “Ars Preparatio Animalium”
Antonio Neri 1598-1600, f. 10r (MS Ferguson 67).

BOOK REVIEWS:

Forbes: God as Ultimate Artist: Frank Wilczek’s Beautiful Question

Bryn Mawr Classical Review: Emily Albu, The Medieval Peutinger Map: Imperial Roman Revival in a German Empire

Tabula Peutingeriana (section)—top to bottom: Dalmatian coast, Adriatic Sea, southern Italy, Sicily, African Mediterranean coast
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Financial Times: ‘The Invention of Science: A New History of the Scientific Revolution’, by David Wootton

Phys Org: What has science ever done for us?

Biographile: Interconnected Worldview Traced to Source in The Invention of Nature

New Scientist: The Invention of Nature find’s science’s lost hero

Humboldt’s trip to South America inspired Darwin to join the Beagle (Image: BPK/SPSG, Berlin-Brandenburg/Hermann Buresch)

Kirkus: The Hunt for Vulcan …And How Albert Einstein Destroyed a Planet, Discovered Relativity, and Deciphered the Universe

Kirkus: The Planet Remade: How Geoengineering Could Change the World

homunculus: Nature: the biography

NEW BOOKS:

University of Chicago Press: The Territories of Science and Religion

Harvard University Press: The Global Transformation of Time

M Libraries: Digital Conservancy: ‘Many paths to partial truth:’ archives, anthropology, and the power of representation

Armand Colin: Paul Bert… L’inventeur de l’école laïque

Springer: Theory and Practice in the Bioarchaeology of Care

ART & EXHIBITIONS

Royal College of Physicians: Exhibition: Scholar, courtier, magician: the lost library of John Dee January–July 2016

The British Museum: A Walk on the Wild Side Tunbridge Wells Museum 12 June–20 September 2015 Last Chance!

Dundee Science Centre: Nature’s Equations: D’Arcy Thompson and the Beauty of Mathematics

Museum of the Mind: The Maudsley at War: The Story of the Hospital During the Great War Closes 24 September!

THEATRE AND OPERA:

Wallifaction: Alchemy and Avarice: Scientific and Religious Fraud in Ben Jonson’s “The Alchemist” (1610)

Stephen Ouimette at Subtle, the pseudo-alchemist, in the 2015 production at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival.

Stratford Festival: The Alchemist 1 August–3 October

The Guardian: Nicole Kidman: ‘You’re still fighting for your voice in a world that can be male-dominated’

Noël Coward Theatre: Photo 51 Bookings to 21 November 2015

National Theatre: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time 7 September 2015–13 February 2016

FILMS AND EVENTS:

The Genius of George Boole

Public Domain Review: Jacob Sarnoff and the Strange World of Anatomical Filmmaking

A still from the film showing the day old infant’s veins mounted on a board.

Discover Medical London: Walking Tours: London’s Plagues

The Royal Society: Event: Dating species divergence using rocks and clocks 9–10 November 2015

The Royal Society: Where were the women boffins? 20 September 2015

APS Museum: Event: The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt’s New World 17 September 2015

British Photographic History: Symposium: Beyond Vision: Art, Photography and Science 12 September 2015

British Science Festival: How chemistry saved the Caribbean after WWII 10 September 2015

University of Bradford: Love and War: The Mathematical Way 10 September 2015

PAINTING OF THE WEEK:

L0007159 Dispensing of medical electricity. Oil painting by Edmund Br
Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images
images@wellcome.ac.uk
http://wellcomeimages.org
Dispensing of medical electricity. Oil painting by Edmund Bristow, 1824.
Oil
1824 By: Edmund BristowPublished: –
Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons Attribution only licence CC BY 4.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

TELEVISION:

BBC Four: Calculating Ada: The Countess of Computing

SLIDE SHOW:

VIDEOS:

Museo Galileo: Galileo’s trial

Vimeo: Genius of George Boole – Graphics Reel

Youtube: Durham University: The Importance of our own Past: Research at Durham University

Youtube: Royal Society: Objectivity #34 – Pearl of Wisdom

Center for the History of Medicine: Voices from the Archives

Synthtopia: An Introduction to the Mellotron (1965)

RADIO:

Radio New Zealand: National: Cracking the Genetic Code

PODCASTS:

History of Alchemy: First 3 minutes of History of Alchemy E01

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

History of Emotions: CfP: Emotions: Movement, Cultural Contact and Exchange, 11001800 Freie Universität Berlin 30 June–2 July 2016

Medical History Workshop: Images and Texts in Medical History National Institutes of Health campus in Bethesda Maryland 11–13 April 2016

University of Glasgow Dissecting the Page: Medical Paratexts Schedule 11 September 2015

History of Medicine in Ireland: CHOMI Seminar Series Semester One 2015–2016

St Anne’s College Oxford: CfP: Scientiae Oxford 2016 Disciplines of knowing in the early modern world (roughly 1400-1800) 5–7 July 2016

British Library: Lecture: A 17^th Century Revolution 2 November 2015

University of London, Birkbeck: CfP: Religion and Medicine: Healing the Body and Soul from the Middle Ages to the Modern Day 15–16 July 2016

American Association for the History of Medicine: CfP: AAHM Annual Meeting Minneapolis, Minnesota 28 April–1 May 2016

University of London: Institute of Historical Research: Trade, Discovery and Influences in the History of Herbal Medicine 14 October 2015

The British Society for Literature and Science: CfP: BLSL Winter Symposium: Science in the Archives Museum of English Rural Life and University of Reading’s Special Collections, 14 November 2015

University of Plymouth: CfP: 3-day Conference: Gender, Power, and Materiality in Early Modern Europe, 1500–1800 7–9 April 2016

Notches: CfP: Histories of Asian/Asian American Sexualities

the daily: How has midwifery, child birth changed throughout history? Find out at Dittrick Museum of Medical History event 24 September 2015

Museo Nazionale della Scienza e della Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci, Milan: Scientific Heritage at World Exhibitions and Beyond. The Long XXth Century 20-22 September 2015

Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis: CfP: The History of Science and Contemporary Scientific Realism 19-21 February 2016

British Library: Lecture: The Mapping of Cyprus 1485–1885 25 September 2015

SocPhilSciPract: CfP Metasciences: New Trends in Metaphysics of Science Paris 16–18 December 2015

SHARP 2016 Panel: CfP: The Languages of the Medical Book Paris 18-21 July

University of Cambridge: CRASSH: The Matter of Mimesis 17–18 December 2015

Notches: CfP: Histories of Sexuality and Religion

Leopoldina: Die Ordnungen der Dinge 5–7 October 2015

Canadian Journal of History Special Issue: CfP: The Early Modern Military-Medical Complex

Historiens de la santé: CfP: Medicine and Manuscripts 900–1150 Kalamazoo 2016

LOOKING FOR WORK:

Aarhus University: Postdoc position (2 years): Histories of thought experiments

HSS: NSF-Funded Travel Grants for 2015 HSS Meeting Deadline 30 September!

University of Edinburgh: European Research Council PhD Studentship: Philosophy of Science

Natual Reserve System: University of California: ISEECI Postdoctoral Fellowship in California Ecological and/or Environmental History

Danish Council for Independent Research: Intuitions in Science and Philosophy 2 Postdocs and I PhD Student

Yale University: Senior Tenured Appointment History of Science

Washington University: Assistant Professor History of Medicine

Purdue University: R. Mark Lubbers Chair in the History of Science

Society for Renaissance Studies: Conference Grants

SocPhilSciPract: University of Geneva: PhD Position in Philosophy of Physics or Philosophy of Science

AHF: Fall 2015 Intern

University of Pittsburgh: Associate/Full Professor of History and Philosophy of Science

Whewell’s Gazette

Your weekly digest of all the best of

Internet history of science, technology and medicine

Editor in Chief: The Ghost of William Whewell

Year 2, Volume #09

Monday 14 September 2015

EDITORIAL:

It seems that we have just finished posting one edition of Whewell’s Gazette your weekly #histSTM links list when another one comes steaming full tilt around the corner carrying with it the best of the histories of science, technology and medicine that it could pick up in the last seven days in the Internet.

In recent times there has been much news in the science journals about the reproducibility of experimental results or rather the failure to reproduce them. A lot of these reports seem to think that this is a modern phenomenon caused by whatever bogey man that the writer has chosen to hang the blame on. However if these science writers had a better grounding in the history of science they would realise that this problem has been around since people have been doing science.

There have been both cases of genuine discoveries that contemporaries failed to confirm in their attempts to repeat the experiments and cases of discoveries that weren’t discoveries at all.

Just to take a couple of cases from the seventeenth century. Newton was attacked from all sides when he first announced his discovery that white light was actually a mixture of the whole colour spectrum. Much of that criticism was based on theoretical grounds but some of it was that others failed to obtain his results when repeating his prism experiments. In this case the blame lay on the poor quality of the glass prisms available but it did delay the acceptance of his theory considerably.

Earlier in the century many ‘discoveries’ were made and published with the new telescope that other observers were completely unable to confirm. This missing confirmation was because the discoveries weren’t discoveries at all but optical illusions caused by various factors. Francesco Fontana, a noted constructor of telescopes, even published a whole book of such discoveries, his Novae coelestium terrestriumq[ue] rerum observationes, et fortasse hactenus non vulgatae from 1645.

The progress of science is never smooth but proceeds by fits and starts.

Quotes of the week:

“In other words, don’t continually re-invent the wheel, use the tools that are already out there…” – Sophia Collins (@sophiacol)

I do not wish them [women] to have power over men; but over themselves.” – Mary Wollstonecraft

“Striking that in her 1953 Nature article, Franklin thanks Crick, Wilkins and Stokes “for discussion”, but *not* Watson”. – Matthew Cobb (@matthewcobb)

“’I’ve been a very bad girl,’ she said, biting her lip. ‘I need to be punished.’

‘Very well,’ he said and installed Windows 10 on her laptop”. – @50NerdsofGrey

“The duty we owe to history is to rewrite it.” – Oscar Wilde

“Writing is nature’s way of letting you know how sloppy your thinking is.” – Guindon

“Math is nature’s way of letting you know how sloppy your writing is.” – Leslie Lamport

“Formal math is nature’s way of letting you know how sloppy your math is.” – Leslie Lamport h/t @JohnDCook

“Algebra is the offer made by the devil to the mathematician. The devil says: I will give you this powerful machine, it will answer any question you like. All you need to do is give me your soul: give up geometry and you will have this marvellous machine”. —Sir Michael Atiyah, 2002 h/t @divbyzero

“Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted”. – Ralph Waldo Emerson h/@Fayway

Birthdays of the Week:

Jacque Boucher de Crèvecoeur de Parthes born 10 September 1788

Boucher de Perthes
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Yovisto: Jacques de Perthes and European Archaeology

Encyclopaedia Britannica: Jacque Boucher de Perthes

August Kekulé born 7 September 1829

Science Notes: Today in Science Histoy –September 7 – August Kekulé

PHYSICS, ASTRONOMY & SPACE SCIENCE:

Yovisto: James van Allen and the Weather in Space

Yovisto: Edward Appleton and the Ionosphere

The Washington Post: Richard G. Hewlett

Verso: Women Computing the Stars

Unidentified women and men standing outside the Mount Wilson Observatory’s Pasadena office, where women computers made the calculations necessary to answer some of the most profound questions in the field of astronomy during the early part of the 20th century. Detail from a photo taken on April 14, 1917, by an unknown photographer. The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens.

