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 #18
Monday 16 November 2015
EDITORIAL:
Another seven days have flown past and it’s time once again for Whewell’s Weekly your #histSTM links list bringing you all the histories of science, technology and medicine that we could ferret out over the last seven days from the far reaches of cyberspace.
On the ninth of November Google celebrated the 101st birthday of Hedy Lamarr with a Google Doodle. This led to others perpetuating what is unfortunately something of a myth considering her contribution to the history of technology. This can be seen in the headline of the Sydney Morning Herald article, Google Honours Hedy Lamarr, inventor of technology behind Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
Now the technology behind Wi-Fi and Bluetooth is something known as frequency hopping and Hedy Lemarr was involved in the invention of one form of frequency hopping but it is not that used in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. During WWII Lemarr and the composer George Antheil filed a patent for a mechanical system of frequency hopping based on player piano rolls. However this was neither the first time that frequency hopping had been invented nor was the system suggested by Lemarr and Antheil ever actually put into practice.
The earliest known record of frequency hopping is from 1908 and the system was actively used by the German military during WWI. Several different patents for systems of frequency hopping were registered during the 1930s.
Hedy Lemarr was involved in the development and patenting of a system of frequency hopping but it is not the system used today in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. It is OK to point out that Hedy Lemarr was more than just a pretty face but it is bad history of technology to embroider the truth and make her seem more significant than she was.
Hedy Lamarr Publicity photo, c. 1940
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Science Friday: The Beauty and Brains Behind ‘Hedy’s Folly’
The Sydney Morning Herald: Google Honours Hedy Lamarr, inventor of technology behind Wi-Fi and Bluetooth
Quotes of the week:
“I’m not being pedantic about vocabulary: Chemistry isn’t an unnatural thing happens in labs. All life is chemistry. It’s not a threat”. – Katie Mack (@AstroKatie)
“If you can’t say anything nice1
1Say it in a foot note” – Shit Academics Say (AcademicsSay)
“Computers make it easier to do a lot of things, but most of the things they make it easier to do don’t need to be done.” – Andy Rooney h/t @JohnDCook
“Thinking is hard work, and it opens you up to criticism.” – David Draper h/t @JohnDCook
“Maybe Hitler grew up to be so hateful and paranoid because of all those time travellers who tried to kill him as a baby”. – Adam Rex (@MrAdamRex )
“Contrary to the myth of science, facts are not autonomous. They gain meaning from [our interpretive] frameworks” – Tom Levenson h/t @beckyfh
“Does he believe he knows the difference?
Or
Does he know he believes they are different?” – G.H. Finn (@GanferHaarFinn)
“There ain’t no God, just to-do lists”. – Joshua P. Preston (@JPPreston)
“We are here on Earth to fart around, and don’t let anybody tell you different.” – Kurt Vonnegut
“I can kill for Myself just fine, thanks”. – @TheTweetOfGod
Birthday of the Week:
Born 14 November 1797 Charles Lyell
Charles Lyell at the British Association meeting in Glasgow 1840. Painting by Alexander Craig.
Source: Wikimedia Commons
History of Geology: 14 November 1797: Happy Birthday Charles Lyell
History of Geology: In Search of… the Sea Snake
Paige Fossil History: Charles Lyell & the First Neanderthal
The frontispiece from Elements of Geology
Source: Wikimedia Commons
William Herschel born 15 November 1738
A portrait of William Herschel by William Artaud, 1820
Ptak Science Books: First Light to Good Night – Putting a Telescope to Sleep
The British Museum: View of Herschel’s forty foot reflecting telescope
National Geographical Channel: Sky Full of Ghosts
20ft telescope from The Scientific Papers of Sir William Herschel (London, 1912), Royal Soc and RAS
PHYSICS, ASTRONOMY & SPACE SCIENCE:
Yovisto: Edmond Halley besides the Eponymous Comet
History Today: Science and Superstition: A Landmark Witch Trial
Teyler’s Museum: ‘s Gravesande’s ring & ball 1774
AFR Weekend: 100 years later, Einstein’s theory of relativity stands strong
KXLF.com: Albert Einstein’s colossal mistake
Princeton University: Princeton celebrates 100 years of Einstein’s theory of general relativity
Linn’s Stamp: Born Nov 9: Benjamin Banneker
National Geographic: Einstein’s Magnum Opus
Atlas Obscura: Yerkes Observatory
Yovisto: Hermann Weyl – between Pure Mathematics and Theoretical Physics
World Digital Library: Newly Compiled Pocket Astrological Calendar
The Irish Times: Einstein and a scientific milestone
APS News: Einstein’s House in Bern: Joint EPS-APS Historic Site
Shapell: I have just completed the most splendid work of my life, Einstein says
Voices of the Manhattan Project: Hans Bethe’s Interview (1982)
Atlas Obscura: The Forgotten Kaleidoscope Craze in Victorian England
A portrait of Sir David Brewster, inventor of the kaleidoscope. (Photo: Public Domain/WikiCommons)
Universe Today: Who Was Sir Isaac Newton?
Gizmodo: The Real-Life Scientific Dilemma Behind the Latest Episode of Manhattan
Tech Insider: Here’s how Albert Einstein destroyed the planet Vulcan
Restricted Data: The Nuclear Secrecy Blog: When did the Allies know there wasn’t a German bomb?