Voices of the Manhattan Project: Leroy Jackson and Ernest Wende’s Interview

Astronomical Society of the Pacific: Women in Astronomy: An Introductory Resource Guide

Voices of the Manhattan Project: David Hall’s Interview

ABC News: The old Perth observatory: From isolated weather station to centre of history

AIP: Arthur Holly Compton 1892–1962

AIP: Betty Compton – Session I

Corpus Newtonicum: Newton, the Man or: of valuable lists and juicy quotes

about education: J.J. Thomson Biography

Voices of the Manhattan Project: John W. Healy’s Interview

History NASA: Emblems of Exploration (pdf)

Science Notes: Today in Science History – September 11 – Harvey Fletcher

Yovisto: Irène Joliot-Curie and Artificial Radioactivity

Irène and Marie Curie
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Highbrow: Leó Szilárd

Science Notes: Today in Science History – September 12 – Moon

EXPLORATION and CARTOGRAPHY:

Royal Museums Greenwich: Looking across the Atlantic in 18^th-century maps

in propria persona: On the legal basis for English possession of North America

Halley’s Log: Halley writes from Dartmouth

Halley’s Log: Paramore pink at Spithead

Chart of Spithead by William Heather, 1797; Spithead is the channel north-east of the Isle of Wight (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Yovisto: Henry Hudson’s Voyages in North America

MEDICINE & HEALTH:

Public Health: Worldly approaches to global health: 1851 to the present

Remedia: Showing the Instruments: Vesalius and the Tools of Surgery and Anatomy

Andreas Vesalius, De humani corporis fabrica, Instruments (© National Library of Medicine).

University of Glasgow Library: Pox, pustules and pestilence A history of syphilis treatment

BBC: Silicon Valley’s 91-year-old designer

Thomas Morris: A 19^th-century doctor’s guide to etiquette

Thomas Morris: Do no harm – unless it’s a criminal

Center for the History of Medicine: On View: Post-mortem set in wooden case, 1860–1880

Yovisto: Marthe Louise Vogt and the Neurotransmitters

Marthe Louise Vogt

Yovisto: Bernard Siegfried Albinus and his Anatomic Works

Slate: Phineas Gage, Neuroscience’s Most Famous Patient

Yovisto: Thomas Sydenham – the English Hippocrates

Thomas Morris: The self-inflicted lithotomy

Academia: When foods became remedies in ancient Greece: The curious case of garlic and other substances

Center for the History of Medicine: Oral History: Carola Eisenberg

Center for the History of Medicine: Anne Pappenheimer Forbes

Photograph of Anne Pappenheimer Forbes, M.D.
1962

io9: Early Forensics Helped Solve England’s Gruesome “Jigsaw Murders” Case

A Covent Garden Gilflurt’s Guide to Life: A Gruesome Tale of Self-Surgery

Yovisto: Phineas Gage’s Accident and the Science of the Mind and the Brain

TECHNOLOGY:

Science & Society: Picture Library: Johnson the First Rider on the Pedestrian Hobbyhorse, 1819

Visualising Late Antiquity: Going Down the Drain in Late Antiquity

Trans Newcomen Soc: Humphrey Gainsborough (1718–1776) Cleric Engineer and Inventor (pdf)

Medium: Close at Hand: A Pocket History of Technology

Georgian Gentleman: When cotton was king… a visit to Quarry Bank Mill

Conciatore: A Very Good Run

James S. Huggins’ Refrigerator Door: First Computer Bug

Science Notes: September 9 – Today in Science History – First Computer Bug

Dark Roasted Blend: Antique Digital Calculators & Other Steampunk Gear

Yovisto: Émile Baudot and his Telegraph

Yovisto:Harvey Fletcher – the Father of Stereophonic Sound

Zen Pencils: Robert Goddard

Jalopnik: That Victorian-Living Couple is Just Playing Dress-up Until They Get A Real Victorian Car

Nautilus: This Used To Be the Future

Science Notes: Storm Glass Barometer Pendant Instructions

The Guardian: Battle to save historic rail line that heralded the age of science

EARTH & LIFE SCIENCES:

Yovisto: Comte de Buffon and his Histoire Naturelle

Notches: Women’s Experiences in Fornication and Paternity Suits in Massachusetts, 1740–1800

Archaeodeath: The Dead at the Hunterian

Medievalist.net: Ten Strange Medieval Ideas about Animals

University of Cambridge: Research: What is a monster?

Smithsonian: NMNH: Unassuming Octocoral Collected over 55 Years Ago Found to be New Genus and Species

The Plate: Contrary to Popular Belief, the Modern Pig has Many Parents

ars technica uk: Scientific Method/Science & Exploration: Humans aren’t so special after all: The Fuzzy evolutionary boundaries of Homo Sapiens

Ellen Hutchins: Ireland’s First Female Botanist

Natural History Museum (2014). http://data.nhm.ac.uk/specimen/a47cd2ee-3c50-498e-be1b-bd2c941f4f61

AMNH: Green Frogs Mating & Frog Dissection

Penn Biographies: Joseph Leidy (1823–1891)

Letters from Gondwana: The Legacy of Ulisse Aldrovani

Yovisto: Luigi Galvani’s Discoveries in Bioelectricity

Mirror: Charles Darwin confessed his atheism in a private letter which has gone up for auction

NMNH: Human Family Tree

Trowelblazers: Rising Star Trowelblazers

Embryo Project: Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002)

Audubon: Sketch: The Oilbird: Is This Thing Even a Bird

AMNH: Wonderful World of Wasp Nests

Smithsonian.com: Four Species of Homo You’ve Never Heard Of

The Atlantic: 6 Tiny Cavers, 15 Odd Skeletons, and 1 Amazing New Species of Ancient Human

Hyperallergic: A 17^th-Century Woman Artist’s Butterfly Journey

Maria Sibylla Merian, Plate 49 from ‘Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium’ (1705) (courtesy Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg, Frankfurt)

Anita Guerrini: History, animals, science, food: The biologist in the ashram (with a walk-on by Harpo Marx)

Science Notes: Today in Science History – September 13 – Hans Christian Joachim Gram

CHEMISTRY:

Science Notes: Today in Science History – September 8 – Willard Frank Libby

CHF: Prototype for the Perkin-Elmer Model 12 Infrared Spectrophotometer

Science Notes: September 10 – Today in Science History – Waldo Semon

Waldo Semon – Discovered plasticized PVC or vinyl. Credit: Washington University Chemical Engineering Department

META – HISTORIOGRAPHY, THEORY, RESOURCES and OTHER:

Communication of the ACM: Innovators Assemble: Ada Lovelace, Walter Isaacson, and the Superheroines of Computing

Double Refraction: Histories of science as murder mysteries, or: Steven Weinberg as Henning Mankell

Inside the Science Museum: From Moscow to the Museum

The Recipes Project: First Monday Library Chat: National Library of Scotland

The #EnvHist Weekly

The Recipes Project: Giving Welsh Pupils a Flavour of Antiquity

Technologies of Daily Life: Schools Day. Image courtesy of Evelien Bracke.

Springer Link: History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences: Special Issue: Experimentation in Twentieth-Century Agricultural Science Contents Page

Niche: Cultivation

William Savage: Pen and Pension: Censoring History

Prospect: Science is fallible, just like us

JHI Blog: Global Microhistory: One or Two Things That I Know About It

CHoM News: Follow us on Twitter and Instagram @HarvardHistMed

Fiction Reboot: Daily Dose: The Act of Becoming: History and Process

The Newsstand: Clemson professor delving into the foundation of scientific philosophy

Stanford News: After 20 years, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy thrives on the web

The Recipes Project: History Bound Up in Every Bite: Food, Environment, and Recipes in the Western Civ Survey

Double Refraction: Lorraine Daston on history as fiction – critical thoughts

Nautilus: Why Futurism Has a Cultural Blindspot

Concocting History: A perfume of Syria

Second century Roman glass. Some of these bottles may have contained perfume. Source: Wikipedia.

Six Degrees of Francis Bacon: Reassembling the early modern social network

Early Modern Experimental Philosophy: Leibniz’s early reflections on natural history and experiment

ESOTERIC:

Conciatore: Don Giovanni

Don Giovanni di Cosimo I de’ Medici

Academia: Court Astrologers and Historical Writing in Early Abbasid Baghdad: An Appraisal (pdf)

Enchanted History: New Blog on Witchcraft in Early Modern England and Beyond

UCL: Museums & Collections Blog: Robert Noel and the ‘Science’ of Phrenology

Conciatore: Stonework

BOOK REVIEWS:

The New Rambler: Sleight of Hand

Nature: Genetics: Dawkins, redux

The History of Emotions Blog: History in British Tears

Popular Science: A is for Arsenic – Kathryn Harkup

THE: The Invention of Science: A New History of the Scientific Revolution, by David Wootton

Review 31: Against Nature Sex Addiction: A Critical History

The Spectator: Did Hans Asperger save children from the Nazis – or sell them out?

homunculus: Nature: the biography

Forbes: Ancient Guides, Ancient Science, And A Virtual Academy For Idlers

NEW BOOKS:

Historiens de la santé: Mental health nursing: The working lives of paid carers, 1800s–1900s

Colossal: New Japanese Paper Notebooks Featuring Vintage Science Illustrations Merged with Hand-embroidery

University of Chicago Press: Making “Nature” The History of a Scientific Journal

Historiens de la santé: A History of Male Psychological Disorders in Britain, 1945–1980

Historiens de la santé: Cultural Politics of Hygiene in India, 1890–1940: Contagions of Feeling

ART & EXHIBITIONS

Mystic Seaport – The Museum of America and the Sea: Ships Clocks & Stars 19 September 2015–28 March 2016

Captain James Cook (1728-1779), by William Hodges. Cook relied on chronometers in his later voyages. Image courtesy National Maritime Museum.

Science Museum: Cosmonauts: Birth of the Space Age Opens 18 September 2015

Royal Society: Seeing Closer: 350 years of microscopy 29 June–23 November 2015

Museum of the History of Science: Henry Moseley: A Scientist Lost to War 4 Weeks Till Exhibition Closes!

THEATRE AND OPERA:

The Guardian: Nicole Kidman admits to nerves before stage return in Photograph 51

Buxton Opera House: The Trials of Galileo 21 September – International Tour: March 2014–December 2017

FILMS AND EVENTS:

ICCESS: The Time Travelling Operating Theatre

L0001839 A surgical operation being performed, circa 1900.
Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images
images@wellcome.ac.uk
http://wellcomeimages.org
A surgical operation being performed by W.G. Spencer and others at the Westminster Hospital, London.
Photograph
circa 1900 Broadway
Published: 1900

Royal Asiatic Society: Brian Houghton Hodgson Study Day 26 September 2015

Philly Voice: Games & debate abound at Women in Science event 19 September 2015

BBC: Steve Wozniak: Shocked and amazed by Steve Jobs movie

Royal Society: Open House Weekend 2015 19–20 September

Oxford Playhouse: Charles Simonyi Lecture: Putting the Higgs Boson in its Place

Westminster Arts Library: London Plague: Sick City 24 September 2015

The Heritage Alliance: The H word: ‘heritage’ revisited

Royal Society: Hooke’s microscopic world 19 September 2015

Royal Society: Scientific conflict through the ages 20 September 2015

Royal Society: Darwin and the evolution of emotion 19 September 2015

Royal Society: A 13th century theory of everything 19 September 2015

PAINTING OF THE WEEK:

Galileo before the Holy Office, by Joseph-Nicolas Robert-Fleury

TELEVISION:

pbs: NOVA: Dawn of Humanity

AHF: Manhattan: Season One Recaps

SLIDE SHOW:

Scientific American: Good and Bad Inventions from 1865

Diving Mask An inventor in Braddock’s Field, Penn, added a simple valve to the mouthpiece for exhaling and inhaling air.

VIDEOS:

History of Alchemy Podcast Presents: Rudolf Two Trippin Cam

Youtube: Podcastnik: History of Alchemy Episode 1: Introduction

CHF: Making and Knowing (fake) Coral

Wikimedia Commons: How to edit Wikipedia – RSC series – Andy Mabbett

Youtube: BSHS Plenary Lecture: Iwan Morus Wales, science and Welsh science

Youtube: Anna Ziegler talks about writing Rosalind Franklin for ‘Photograph 51’

Vimeo: Train Journeys in to Manchester in 1850

Youtube: Berkeley Lab Founder Ernest O. Lawrence Demonstrates the Cyclotron Concept

RADIO:

BBC World Service: Discovery: Death of a Physicist

BBC Radio 4: An Eye for Pattern: The Letters of Dorothy Hodgkin

Molecular model of penicillin by Dorothy Hodgkin, c. 1945
Source: Wikimedia Commons

BBC Radio 4: Computing Britain

PODCASTS:

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

University of Warwick: CfP: Shaping the Shelf: Print culture and the construction of collective identity (1460–1660) 5 March 2016

Royal Society: Open House: #histsci lectures 19-20 September 2015

University of Durham: Where Science and Society Meet 23–24 September 2015

CHF: Brown Bag Lectures Fall 2015

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Werkgroep 18e eeuw: CfP: Flavours of the Eighteenth Century Brussels 10-11 March 2016

SSHM: CfP: Religion and Medicine: Healing the Body and Soul from the Middle Ages to the Modern Day Birckbeck College 15-16 July 2016

St John’s College Oxford: Architecture and Experience in the Nineteenth Century 17–18 March 2016

Spinoza Research Newtwork: CfP: Life and Death in Early Modern Philosophy Birckbeck College 14–16 April 2016

Edmonton, Alberta, Canada: CfP: Eighth Joint Meeting BSHS, CSHPS, and HSS 22–25 June 2016

Durham University: CN-CS: CfP: One day Conference: Victorian Culture and the Origin of Disciplines 12 March 2016

International Cartographical Association: Announcement of the 1^st International Workshop on the Origin and Evolution of Portolan Lisbon, Portugal Charts 5-6 June 2016

Wellcome Library Blog: History of Pre-Modern Medicine seminar series 2015–2016

National Maritime Museum Greenwich: CfP: From Sea to Sky: the Evolution of Air Navigation from the Ocean and Beyond 10 June 2016

Institute of Welsh Maritime Historical Studies: 7th Annual Conference of MOROL 31 October 2015

National Maritime Museum: Maritime History and Culture Seminars 2015–16

Leipzig & Hannover: Leibniz Summer School 7–16 July 2016

LOOKING FOR WORK:

University of Uppsala: 1-2 Ph.D. positions in History of Science and Ideas linked to the research programme “Medicine at the Borders of Life: Foetal Research and the Emergence of Ethical Controversy in Sweden”

University of Uppsala: 1-2 Postdoctoral positions in History of Science and Ideas linked to the research programme “Medicine at the Borders of Life: Foetal Research and the Emergence of Ethical Controversy in Sweden”

HSS: Dependent Care Grant Application – 2015 Meeting

Norwegian University of Science and Technology: PhD Positions at the NTNU, Faculty of Humanities

University of Vienna: 1 Doctoral Student Position & 6 Associate Positions The Sciences in Historical, Philosophical and Cultural Contexts

South East DTC: ESRC Postgraduate Funding

Whewell’s Gazette

Your weekly digest of all the best of

Internet history of science, technology and medicine

Editor in Chief: The Ghost of William Whewell

Year 2, Volume #10

Monday 21 September 2015

EDITORIAL:

Another seven days have slipped by and once again it’s time for Whewell’s Gazette the weekly #histSTM links list bringing its eager readers the best from the last seven days of the histories of science, technology and medicine swept up from the distance corners of cyberspace for their perusal and delectation.

The history of science theatre event of the year is without any doubt Nicole Kidman making a rare appearance on the London stage as Rosalind Franklin in “Photograph 51”. Unfortunately the play, which is not new, perpetuates a major history of science myth in its very title. The myth says that Maurice Wilkins showed Franklin’s x-ray crystallography photograph 51 of DNA to James Watson without her permission and he was able to solve the structure of DNA upon seeing it.

As Matthew Cobb has clearly shown in his new book Life’s Great Secret nearly everything in this story is false. Photograph 51 was not made by Franklin but by Raymond Gosling who had been Wilkins’ doctoral student, was then transferred to Franklin and then back to Wilkins’ as Franklin decided to leave the King’s College laboratory. At the time Wilkins showed the photo to Watson he was Gosling’s doctoral supervisor and so was perfectly entitled to do so, although whether he was wise to do so is another question. More important despite the claims he made in his book, The Double Helix, Watson would not have been able to determine the structure of DNA from this photo.

More interestingly it was Crick who actually derived the structure of DNA using, amongst other things, data from Franklin’s work that she herself had made public in a lecture that Crick attended.

It is interesting to see how the critics reacted to this new historical information. In her review in the Telegraph Kate Mulcahy claims that “The debate rages on” whilst at the same time linking to Cobb’s earlier Guardian article laying out the true facts; in my opinion more than somewhat disingenuous. In his excellent review in the Guardian, Stephen Curry points out that “the real story is…more complex” (with reference to the use of Photograph 51) whilst linking in a footnote to the Cobb article with the comment. Matthew Cobb’s recent article gives an efficient summary of the facts of the matter”.

Whatever it would appear from the review that the piece is well worth going to see.

Noël Coward Theatre: Photograph 51 Till 21 November 2015

Nicole Kidman as Rosalind Franklin Photograph: Johan Persson/Johan Persson
Source: The Guardian

The New York Times: In ‘Photograph 51’, Nicole Kidman Is a Steely DNA Scientist

The Telegraph: Rosalind Franklin should be a feminist icon – we women in science need her more than ever

The Guardian: Photograph 51: how do you bring science to the stage?

New Scientist: Photograph 51: Inside the race to understand DNA

Quotes of the week:

“Genius and science have burst the limits of space, and few observations, explained by just reasoning, have unveiled the mechanism of the universe. Would it not also be glorious for men to burst the limits of time, and, by a few observations, to ascertain the history of this world, and the series of events which preceded the birth of the human race?” – Georges Cuvier h/t @hist_astro

“Every book is the wreck of a perfect idea.” – Iris Murdoch h/t @askpang

“In the UK we call them lifts but in the US they call them elevators, because we’re raised differently”. – Moose Allain (@MooseAllain)

“Does anyone know what the smallest number is that can’t be described in a single tweet?” – Guy Longworth (@GuyLongworth)

Ding dong dell

Pussy’s in the well

Who put her in?

Schrödinger, Erwin

What is her state?

Indeterminate – Matthew Hankins (@mc_hankins)

He was very careful during bondage sessions. He always used a safe word that contained upper and lower case letters and at least one number. – @50Nerds of Grey

[History] does not use induction or deduction, it does not demonstrate, it narrates. —Collingwood discussing Croce. h/t @gabridli

Birthday of the Week:

John Goodricke born 17 September 1764

Yovisto: John Goodricke and the Variable Star Persei

teleskopos: Sights and sounds: darkness and silence

Alexander von Humboldt born 14 September 1769

Portrait of Alexander von Humboldt by Friedrich Georg Weitsch, 1806
Source: Wikimedia Commons

New Scientist: The Invention of Nature finds science’s lost hero

National Geographic: Why Is the Man Who Predicted Climate Change Forgotten?

PHYSICS, ASTRONOMY & SPACE SCIENCE:

Inside the Science Museum: Russia’s 19^th century cosmic pioneers

Science Notes: Today in Science History – September 14 – Charles François de Cisternay du Fay

Charles François de Cisternay du Fay
Source: Wikimedia Commons

arXiv: 100 Years of General Relativity (pdf)

Scientific American: Guest Blog: Paris: City of lights and cosmic rays

AIP: Murray Gell-Mann

New Science Theory: William Gilbert On The Magnet (Full text English New Translation)

Forbes: New Evidence The Nazis Didn’t Come close to the Bomb

Starts with a Bang: Maxwell’s Unification Revolution

World Digital Library: Explanation of the Telescope

journals.cambridge.org: Connecting Heaven and Man: The role of astronomy in ancient Chinese society and culture

The Timaru Herald: Big telescope with an even bigger history to be restored in Fairlie

The historic Brashear telescope will be the centrepiece of the new Astronomy Centre built by Earth and Sky near the shore of Lake Tekapo.
Source: The Timaru Herald

In the Dark: A Botanic Garden of Planets

guff: Einstein’s Amazing Scientific Contemporaries That Changed the World

EXPLORATION and CARTOGRAPHY:

BuzzFeed News: The Wreck of HMS Erebus: How a Landmark Discovery Triggered a Fight for Canada’s History

Scientific Data: Roads and cities of 18^th century France

PBA Galleries: The Warren Heckrotte Collection of Rare Cartography

Miguel Costansó’s Carta Reducida Del Oceano Asiatico, Ó Mar Del Sur – See more at: http://www.pbagalleries.com/content/2015/09/14/the-warren-heckrotte-collection-of-rare-cartography/#sthash.KgAcxIEl.dpuf

globes.consciencebibliotek.be: Erfgoed Antwerpen, Blaeu Globes

MEDICINE & HEALTH:

Dr Alun Withey: Medicine in a Vacuum – Practitioners in Early Modern Wales

Yovisto: William Budd and the Infectious Diseases

storify: Things I’m going to miss teaching my medical students

Embryo Project: Margaret Higgins Sanger (1879–1966)

Margaret Sanger in 1922
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Center for the History of Medicine: Barbara Barlow

Morbid Anatomy Museum: Anatomical Atlases Digitized

19^th Century-Disability Cultures and Contexts: Talking Gloves

Thomas Morris: The supernumerary leg

Science Notes: Today in Science History – September 17 – Guillaume-Benjamin-Amand Duchenne du Boulogne

Thomas Morris: Give that man a medal

Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow: Glasgow Surgical Instrument Makers

Newman’s cytoscope for examination of the bladder by John Trotter Ltd.

Thomas Morris: Nutmeg is the best spice for students

The Harvard Crimson: Harvard Field Hospital Unit Active in England

Academia: Typhoid Fever and Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, 1891

Remedia: Gossip, News and Manners: the Barber-Surgeon in 16^th Century Italy

Thomas Morris: The mystery of the poisonous cheese

The Medicine Chest: Mapping histories of medicine

TECHNOLOGY:

Conciatore: The Discovery of Glass

English Heritage: 5 Clocks Which Tell the Story of Time

The Grandfather Clock at Mount Grace Priory
Source: English Heritage

Capitalism’s Cradle: How many industrial Revolutions?

Teyler’s Museum: Dompelbatterij

99% Invisible: Episode 180: Reefer Madness

Yovisto: Happy Birthday Linux

Tux the penguin, mascot of Linux
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Contributor: Decoding Alan’s apple

Leaping Robot: Frank Malina’s Cosmos

Still image of Malina’s Vortex and 3 Molecules (1965)
Source: Leaping Robot

EARTH & LIFE SCIENCES:

Why Evolution is True: The duck-faced lacewing, its baby and an ancient Egyptian inscription

York Daily Record: Dover Intelligent Design trial: 10 years later

3 Quarks Daily: The Scopes “Monkey Trial”, Part 1: Issues, Fact, and Fiction

Scopes in 1925
Source: Wikimedia Commons

3 Quarks Daily: The Scopes “Monkey Trial”, Part 2: Evidence, Confrontation, Resolution, Consequences

AMNH: Digitizing Darwin’s Work

Hakai Magazine: The Great Quake and the Great Drowning

Embryo Project: Wilhelm Roux (1850–1924)

Google Cultural Institute: Historic Moments: Beauty from Nature: Art of the Scott Sisters

Notches: Revisiting Loves Golden Age

Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience: Mechanical Neuroscience: Emil du Bois-Reymond’s Innovations in Theory and Practice

The Guardian: Revealed: how Indigenous Australian storytelling accurately records sea level rises 7,000 years ago

Indigenous rock art in Kakadu national park in the Northern Territory. Researchers say stories about sea level rises in Australia date back though more than 7,000 years of continuous oral tradition. Photograph: Helen Davidson for the Guardian

Jacob Darwin Hamblin: The Atom does not wait for favors from nature

The Raw Story: The ‘missing link’ in evolution is a myth that comes from medieval theology not modern science

Public Domain Review: Dr Mitchill and the Mathematical Tetrodon

PNAS.org: Strong upslope shifts in Chimborazo’s vegetation over two centuries since Humboldt (pdf)

Notches: Out in the Open: Rural Life, Respectability, and the Nudist Park

NCSE: Huxley’s Paley, Part 3

News Works: How Old Faithful earned its name

Until Darwin: The “American School”: A brief timeline of the Monogenist/polygenist Debate

Until Darwin: Digital Biography for the Works Cited in Darwin’s “A Historical Sketch of the Recent Progress of Opinion on the Origin of Species” (Updated)

Geschichte der Geologie: Von den Untiefen der Meere zu den Gipfeln der Welt

University of Cambridge: Research: The Magna Carta of scientific maps

Sigmund & Jocelyn: Fine Art: Birdman 1: George Edwards

Artist George Edwards
Source: Sigmund & Jocelyn

Embryo Project: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (1890– )

Why Evolution is True: Another DNA anniversary, which ells a different story from the textbooks

Current Biology: Oswald Avery, DNA, and the transformation of biology

New Historian: Navy Drove Fishing Globalisation in 16^th Century England

CHEMISTRY:

Science Notes: Today in Science History – September 15 – Aleksandr Mikhaylovich Butlerov

Conciatore: Deadly Fumes

The Renaissance Mathematicus: A breath of fresh air

Stephen Hales
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Science Notes: Today in Science History – September 18 – Edwin Mattison McMillan

META – HISTORIOGRAPHY, THEORY, RESOURCES and OTHER:

Creator unknown

Lady Science: Issue 12: The Pill in America: Subscribe!

oral contraceptives, 1970s
Source: Wikimedia Commons

University of Glasgow Library: Themes from Smith and Rousseau: the best and the worst aspects of archival research

Now Appearing: On a Bacon Hunt

Double Refraction: Is it post-modern to be present-centred? Thoughts prompted by Nick Tosh

American Science: We’re Back, or, Monday on the Blog with George

Bookplate of George Sarton
Source: Wikimedia Commons

The Recipes Project: Teaching High School American History With Cookbooks

the many-headed monster: What is to be done? Mending academic history

NHM: Digital Museum: Mobilising the world’s natural history collections for the benefit of human well-being

The Renaissance Mathematicus: When Living in the Past Distorts the Past; Or, Why I Study the Victorian Era

Forbes: History as Big Data: 500 Years of Book Images and Mapping Million of Books

The Recipes Project: Spicing up the Victorians: Teaching Mrs. Beeton’s Recipe for Mango Chutney

Niche: New Scholars New Links

History in Photographs: Vintage Harvard

Observatory group, ca. 1910

The Renaissance Mathematicus: Revolution contra Gradualism: Let the debate begin

International Commission on the History of Meteorology: History of Meteorology – Volume 7 (2015) Contents Page

Macro-Typography: Glory of Asia

Chronologia Universalis: On the Road: In Royal Prussia

The Washington Post: How publishing a 35,000-word manifesto led to the Unabomber

A view from the bridge: The undisciplinarian

Making Science Public: Naturel/artificial

ESOTERIC:

Forbidden Histories: Two Years of ‘Forbidden Histories’

Academia: Scientific rationalism, occult empiricism? Representations of the microphysical world, c. 1900

Hermetic.com: The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz (full text English)

Conciatore: A Network of Alchemists

“The Alchemist” 1558, Pieter Brugle the Elder.

British Library: Digitised Manuscripts: Alchemical Rolls (The Ripley Scrolls)

BOOK REVIEWS:

Science Book a Day: House Guests, House Pests: A Natural History of Animals in the Home

University of Glasgow Library: Glasgow Incunabula Project Update: The Nuremberg Chronicle

Academia: Women at the Edge of Science

Public Books: Speaking in Science

Elle Thinks: Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson

The Independent: The Royal Society Winton Prize: Top scientists and shortlisted authors share that have excited them

Science Book a Day: The Value of Believing in Yourself: The Story of Louis Pasteur

NEW BOOKS:

VRIN: Alzheimer La vie, la mort, la reconnaissance

Renaissance Mathematicus: The growing pile – too many good books not enough time

Historiens de la santé: Soigner le cancer au XVIIIe siècle. Triomphe et déclin de la thérapie par la ciguë dans le Journal de Médecine

Palgrave Macmillan: Psychiatry in Communist Europe

Academia: Dis/unity of Knowledge: Models for the Study of Modern Esotericism and Science

David Wootton: The Invention of Science Web Site

Museum Boerhaave: Stripboek: Ehrenfest!

ART & EXHIBITIONS

Science Museum: Cosmonauts: Birth of the Space Age Opens 18 September 2015

Galileo’s World: e-newsletter September

BBC: Tenby man who invented the equals sign remembered in exhibit

The first known equation, equivalent to 14x+15=71 in modern syntax.
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Museum Boerhaave: Einstein & Friends 19 September 2015–3 January 2016

Science Museum: Julia Margaret Cameron: Influence and Intimacy 24 September 2015–28 March 2016

Painting of Julia Margaret Cameron by George Frederic Watts, c. 1850-1852
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Dundee Science Centre: Nature’s Equations: D’Arcy Thompson and the Beauty of Mathematics Till 25 October 2015

Science Museum: Cosmos and Culture Till 31 December 2015

The Old Operating Theatre, Museum & Herb Garret: The Operating Theatre

THEATRE AND OPERA:

Gielgud Theatre: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time Till 18 June 2016

FILMS AND EVENTS:

Florence Nightingale Museum: Please, Matron! Dramatic reconstruction of a 1900 lecture to nursing students 22 October 2015

Florence Nightingale Museum: Meet the Florence Nightingale Museum Curator 28 September 2015

Victoria University in the University of Toronto: Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies: Early Modern Interdisciplinary Graduate Forum I: Adam Richter Biblical History in the Natural Philosophy of John Wallis (plus other talks) 6 October

Bodleian Library: Women in Science: Wikipedia improve-a thon 14 October

Wellcome Library: A celebration of Elizabeth Garrett Anderson and 150 years of medicine 29 September 2015

Elizabeth Garrett Anderson

RGU Sport, Aberdeen: Journey to the Centre of the Earth 29 September 2015

Surgeon’s Hall Museum Edinburgh: Leonardo da Vinci: The Mechanics of Man Lecture 28 September 2015

PAINTING OF THE WEEK:

The student of chemistry and pharmacy by Karl Joseph Litschaur
Source: Wikigallery.org

TELEVISION:

PBS America: 1,000 Days of Fear: The Deadly Race at Los Alamos

SLIDE SHOW:

Fadesingh: The Age of Games: Black Magic, Mathematics, Automata & Games

VIDEOS:

Youtube: The Einstein Theory of Relativity (Max Fleischer, 1923)

Youtube: Tidal predicting machine Part II

Youtube: How the Moon Affects the Ocean Tides – Tides and the Moon – CharlieDeanArchive / Archival Footage

Youtube: Visita do físico Albet Einstein ao Brasil completa 90 anos

RADIO:

BBC: Ada Lovelace: Letters shed light on tech visionary

BBC: Computing Britain

PODCASTS:

Nevada Public Radio: Even Einstein Made Mistakes

Physics Buzz Blog: A Time Capsule of the Universe

Science for the People: Eye of the Beholder

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

HaPoC 2015: 3^rd International Conference on the History and Philosophy of Computing Pisa Italy 8–11 October 2015

Advances in the History of Psychology: Workshop: Photography, Representation, and Therapy Villa Di Breme Oven, Via Martinelli 23 in Cinisello Balsamo 24 September

MPIWG: Art and Knowledge in Pre-Modern Europe” Colloquia 2015/16

BSECS: CfP: BSECS 45^th Annual Conference St Hugh’s College Oxford 6-8 January 2016

Athens: Workshop: Science Fiction. Jules Verne and 19^th Century Science 17–18 December 2015

Almagest: CfP: Special issues Science fiction in the framework of science and literature studies Deadline 15 December 2015

University of Cambridge: History of Medicine Seminars

University of Paderborn: International Workshop: Emilie du Châtelet – Laws of Nature/Laws of Morals 23–24 October 2015

Advances in the History of Psychology: Round up: Calls for Papers in Allied Fields

LOOKING FOR WORK:

H–Physical Sciences: American Physical Society StudTravel Grants

NYU Polytechnic School of Engineering: Dibner Chair in History or Philosophy of Technology

Bern Dibner
Source: Wikimedia Commons

University of Queensland: 3 Research Fellows Harnessing Intellectual Property to Build Food Safety

University of Vienna: 1 Fully paid student position + 6 associate positions

University of Pittsburgh: Assistant Professor History and Philosophy of Science

University of Pittsburgh: Associate Professor History and Philosophy of Science

MIT: Program in Science, Technology, and Society Assistant, Associate, or Full Professor

Whewell’s Gazette

Your weekly digest of all the best of

Internet history of science, technology and medicine

Editor in Chief: The Ghost of William Whewell

Year 2, Volume #11

Monday 28 September 2015

EDITORIAL:

The world didn’t end on Sunday night so we are back again with your weekly #histSTM links list, Whewell’s Gazette, bringing you all that could be culled from cyberspace on the histories of science technology and medicine during the last seven days.

The reference to the end of the world is of course to Sundays so-called Super-Blood-Moon or to put it somewhat less sensationally and more scientifically the simultaneous occurrence of the moon at perigee in its elliptical orbit around the earth and a lunar eclipse caused by the earth passing between the moon and the sun.

Super Blood Moon

This double astronomical phenomenon illustrates two important developments in the long history of astronomy. The astronomers of Babylon were the first to realise that lunar eclipses follow a predictable arithmetical pattern and were thus able, using an algebraic algorithm, to predict the occurrence of this particular astronomical phenomenon. It would appear that the ancient Greeks were the first to realise that eclipses are the result of the earth casting its shadow onto the moon when both of them and the sun were in the right alignment.

The world would have to wait almost another couple of thousand years before the young English astronomer Jeremiah Horrocks demonstrated in the seventeenth century that the moon also obeyed Kepler’s laws of planetary motion in its orbit around the earth, that is an elliptical orbit with the earth at one focus of the ellipse, thus processing a furthest point, apogee, and a nearest point, perigee, in its orbit.

Put these historical astronomical discoveries together and you have the correct scientific explanation of Sunday’s Super-Blood-Moon. The next one is in 2033 so don’t forget to set the alarm clock.

Quotes of the week:

“It’s time to say it again: I am an atheist but Richard Dawkins does not speak for me”. – Karen James (@kejames)

“Autocorrect just changed Winton Prize into Wino Prize! In vino veritas?” – Thony Christie (@rmathematicus)

“Ultimately the one goal appointed to science may be not to comprehend the nature of things, but to comprehend that it is incomprehensible.” – Emil du Bois-Reymond

“Young men should prove theorems, old men should write books.” – G. H. Hardy h/t @AnalysisFact

“There’s a guy in this coffee shop sitting at a table, not on his phone, not on a laptop, just drinking coffee, like a psychopath”. – Jason Gay (@jasongay)

“There is no branch of mathematics, however abstract, which may not someday be applied to the phenomena of the real world.” – Lobachevsky

“the natural scientist is the man [sic] to decide about wombats and unicorns.”—W. V. O. Quine h/t @GuyLongworth

The Old English word for ‘equinox’ is ’emniht’ (from efen + niht ‘even nights’); so today is the ‘hærfestlice emniht’, autumnal equinox.

After the equinox, as Byrhtferth of Ramsey says, ‘langað seo niht and wanað se dæg’ (the night lengthens and the day wanes). – Eleanor Parker (@ClerkofOxford)

“Occupy yourselves with the study of mathematics. It is the best remedy against the lusts of the flesh.” – Thomas Mann h/t @intmath

“Note to self- if you dig up graves you’re a criminal and creep but if you wait long enough you’re an archaeologist”. – Trver Noah (@Trevornoah)

“And when you read other people’s diaries and mail, you’re a historian”. – Adam Shapiro (@TryingBiology)

How, great,

to, be, a, comma,

and, separate,

one, word, fromma,

nother. – Brian Bilston (@brian_bilston)

“History just burps, and we taste again the raw-onion sandwich it swallowed centuries ago.” – Julian Barnes h/t (@jondresner)

Birthday of the Week:

Michael Faraday born 22 September 1791

Michael Faraday delivering a Christmas Lecture at the Royal Institution in 1856.
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Yovisto: A Life of Discoveries – the Great Michael Faraday

Brain Pickings: Michael Faraday on Mental Discipline and How to Cure Our Propensity for Self-Deception

Mental Floss: 10 Electrifying Facts for Michael Faraday’s Birthday

Portrait of Faraday in his late thirties
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Skulls in the Stars: A Cornucopia of Faraday Posts!

PHYSICS, ASTRONOMY & SPACE SCIENCE:

Science Notes: Today in Science History – September 21 – Donald Arthur

KAUST Museum: Explore the Museum > Astronomy and Navigation

Palamar Observatory: Searching the Sky for Dangerous Neighbors: Eleanor Helin and the 18-inch Telescope

Dr. Helin holding the discovery image for asteroid Ra-Shalom, circa 1979. (Helin Family Estate)

The Guardian: Building the Bomb (Multimedia)

Listverse: 10 Incredible Astronomical Instruments That Existed Before Galileo

Yovisto: Hippolyte Fizeau and the Speed of Light

Science Notes: Today in Science History – September 23 – Neptune

The Asian Age: Relativity & comedy of errors

JSTOR Daily: Los Alamos had a Secret Library

Academia: Origins of the “Western” Constellations

A Covent Garden Gilflurt’s Guide to Life: From Augsburg to the Moon: Johann Matthias Hase

The Renaissance Mathematicus: Reaching for the stars

Dürer’s Star Map: Northern Hemisphere
Source: Ian Ridpath’s Star Tales

Nature: Archimedes’ legendary sphere brought to life

Voices of the Manhattan Project: Jane Yantis’s Interview

The Local: The German astronomer who found Neptune

Waffles at Noon: Classic Urban Legend: NASA Space Pen

EXPLORATION and CARTOGRAPHY:

Crain’s. How the New York Public Library digitizes its vast map collection

PC Mag: 5 Digital Mapping Projects That Visualize History

The Public Domain Review: Amundsen’s South Pole expedition

MEDICINE & HEALTH:

Remedia: Surgical Devices and Placebo Testing – A Rehearsal

Thomas Morris: Roger ‘two urinals’ Clerk

Center for the History of Medicine: Dawes, Lydia M. Gibson papers, 1926–1959

Yovisto: David Vetter, the Bubble Boy

The Atlantic: The ‘Noble Savage’ Diet

The Sloane Letters Blog: A Friend in Need is a Friend Indeed

Embryo Project: Diethylstilbestrol (DES) in the USA

Ptak Science Books: A Mechanical Night Nurse, 1869

Source: Ptak Science Books

Nursing Clio: Placentophagy Isn’t New, But It Has Changed

Autistica: The Lessons of Autism Research

The Public Domain Review: Gynecological Gymnastics from Outer Space (1895)

Vox: 7 Terrifying medical “treatments” that never caught on

Thomas Morris: A fatal nose job

Yovisto: Typhoid Mary

Typhoid Mary in a 1909 newspaper illustration

The Public Domain Review: A Treatise on Adulteration of Food and Culinary Poisons (1820)

Advances in the History of Psychology: Hall’s developmental theory and Haeckel’s recapitulationism

Atlas Obscura: How a Fake Typhus Epidemic Saved a Polish City from the Nazis

Chom News: Priscilla A. Schaffer Papers Now Open

PBS Newshour: Celebrating the life of Alice Hamilton, founding mother of occupational medicine

Thomas Morris: Heal thyself

Conciatore: Top Physician

Center for the History of Medicine: Oral history interview with Margaret Brenman-Gibson

Thomas Morris: The perils of toast

From the hands of quacks: Dieting Deafness Away

ph.ucla.edu: On the Inhalation of the Vapour of Ether in Surgical Operations, 1847 (pdf)

Branch: Matthew Rowlinson, “On the First Medical Blood Transfusion Between Human Subjects 1818”

TECHNOLOGY:

The Verge: Museum of telephones burned to ground in California wildfire

The Guardian: A long history of toilets in Ukraine museum

Yovisto: What a Brick! – The World’s First Cell Phone

Ptak Science Books: The Straight Line Series: Looking Straight Through a Vickers Gun Sight, 1916

Medievalists.net: How to Make Ink in the Middle Ages

Pocket Change: The World’s Oldest Surviving Paper Money

The National Museum of American History: American Watch Company Prototype

Pocket watch. ME*334625.

Smithsonian.com: The History of the Bar Code

Yovisto: William F. Friedman and the Art of Cryptology

Atlas Obscura: Vacuum Cleaner Museum and Factory Outlet

Open Culture: How French Artists in 1899 Envisioned Life in the Year 2000: Drawing the Future

Conciatore: Stonework

Medievalists.net: Renaissance Robotics: Leonardo da Vinci’s Lost Knight and Enlivened Materiality

Model of Leonardo’s robot with inner workings, as displayed in Berlin. Photo by Erik Möller

Medievalists.net: Friction and Lubrication in Medieval Europe: The Emergence of Olive Oil as a Superior Agent

Smithsonian.com: Can You Guess the Invention Based on These Patent Illustrations?

distillatio: Making blue and green ink

EARTH & LIFE SCIENCES:

BBC: The man who bought Stonehenge – and then gave it away

Embryo Project: Dizhou Tong (1902–1979)

Notches: Tempests and Teapots: Sexual Politics and Tea-Drinking in the Early Modern World

Yovisto: Peter Simon Pallas – A Pioneer in Zoography

Embryo Project: Paul Kammerer (1880–1926)

Embryo Project: The Inheritence of Acquired Characteristics (1924) by Paul Kammerer

Scientific American: Rosetta Stones: Darwin’s Encounter with a Chilean Earthquake

TrowelBlazers: Patty Jo Watson

Patty Jo Watson
Image used with permission from the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA).

Leaping Robot: DNA…From Blueprint to Brick

Science League of America: Dixon, Not Darwin

arXiv: Exploration and Exploitation of Victorian Science in Darwin’s Reading Notebooks

Science Notes: Today in Science History – September 25 – Thomas Hunt Morgan

Embryo Project: Thomas Hunt Morgan’s Definition of Regeneration: Morphallaxis and Epimorphosis

BuzzFeed: Inside the Natural History Museum’s Wonderfully Creepy Room of Things in Jars

Hayley Campbell / BuzzFeed

The Molecular Ecologist: Measuring dispersal rate in Neotropical fishes in units of ‘wallace’

MBL History Project: People of the Lab: Happy Birthday Ivan Pavlov!

Ivan Pavlov
(Image MBL History Project)

Open Democracy: Bacteriology as conspiracy

Open Democracy: It’s the failure to admit failure that fuels conspiracy theories

CHEMISTRY:

Yovisto: James Dewar and the Liquefaction of Gases

Sir James Dewar (1842-1923)

Conciatore: Lixivitation

Science Notes: Today in Science History – September 22 – Frederick Soddy

Academia: The Death of the Sensuous Chemist: The ‘New’ Chemistry and the Transformation of Sensuous Technology (pdf)

The Chymistry of Isaac Newton: Experiments in Mineral Acids

Science Notes: Today in Science History – September 27 – Adolph Wilhelm Hermann Kolbe

META – HISTORIOGRAPHY, THEORY, RESOURCES and OTHER:

Alun Salt: I clearly don’t understand what an academic review is for

The History Woman’s Blog: Redefining the independent scholar

Thomas Morris: The bird and the bees

teleskopos: What are science museums for?

Social History: New Blog Site

Theos: So, what is science and what is religion and why do you think they clash?

Conciatore: Art and Science

Jacopo Ligozzi,1518, fanciful glass vessels,
ink and watercolor on paper.

American Science: Announcing the Thomas Kuhn’s “Structure of Scientific Revolutions” Comparison Watch!

Forbes: From Steve Jobs to Oliver Sacks : 12 Scientists and Techies Who Tinkered as Kids

Taming the American Idol: Taylor’s World Pt. 1: Training in Frederick Winslow Taylor’s Social Networks

The Recipes Project: What Recipes Can Teach Us About Reading

Scientific American: Symbiartic: A Science Illustrator’s Legacy

Illustration of Pliciloricus enigmatus by Carolyn Gast, National Museum of Natural History. From a condensed Smithsonian report, New Loricifera from Southeastern United States Coastal Waters

The #EnvHist Weekly

Open Culture: The History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps Podcast, Now at 239 Episodes, Expands into Eastern Philosophy

Nautilus: Five Veteran Scientists Tell Us What Most Surprised Them

ESOTERIC:

BOOK REVIEWS:

History Today: Planck: Driven by Vision, Broken by War

Some Beans: The Value of Precision edited by M. Norton Wise

Science Book a Day: 10 Great Books on the History of Medicine

Literary Hub: The Invention of Nature

NEW BOOKS:

Historiens de la santé: The Last Children’s Plague: Poliomyelitis, Disability, and Twentieth-Century American Culture

Historiens de la santé: Femme Médecin en Algérie – Journal de Dorothée Chellier (1895–1899)

NCSE: The Story of Life in 25 Fossils

ART & EXHIBITIONS

National Museum Cardiff: Reading the Rocks: the Remarkable Maps of William Smith

William Smith

Museum Boerhaave: Einstein & Friends 19 September 2015–3 January 2016

Slice: The Stars Align at OU for Galileo’s World

ars technica: Science Museum’s Cosmonauts: Birth of the Space Age reviewed

Dundee Science Centre: Nature’s Equations: D’Arcy Thompson and the Beauty of Mathematics Till 25 October 2015

Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh: Surgeons Hall Museum: Casualties

The Hunterian: The Kangaroo and the Moose 1 October 2015–21 February 2016

George Stubbs, The Kongouro from New Holland, 1772 © National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London

THEATRE AND OPERA:

Berkeley City Club: Ada and the Memory Machine 17 October–22 November 2015

Noël Coward Theatre: Photograph 51 Till 21 November 2015

$Photo 51, showing x-ray diffraction pattern of DNA Source: Wikimedia Commons$

Photo 51, showing x-ray diffraction pattern of DNA
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Royal Opera House: Raven Girl/Connectome

FILMS AND EVENTS:

Bodleian: Ada Lovelace: Celebrating 200 years of a computer visionary 9–10 December 2015

Center for the History of Medicine: Celebrating 10 Years of the Archive for Women in Medicine 3 November 2015

Wellcome Collection: Fred Sanger Lecture: Angely Creager “EAT.DIE.” The Domestication of Carcinogens in the 1980s 4 November 2015

CHF: Brown Bag Lecture: “Making Money Circulate: Chemistry and ‘Governance’ in the Career of Coins in the Early 19^th-century Dutch Empire”

Knight Science Journalism at MIT: Book Night Talk with Victor McElheny: Watson and DNA: Making a Scientific Revolution 1 October 2015

Victor McElheny
Founding director of the Knight Science Journalism Fellowships at MIT

Wellcome Library: A celebration of Elizabeth Garrett Anderson and 150 years of medicine 29 September 2015

Discover Medical London: Walking Tour: The Making of Thoroughly Modern Medicine

Bethlem Museum of the Mind: Brain Fag

PAINTING OF THE WEEK:

Newton Investigating Light from The Illustrated London News, June 4, 1870

TELEVISION:

Radio Times: Cosmonauts: How Russia Won the Space Race

BBC Four: Cosmonauts: How Russia Won the Space Race

SLIDE SHOW:

VIDEOS:

The Public Domain Review: Gertie The Dinosaur (1914)

Center for the History of Medicine: Oral history interview with Pricilla Schaffer

Youtube: Alfred Wegener: Science, Exploration, and the Theory of Continental Drift: Book Trailer

Youtube: Albert Einstein (Stock footage/archival footage)

RADIO:

BBC Radio 4: Natural History Heroes: Alfred Russel Wallace

BBC Radio 4: Book of the Week: The White Road

BBC Radio 4: Inside Science: Hiroshima radiation, Anthropocene, Bonobo noises, Physicist Henry Moseley

BBC Radio 4: Computing Britain

BBC Radio 4: In Our Time: Perpetual Motion

BBC Radio 3: Pohl Omniskop X-Ray Machine

PODCASTS:

The Guardian: Why is the scientific revolution still controversial?

Jefferson Public Radio: DNA Decoded: “Life’s Greatest Secret”

Little Atoms: Matthew Cobb & Alex Bellos

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

The Warburg Institute: Rethinking Allegory 30 October 2015

University of Paderborn: International Workshop: Emilie du Châtelet – Laws of Nature/Laws of Morals 23-24 October 2015

Émilie du Châtelet Portrait by Maurice Quentin de La Tour
Source: Wikimedia Commons

IUHMSP: Lausanne: Thérapies dissonantes 30 October 2015

CHoM News: 2015 Fall Event Calendar

Royal Historical Society: Maritime History and Cultural Seminar Series 2015–16

University of Munich: Perspectives for the History of Life Sciences 30 October–1 November 2015

CHoSTM: Working Groups: Physical Sciences: Upcoming Meetings

HSTM Network Ireland: Inaugural Conference Maynooth University 13-14 November 2015

All Souls College, Oxford: Conference: Charles Hutton (1737–1823): being mathematical in the Georgian Period 17–18 December 2015

Charles Hutton
Source: Wikimedia Commons

University of London: Institute of Historical Research: History of Libraries Research Seminars

University of Leeds: CfP: Communication, Correspondence and Transmission in the Early Modern World 12–13 May 2016

University of Edinburgh: CfP: Sixth Integrated History and Philosophy of Science conference (&HPS6) 35 June 2016

LOOKING FOR WORK:

The Beckman Center for the History of Chemistry at the Chemical Heritage Foundation (CHF), an independent research library in Philadelphia, PA: Beckman Fellowships in #histSTM

UCL STS: Part Time Teaching Fellow in STS

Michigan State University: Assistant Professor Philosophy of Science

The German Historical Institute Washington DC: 5 Doctoral Fellowships in the History of Knowledge, Race & Ethnicity, Religion & Religiosity, Family & Kinship, and Migrant Knowledge.

University of Alicante: DOCTORADO EN ESTUDIOS HISTÓRICOS Y SOCIALES SOBRE CIENCIA, MEDICINA Y COMUN

University Miguel Hernández: Programa de Doctorado en Estudios Históricos y Sociales sobre Ciencia, Medicina y Comunicación Cient

University of Valencia: Programa de Doctorado en Estudios Históricos y Sociales sobre Ciencia, Medicina y Comunicación Científica

Whewell’s Gazette

Your weekly digest of all the best of

Internet history of science, technology and medicine

Editor in Chief: The Ghost of William Whewell

Year 2, Volume #12

Monday 05 October 2015

EDITORIAL:

Another week, another edition of Whewell’s Gazette your weekly #histSTM links list, bringing you all of the histories of science, technology and medicine that could be scooped up from the distant reaches of cyberspace during the last seven days.

The week saw NASA announce that they had discovered mineral deposits on the surface of Mars that might have been made by flowing water. This announcement kicked off the expected hysteria of where there is water there will be life, as we know it. These reports set off alarm bells in my brain about Giovanni Schiaparelli, Percy Lowell and the canals of Mars.

1877 map of Mars by Giovanni Schiaparelli.
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Humanity has been obsessed with Mars and the possibility of there being Martians for a long time now and the NASA announcement didn’t just trigger memories in my brain and a number of people throughout the Internet wrote about the history of that obsession. So this edition of Whewell’s Gazette is dedicated to David Bowie’s famous musical question “Is there life on Mars?”

Martian channels depicted by Percival Lowell
Source: Wikimedia Commons

“This week in science: scientists broke the secret pact & talked about water on Mars, making the moon turn red. Now the great doom befalls us” – Ed Yong (@edyong209)

History Today: Roger Hennessy tells of a hundred years of investigation, imagination and speculation about live on Mars

Ptak Science Books: The Positively Enormous Skyscraper Plant Eyeballs of Mars, 1912

Source: via Chronicles of America series at the Library of Congress, here, and first seen via the interesting Pinterest collection of Trevor Owens, here.
Ptak Science Books

The Conversation: NASA: streaks of salt on Mars mean flowing water, and raises new hopes of finding life

BibliOdyssey: Channelling Martian Maps

Source: BilbliOdyssey

Scientific American: How Our View of Mars Has Changed from Lush Oasis to Arid Desert

News.com.au: My favourite Martian: behind the science is the story of why we love Mars

Not just little green men … a scene from the Mars film John Carter.

“Water, water everywhere

Nor any drop to drink

‘Cause it was all saturated with perchlorate salts” – Rime of the Ancient Rover – Matthew R. Francis (@DrMRFrancis)

Quotes of the week:

“People say history is written by the winners, but actually history is written by historians, and most of them are losers”. – @The TweetOfGod

“’The ohm is where the art is’ is a brilliant title for an article” – Steven Gray (@Sjgray86)

“Everything’s connected, but some things are more connected than others”. – Liam Heneghan (@DublinSoil)

“We need to figure out if Jonas Salk was on the spectrum. Only then can we definitely say whether autism cause vaccines” – @WardQNormal h/t @stevesilberman

“If you don’t feel guilty about using maps and satnavs, don’t feel guilty about using introductory philosophy books and study guides” – Nigel Warburton (@philosophybites)

“Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas.” – Albert Einstein

“Almost all really new ideas have a certain aspect of foolishness when they are first produced”. – A. N. Whitehead h/t @PeterSjostedtH

BEAUTY TIP: Read a book

EMPATHY TIP: Read a book

EDUCATION TIP: Read a book

LOVE TIP: Read a book

HEALTH TIP: Read a book – Matt Haig (@matthaig1)

Birth of the Week:

The Space Race Began 4 October 1957

Leaping Robot: Apprehending the Artifact

Yovisto: The Sputnik Shock

Princeton University Press: Keep Watching the Skies!: The Story of Operation Moonwatch and the Dawn of the Space Age

NASA: NASA’s First 5o Years Historical Perspectives

Youtube: Omnicron & the Sputnik

PHYSICS, ASTRONOMY & SPACE SCIENCE:

Agenda.ge: Ancient astronomy manuscripts published in Georgia

Physics Today: Information: From Maxwell’s demon to Landauer’s eraser

Fermi.lib.uchicago.edu: Letter from Fermi to Szilard re: use of carbon to slow chain reaction

NASA: Alouette 1

The Alouette 1 satellite
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Outside Prague: The Astronomical Clock

AIP: Nobels of the Past

Science Notes: Today in Science History – October 1 – NASA

Science News: The amateur who helped Einstein see the light

With some help from Science News Letter (the precursor to Science News), a restaurant dishwasher named Rudi Mandl persuaded Einstein to explore the phenomenon of gravitational lensing.

Radio Ne Zealand News: Rare telescope’s crucial lens survives quake

AIP: Otto Frisch

NASA: Dr. Robert H. Goddard, American Rocketry Pioneer

NASA: NASA “Hacks”: The Real Stories

El País: Un cura dio la “más bella explicación de la Creación”, según Einstein

The Atlantic: Standing the Test of Time (and Space)

WGBH News: Meet America’s First Woman Astronomer: Maria Mitchell

Maria Mitchell’s telescope, at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.
Credit Dpbsmith / WGBH News

Voices of the Manhattan Project: Mary Rockwell’s Interview

flickr: Project Apollo Archive

Sky & Telescope: Beyond the Printed Page: Soviet Stamps and Astronomy

Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings: Niels Henrik David Bohr

Museum Victoria Collections: Astrographic Catalogue

AIP: Happy Birthday Enrico Fermi

EXPLORATION and CARTOGRAPHY:

Atlas Obscura: The Maps That Helped The Citizens of a ‘Locked Country’ See The World

Half of “Screens of the Four Continents and People in 48 Countries in the World,” by an unknown Edo-era Japanese painter. (All images: Kobe City Museum/Google Cultural Institute)

D News: 1500-Year-Old Mosaic Map Found

Slate: A Bizarrely Complicated Late-19^th-Century Flat-Earth Map

The Hakluyt Society Blog: Australia Circumnavigated: The Story of the HMS Investigator

The Shakespeare Blog: Mapping Shakespeare’s world

The Sheldon tapestry map of Worcestershire

Halley’s Log: Back in the Thames

Halley’s Log: Halley’s third logbook

MEDICINE & HEALTH:

History Today: Elizabeth Garrett Anderson passed her medical exams on September 18^th 1865

Thomas Morris: Speaking in tongues

From the Hands of Quacks: Can Vitamin B Cure Deafness

Smithsonian.com: The Nose Job Dates Back to the 6^th Century B.C.

Wellcome Trust: A Brief History of Childbirth: Exploring the National Childbirth Trust Archives

Remedia: The Window Operation: Hope through Surgery

Cross-section of the inner ear, showing the ossicles–mallelus, incus, and stapes. Illustrated by Henry Vandyke Carter for Henry Gray, “Anatomy of the Human Body ” (Philadelphia & New York: Lea & Febiger, 1918), plate 919.

Medium: Scurvy Dogs

Embryo Project: The Pasteur Institute (1887– )

Public Domain Review: Kaishi Hen, an 18^th Century Japanese anatomical atlas

Early Modern Medicine: Dog Danger

Thomas Morris: The child with Bonaparte in his eyes

Wellcome Collection: Hysteria

Gross Science: The Horrors of Ancient Cataract Surgery

Countway Library of Medicine: The Archives for Women in Medicine

Concocting History: Strong as a mountain

Forbes: Ancient Pompeiians Had Good Dental Health But Were Not Necessarily Vegetarians

This Intrepid Band: More Misdeeds of Military Nurses

Embryo Project: The Effects of Thalidomide on Embryonic Development

John Rylands Library Special Collections Blog: History of Midwifery

Science Notes: Today in Science History – October 2 – Baruj Benacerraf

Science Museum: Brought to Life: Seishu Hanaoka (1760–1835)

Perspectives: The art of medicine: Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Body Snatcher

MBL History Project: “By living we learn.” Happy Birthday Sir Patrick Geddes!

Embryo Project: Marie Charlotte Stopes (1880–1958)

Marie Stopes in her laboratory, 1904
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Thomas Morris: Electrical anaesthesia

Bustle: The Average Age Women Got Their First Period, Throughout History

Mosaic: How to mend a broken heart

Thomas Morris: The petrol cocktail: a cure for cholera

TECHNOLOGY:

Medievalists.net: Rapid Invention, Slow Industrialization, and the Absent Entrepreneur in Medieval China

Open Culture: The World’s Oldest Surviving Pair of Glasses (circa 1475)

Yale Books: Dirty Old London: 30 Days of Filth: Day 13 Deodorising and Flushing

Thomas Morris: Top Gear (steam edition)

Atlas Obscura: The Rise and Fall of the Cash Railway

Inside the Lamson ball, from a 1912 Lamson catalogue. (Image: Tony Wolf)

Science Notes: Today in Science History – September 29 – Rudolf Diesel Mystery

Airminded: The oscillation of R33

Conciatore: The Art of Metals

Conciatore: The Blue Tower

Medium: Backchannel: How Steve Jobs Fleeced Carly Fiorina

Quartz: Not Enough for Goodenough: The man who brought us the lithium-ion battery at the age of 57 has an idea for a new one at 92

Yovisto: Tōkaidō Shinkansen – the Bullet Train

Tōkaidō Shinkansen passing tea fields between Shizuoka and Kakegawa

Yovisto: The Unfortunate Inventions of Charles Cros

IEEE Spectrum: When Engineers Had the Stars in Their Eyes

News Works: Sound it out: the (sometimes creepy) history of the talking machine

Slate: What Could Go Wrong?

Collectors Weekly: Rise of the Synthesizer: How an Electronics Whiz Kid Gave the 1980s Its Signature Sound

Paleofuture: Drunk Driving and The Pre-History of Breathalysers

BBC News: Drawings reveal Germans’ World War Two boobytrap bombs

One of Fish’s drawings shows an Army mess tin adapted for nefarious purposes
Picture: Anthony Thompson TWN

BBC News: Dorman Long: The Teesside firm that bridged the world

Science Notes: Today in Science History – October 31 – Joseph Wilson Swan

United States Patent and Trademark Office: A. C. Reid Handset Telephone

BBC News: The lost rivers that lie beneath London

Ian Visits: Unbuilt London: Straightening the River Thames

EARTH & LIFE SCIENCES:

Making Science Public: The pause

Ptak Science Books: Charting the Winds: a Superb Anemographic Chart from 1598

ChoM News: New Acquisitions: Rose E. Frisch Papers

Slate: The Great September Gale of 1815

TrowelBlazers: Lucy Allen: Curator and Librarian

Lucy Allen Smart, 1955. This photo is reproduced here under the Central Library Consortium’s fair use policy; may not be used for commercial purposes without contacting copyright holder.

NYAM: Censoring Leonhart Fuchs: Examples from the New York Academy of Medicine

Notches: “A promiscuous class of females. All huddled together in a mass”: Sex and Food in the Nineteenth-Century American Metropolis

University of Cambridge Museums: The Next Big Leap at the Whipple

io9: Which Animals Did Nuclear Scientists Pick to Represent the Entire World?

Science League of America: Did Darwin Know “Acres of Diamonds”?

Circulating Now: A German Botanical Renaissance

Perspectives on History: An Environmental History of the Real Thing

The Guardian: Calling all palaeo bloggers! Do you ant to write for the Guardian science blog network

Forbes: How Geologists Determined The Way That Mountains Formed

The mountains around the Urnersee, from Scheuchzer´s “Helvetiae Stoicheiographia” published in 1716 (image in public domain).

Mommoth Tales: Mammoth in the News: Michigan Edition

Scientific American: Tetrapod Zoology: Piltdown Man and the Dualist Contention

Wired: The Battle Over Genome Editing Gets Science All Wrong

The Leakey Foundation: Louis Seymour Bazett Leakey

Science Insider: Q&A: Francis Crick’s granddaughter on her genomic sculpture

CHEMISTRY:

Science Notes: Today in Science History – September 28 – Henri Moissan

News Work: A Nobel Prize for noble gasses

William Ramsay in 1904 (Munn & Co./Appleton’s Magazine)

Science Notes: Today in Science History – October 4 – Mole

META – HISTORIOGRAPHY, THEORY, RESOURCES and OTHER:

History Matters: Voices from 1915: Public Engagement with the First World War

New HSS: Sleep Laboratories, Psychiatry in Penguin Books, & More

Mersenne: Heroic Journeys? Networks of women scientists in the late nineteenth and twentieth century: Conference Report

The Renaissance Mathematicus: The Penny Universities

Coffeehouse in London, 17th century
Source: Wikimedia Commons

ChoM News: Archivist attends “Women in Biotech” symposium at Radcliffe Institute

Chronologia Universalis: A Moment of Wonder: Overlapping Networks

Chronologia Universalis: Pervolvi totum librum…

JCOM: Ships, Clocks and Stars: The Quest for Impact

Deathplanation: Publishing with Integrity (Whilst Still Having Career Options)

The Renaissance Mathematicus: Political correctness and the history of science

The Conversation: Jesuits as science missionaries for the Catholic Church

BBC Culture: The places the world forgot (includes several #histSTM sites)

Flanders and Brabant power station, Belgium
Source: BBC

The Recipes Project: The Digital Humanities Turn

THE: What it’s like to work with the academic greats

MHS Oxford: Newsletter – October 2015

The Harvard Crimson: Gathering the Galleries

Medieval Books: The Incredible Expandable Book

Wired: The Nobel Committee Hasn’t Always Picked the Right Winners

THE: Progressive Science Institute challenges researcher ‘bias’

Nautilus: Why Science Needs Metaphysics

ESOTERIC:

Conciatore: Alchemy of Plants

Compasswallah: Annie Besant: The Occult Freedom Fighter

Annie Besant
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Academia: Physics in the Twelfth Century: The Porta Elementorum of Pseudo-Avicenna’s Alchemical De Anima and Marius’ De Elementis

Sociatas Magia: A Medieval Charm with Music

BOOK REVIEWS:

The Space Review: A Sky Wonderful with Stars: 50 Years of Modern Astronomy on Maunakea

Thinking Like a Mountain: Food, Inc: Mendel to Monsanto – The Promises and Perils of the Biotech Harvest

Public Domain Review: Bad Air: Pollution, Sin, and Science Fiction in William Delisle Hay’s The Doom of the Great City (1880)

Front cover of Hay’s The Doom of the Great City
Source: The British Library

The New York Times: Sunday Book Review: ‘The Invention of Nature,’ by Andrea Wulf

Dissertation Reviews: Chemistry in Imperial and Weimar Germany

Geographical: Alfred Russel Wallace; Letters from the Malay Archipelago OUP

The Dispersal of Darwin: Darwin on Evolution: Words of Wisdom from the Father of Evolution

Los Angeles Review of Books: Paula Findlen on Galileo’s Telescope: A European Story

Archives of Natural History: Benton, Ted: Alfred Russel Wallace: explorer, evolutionist, public intellectual – a thinker for our own times?

Science News: Centennial books illuminate Einstein’s greatest triumph

NEW BOOKS:

Vrin: Psychologie et psychologisme

Enfilade: Scenes of Projection: Recasting the Enlightenment Subject

Historiens de la santé: Bretonneau: Correspondance d’un médicine

NCSE: The Story of Life in 25 Fossils

Emotions Blog: History in British Tears

ART & EXHIBITIONS

Nature: Space Travel: When Soviets ruled the great beyond

MHS Oxford: ‘Dear harry…’ – Henry Moseley: A Scientist Lost to War Extended till 31 January 2016

CHF: Science at Play On view through September 2 2016

Skil-Craft No. 430 Microscope Chemistry Lab, ca. 1955. CHF Collections. Photo by Gregory Tobias.

Massachusetts Historical Society: Terra Firma: The Beginnings of the MHS Map Collection

Dundee Science Centre: Nature’s Equations: D’Arcy Thompson and the Beauty of Mathematics Closes 25 October 2015

Hunterian Glasgow: The Kangaroo and the Moose 2 October 2015–21 February 2016

THEATRE AND OPERA:

Noel Coward Theatre: Photograph 51 Booking until 21 November 2015

Etcetera Theatre: LHF: The Devil Without 13–18 October 2015

Gielgud Theatre: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

FILMS AND EVENTS:

Wellcome Collection: ‘The Thing is …Beards!’ 15^th October 2015

World Health Organization Global Health Histories: Webinar: Ebolar: exploring the cultural contexts of an epidemic 8 October 2015

Royal Museums Greenwich: Plague takeover 21 November 2015

Royal Society: Cells: from Robert Hooke to Cell Therapy – a 350 year journey 5_6 October 2015

Royal Astronomical Society: Fred Hoyle Birth Centennial – his remarkable career and the impact of his science 9 October 2015

A statue of Fred Hoyle at the Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Providence Public Library: Exploring the Eye of History: NEA Symposium on 19^th Century Photography 7 November 2015

Dittrick Museum: Lecture: The Eye as Art: Anatomy and Vision in the 18^th Century 14 October 2015

CHoM News: Celebrating 10 Years of the Archive for Women in Medicine 7 November 2015

Musée Claude Bernard: Colloque: Claude Bernard et le diabète 10 Octobre 015

Discover Medical London: Walking Tour One for the Road!

Museum of the History of Science: Sacrifice of a Genius Tonight!

PAINTING OF THE WEEK:

Joaquin Sorolla 1863- 1923 Doctors Laboratory, an investigation, Oil on canvas

TELEVISION:

BBC 2: Bletchley Park: Code-breaking’s Forgotten Genius

Gordon Welchman
Source: Wikimedia Commons

AHF: “Manhattan” Season One Recaps

SLIDE SHOW:

VIDEOS:

Museo Galileo: Eudoxus’s system

Youtube: Royal Society: Science stories – Small

Youtube: Interview with J. Robert Oppenheimer

Youtube: The Royal Institution: Quantum Physics and Universal Beauty – with Frank Wilczek

Youtube: Polio Hero Frank Shimada

Youtube: Gilbert White: The Nature Man (2006) May Vision International

RADIO:

BBC Radio 4: Natural History Heroes

PODCASTS:

The Diane Rehm Show: Andrea Wulf: “The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt’s New World

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies: Symposium: Early Modern Journeys: Practice and Everyday Experiences of Travel, 1450–1800 15-16 October 2015

University of Leeds: Centre for HPS: HPS Seminars, Semester 1, 2015-2016

Harnack House Berlin: The 100^th anniversary of Einstein’s field equations 30 November–2 December 2015

ChoM News: Colloquium on the History of Psychiatry and Medicine: Madness and Mayhem in Maine: The Parkman-Portland Parley and a Mass Murder 12 November 2015

ChoM News: Colloquium on the History of Psychiatry and Medicine: War and Human Nature in Modern America 17 December 2015

ChoM News: Studying Traumatic Wounds and Infectious Diseases in the Civil War Hospitals: The Medical Photography of the American Civil War 19 November 2015

Historiens de la santé: CfP: ISCHE 38 Education and the Body

University of Kent: CfP: Medicine in its Place: Situating Medicine in Historical Contexts 7-10 July 2016

IHPST: 1^st Regional IHPST Conference: Science as Culture in the European Context: Historical, Philosophical, and Educational Perspectives Flensburg Germany 22–25 August 2015

Oxford Seminars in the History of Science, Medicine, and technology: Michaelmas Term 2015

HSS: THATCamp: The History of Science Society hosts its second annual THATCamp on November 19 2015 San Francisco

The Haluyt Society: Conference: Maritime Trade, Travel and Cultural Encounter in the 18^th and 19^th Centuries 13–14 November 2015

University of Birmingham: History of Medicine and Health Seminars

UCL STS: Seminar Series

University of Vienna: CfP: Claiming authority, producing standards: The IAEA and the history of radiation protection 3–4 June 2016

Maynooth University: HSTM Network Ireland Inaugral Conference 13–14 November 2015

Birkbeck College University of London: CfP: After the End of Disease 26–27 May 2016

University of Edinburgh: CfP: Eighteenth–Century Research Seminars Series 2016

University of London: School of Advance Study EMPHASIS Seminar: Amateurs and Authorship: Oronce Fine’s Projection of a Republic of Mathematics 17 October 2015

Oronce Fine
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Res Philosophica: CfP: Res Philosophica Essay Prize: Philosophy of Disability

The Warburg Institute: Colloquia 2015–2016

LOOKING FOR WORK:

University of Huddersfield: Research Assistant in History of Health or Medicine

AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Awards in the Science Museums and Archives Consortium (SMAC) from October 2016

H-Sci-Med-Tech: Fully Funded PhD Studentship – Science and Religion in Society

Ohio State University Department of History: Assistant or Associate Professor in Environmental History and Sustainability

University of Harvard: Tenure–track Assistant Professor History of Pre-Modern or Early Modern Science or Medicine

University of Groningen: Netherlands Research School for Medieval Studies: 4 PhD Positions: Communication and Exploitation of Knowledge in the Middle Ages

Oxford Brookes University: PhD Studentships

University of Copenhagen: Professor of History and Philosophy of Science

Think Oxford: Over 1000 Scholarships

University of London: Research fellowships in cultural and intellectual history

Whewell’s Gazette

Your weekly digest of all the best of

Internet history of science, technology and medicine

Editor in Chief: The Ghost of William Whewell

Year 2, Volume #13

Monday 12 October 2015

EDITORIAL:

If you’ve been holding your breath, you can breathe out now, as the thirteenth edition of the second year of the weekly #histSTM links list, Whewell’s Gazette, is finally here. Putting aside their triskaidekaphobia our editorial team has collected together all that they could find on the histories of science, technology and medicine in the vast reaches of cyberspace over the last seven days.

Whenever I write a blog post or research a lecture, sooner or later I will almost always make a pilgrimage to consult the volumes of the Dictionary of Scientific Biography, a cornucopia of history of science information presented at the highest levels of scholarship. This invaluable tool of historical research was put together under the editorship of Charles Coulston Gillispie one of the giants of post Second World War history of science. Beyond the DSB Gillispie was a important historian of science writing mostly about eighteenth-century French science, whilst teaching and establishing the history of science department at Princeton University.

Charles Gillispie died on 6 October at the age of 97. In the DSB he left behind a monument in the history of science that others will struggle to equal and with this thought I would like to humbly dedicate this edition of Whewell’s Gazette to him.

Charles Coulston Gillispie
6 August 1918 – 6 October 2015
Photo by Denise Applewhite, Office of Communications

News at Princeton: Charles Gillispie, trailblazer in the history of science, dies at 97

NCSE: Charles Coulston Gillispie dies

facebook: Marco Berratta: Charles Gillispie Obituary

Quotes of the week:

The *Great Man of Science* is a myth. They all had collaborators that disappeared from history. – Andrew David Thaler (@SFriedScientist)

“Sir Humphrey Davy was asked to name the greatest discovery he’d ever made. He answered “Michael Faraday””. – Verity Burke (@VerityBurke)

“‘thank God! there is no drinking of coffee [in the next world], and consequently no waiting for it.’”—De Quincey, quoting Kant h/t @GuyLongworth

“I’m a scientist. I don’t want to people to accept that what I say is accurate. I want to give them the tools to find out for themselves”. – John Hawks (@johnhawks)

“We must labour to find out what things are in themselves by our owne experience … not what another sayes of them” – John Wilkins 1640 h/t @felicityhen

“Science doesn’t suffer fools, but it can make fools suffer.” – Richard Hammond

h/t @Pillownaut

“Nothing more ruins the world than a conceit that a little knowledge is sufficient.” – Thomas Traherne. h/t @telescoper

“50 yrs from now, people will see the discovery of exoplanets as a major development in #HistSTM” – Patrick McCray (@LeapingRobot)

“The only reason that christianity imagined hell as a pit of fire is because Christ was born too early to experience a bus full of teens”. – Marc Girard Alleyn (@StevenAlleyn)

“Is it too much to ask for conference coffee that isn’t brown pisswater? Where is my Black Ichor of Awakeness?” Ed Yong (@edyong209)

“I rather like “defy the facts”. Ignorance is strength”. – Guy Longworth (@GuyLongworth)

“Shit doesn’t just happen. Shits make it happen”. – Peter Coles (@telescoper)

6 October was National Badger Day

A badger, as illustrated in Histoire Naturelle des Mammiféres, 1824-57.
(1257.l.1-4)

Birthdays of the Week:

Robert Goddard born 5 October 1882

Robert Hutchings Goddard was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1882. The phyicist determinedly pursued his spaceflight obsession.

Barron Hilton Pioneers of Flight Gallery: Robert Hutchins Goddard

NASA: Goddard Space Flight Center: Dr. Robert H. Goddard, American Rocketry Pioneer

Niels Bohr born 7 October 1885

Niels Bohr on G. Gamow’s motorcycle, with his wife Margrethe sitting behind.
Photo credit Emilio Segrè Visual Archives
h/t Alex Wellerstein

“An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made, in a narrow field”. – Niels Bohr h/t @ChemHeritage

Science Notes: Today in Science History – October 7 – Niels Bohr

AIP: Niels Bohr – Session I

PHYSICS, ASTRONOMY & SPACE SCIENCE:

Cambridge University Library Special Collections Blog: ‘It’s all in a day’s work’: the Royal Greenwich Observatory Audio-Visual Collection, Stories of Observatory Life

Cosmos: Émilie du Châtelet: the woman science forgot

Particle Decelerator: New Zealand recognised as major contributor to radio astronomy history

Physics Today: Seeing dark matter in the Andromeda galaxy

Vera Rubin
Source: Physics Today

Conciatore: A Fast Calendar

Collect Space: Astronaut Sally Ride’s personal items and papers acquired by Smithsonian

ahram online: Mars, the invincible planet

ethw.org: George Westinghouse AIEE membership application

Science Notes: Today in Science History – October 6 – Ernest Walton

Atlas Obscura: These Atomic Tourists Have Visited 160 Forgotten Nuclear Sites Across the U.S.

NASA History: James E. Webb

Pasadena Star-News: Astronomy: These women were ‘human computers’ before they were allowed to be astronomers

AHF: Operation Plumbbob – 1957

AEON: Light dawns

Scientific American: 20 Years Later – a O&A with the first Astronomer to Detect a Planet Orbiting Another Sun

Independent: Prague Astronomical Clock: Three things you probably didn’t know about today’s Google Doodle

Prague astronomical clock
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Heavy: Prague Astronomical Clock: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know

Gizmodo: Prague Astronomical Clock Celebrated by Google Doodle on its 605^th Birthday

The Guardian: A Fife church minister first imagined space flight – beating Jules Verne

AHF: Britain’s Early Input – 1940–41

IET Blog: The Great Melbourne Telescope

Restricted Data: The Nuclear Secrecy Blog: Neglected Niigata

Science Notes: Today in Science History – October 11 – James Prescott Joule

AHF: The Einstein Letter – 1939

Dannen.com: Einstein to Roosevelt, August 2, 1939

BLink: Mystery of the starry sphere

Too big for the palm: Emperor Jahangir is shown holding a globe in this Mughal-era painting. The globe is believed to have been made by metallurgist Muhammad Salih Tahtawi. Photo: Wikipedia

AIP: Robert Marshak

EXPLORATION and CARTOGRAPHY:

Ptak Science Books: Blank and Missing Things: a Map of Missing people of Europe and Russia, 1881

University of Cambridge: Digital Library: Oppidium Cantebrigiae

British Library: Maps and views blog: Drawing Lines across Africa – from the War Office Archive

World Digital Library: Map of Louisiana, View of New Orleans

The French royal engineer, de Beauvilliers, drew this 1720 map of the entire hydrographic network of the Mississippi River
Source: World Digital Library

A Thoroughly Anglophile Journal: The Center of Space and Time, and History

Geographicus Rare Antique Maps: 1650 Jansoon Wind Rose, Anemographic Chart, or Map of the Winds

Factum Arte: Terra Forming: Engineering the Sublime

Atlas Obscura: Found: 39 Maps from the Mid-1800s That ‘Show Chicago Being Born’

MEDICINE & HEALTH:

Yovisto: James Lind and a Cure for Scurvy

Vice: How One Man Ran the World’s Only Menstruation Museum from his Basement

The first-ever Kotex advertisement, from January 1921

Thomas Morris: The case of the luminous patients

Remedia: Roaring Horses, Lame Dogs and the Re-framing of British Veterinary Surgery

Medievalists.net: Medieval Viagara [sic]

Early Modern Experimental Philosophy: “Secta Empírica y Domáticos Racionales”: medicine and the ESD in early modern Spain II

BBC Future: It’s time we dispelled these myths about autism

Conciatore: The Duke’s Mouthwash

The Conversation: Could ancient textbooks be the source of the next medical breakthrough

Center for the History of Medicine: On View: Powered Air Purifying Respirator (PAPR). 1967-68

Circulating Now: Radam’s Microbe Killer: Advertising Cures for Tuberculosis

Advertisement in Roanoke Times, March 28, 1894

ph.ucla.edu: On The Inhalation of the Vapour of Ether in Surgical Operations (pdf)

Philly.com: Remember what ‘Aunt Sammy’ said … about babies and drafts?

The Recipes Project: From Bloodstone to Fish Soup: Iron Recipes

TECHNOLOGY:

Yovisto: John Atanasoff and the first Electronic Computer

Yovisto: Christiaan Huygens and the Pocket Watch

Atlas Obscura: The Simple, Elegant History of the Swiss Army Knife

Modell 1890, the first Swiss Soldier Knife produced by Wester & Co. Solingen. (Photo: Cutrofiano/WikiCommons CC BY-SA 3.0)

Engineering & Technology History Wiki: Reginald A. Fessenden Biography

BBC News: Forth Bridge ‘is Scotland’s favourite engineering work’

Atlas Obscura: Kansas Barbed Wire Museum

Conciatore: Antonio Who?

Yale Books Blog: Dirty Old London: 30 Days of Filth: Day 29: The Great Exhibition Toilet Myth

Pioneers of Flight: Amelia Earhart and Eleanor Roosevelt flying from Washington, D.C. to Baltimore

Amelia Earhart and Eleanor Roosevelt flying from Washington, DC to Baltimore in 1933

Ptak Science Books: A Massively Geared “Tricycle” of 1879

EARTH & LIFE SCIENCES:

Dispersal of Darwin: Article: Exploration and Exploitation of Victorian Science in Darwin’s Reading Notebooks

Dispersal of Darwin: Article: Flattening the World: Natural Theology and the Ecology of Darwin’s Orchids

Gizmodo: Here’s the Drawing That Proved the Earth has a Solid Core

Engineering Life: Putting synthetic biology in historical context: Becoming a Tralfamadorian

The Scientist: The First Neuron Drawings, 1870s

Notches: The Hunger of the Finnish Bachelor: Married Men, Desire and Domesticity in 20^th Century Finland

geoitaliani: Tacchi a spillo, capigliature corte alla garconne, continenti alla deriva: Federico Sacco contro tutti

Atlas Obscura: The Scrappy Female Paleontologist Whose Life Inspired a Tongue Twister

Ancient Origins: The Ancestral Myth of the Hollow Earth and Underground Civilizations

MBL History Project: Zoology in Color: Rudolf Leuckart

“It is not possible for man, as a thinking being, to close his mind to the knowledge that he is ruled by the same power as is the animal world.” –Rudolf Leuckart

Physics Buzz Blog: Meteorite Markings Offer Clues to Their Past

Science Magazine: Beyond the “Mendel-Fisher Controversy”

Notches: “This is Your Pasty”: The Performance of Queer Domesticity in Small-Town Wisconsin

Embryo Project: Study of Fossilized Massospondylus Dinosaur Embryos from South Africa (1978–2012)

Audubon: John J. Audubon’s Birds of America: The life’s work of both a lover and observer of birds and nature