AHF: Philip Abelson
The Mountain Ear: Great Lawyers in History: Edwin Hubble
EXPLORATION and CARTOGRAPHY:
Christie’s The Art People: MARTINES, Joan (actif vers1556-1591), attribué à. Carte portulan de la côte atlantique de l’Amérique du Sud Messine : c1570-1591.
TeleGeography: Submarine Cable Map 2015
Atlas Obscura: America Got Her Name From This 1507 Map
Yovisto: Dr. Livingstone, I presume?
Library of Congress: James Wilson: America’s First Globemaker
Wilson’s three inch terrestrial globe, 182-. Geography & Map Division, Library of Congress.
Slate Vault: Maps Tracking Levels of Poverty in Victorian London, Block by Block
Hyperallergic: Why Cannibals Were on Every 16th-Century Map of the New World
MEDICINE & HEALTH:
Medievalists.net: Top 10 Medical Advances from the Middle Ages
Migraine Histories: Finding the Patients in the Notes
Wellcome Library: Speaking of Trotula
An image of ‘Trotula’ from a 14th-century French encyclopedia; the caption translates: ‘How the woman teaches the clerk the secrets of nature’. Rennes, Bibliothèque municipale, MS. 593 (produced 1303), folio 532r. Image credit: Bibliothèque virtuelle des manuscrits médiévaux. © 2013 Institut de recherche et d’histoire des textes.
Academia: Who/What is “Trotula”?
Early Modern Medicine: Flesh and Spirit
Thomas Morris: Medicine or marinade?
Remedia: Surgery for Desperadoes
Yovisto: Sir James Young Simpson and the Chloroform
Sir James Young Simpson, 1st Baronet (1811-1870)
Thomas Morris: The port-wine enema
Thomas Morris: The owl-eyed girl
Christie’s The Art People: ROESSLIN, Eucharius (d.1526). Der Swangern Frauwen und Hebammen Rosegarten. Strassburg: Martinus Flach iunior, correctore Joanne Adelpho physico, 1513.
woodlibrarymuseum.org: An Account of the First Use of Sulphuric Ether (pdf)
Royal Museums Greenwich: Plagues
Torontoist: Historicist: Body Snatchers, Grave Robbers, and Night Ghouls
![The second-floor dissecting room of the Toronto School of Medicine’s Richmond Street building, showing: (1) Dr. John King, (2) Dr. George De Grassi, (3) Tom Hays, a lecturer at the school, (4) Old Ned, the janitor of the dissecting room, (5) Dr. W.W. [Billy] Francis of Toronto. Bernard Joseph Gloster, “Toronto School of Medicine, dissecting room, Richmond St. W., north side, between Yonge & Bay Sts.; interior, showing staff, 1856. Toronto Public Library, B 10-19a.](http://whewellsghost.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/5-toronto-medical-school-int.jpg?w=640&h=332)
The second-floor dissecting room of the Toronto School of Medicine’s Richmond Street building, showing: (1) Dr. John King, (2) Dr. George De Grassi, (3) Tom Hays, a lecturer at the school, (4) Old Ned, the janitor of the dissecting room, (5) Dr. W.W. [Billy] Francis of Toronto. Bernard Joseph Gloster, “Toronto School of Medicine, dissecting room, Richmond St. W., north side, between Yonge & Bay Sts.; interior, showing staff, 1856. Toronto Public Library, B 10-19a.
Motherboard: Celebrate the Saturn V’s Birthday by Watching the Largest Rocket in History Fly
Open Cultures: Download 10,000 of the first recordings of Music Ever Made, Courtesy of the UCSB Cylinder Audio Archive
ccrma.stanford.com: Cacophony or harmony? Multivocal logics and technology licensing by the Stanford University Department of Music (pdf)
Smithsonian.com: Divers Discover 102-Year-Old Shipwreck in Lake Huron
The Guardian: Betamax is dead, long live VHS
The Public Domain Review: The Telephonoscope (1879)
Yovisto: Fred Cohen and the First Computer Virus
Yovisto: The Publication of the First Web Page
Conciatore: Neri’s Other Rubino
Open Culture: The Interior of the Hindenburg Revealed in 1930s Color Photos: Inside the Ill-Fated Airship
Ptak Science Books: On the Dreadful Nature of Unseen Point-Blank Racism
Scottish Engineering Hall of Fame: Sir George Bruce (c1550–1625), pioneering engineer who created a sophisticated offshore mining enterprise in the 16th century
Chemical Heritage Magazine: Artificial Clouds and Inflammable Air: The Science and Spectacle of the First Balloon Flights, 1783
An 18th-century hydrogen filled balloon takes off. (Library of Congress)
Yovisto: Jacques Charles and the Hydrogen Balloon
Ptak Science Books: Great Cross Section of the HMS “Repulse”, 1939
The Washington Post: How Nazi scientists and their wind tunnels ended up in D.C.’s suburbs
Computer History Museum: 1971 – Microprocessor Integrates CPU Function onto a Single Chip
A Covent Garden Gilflurt’s Guide to Life: Where did Robert Fulton go?
Library of Congress: “What’s this Gadget?”: Solving Mystery Photos
EARTH & LIFE SCIENCES:
Notches: Stalling Civil Rights: Conservative Sexual Thought has been in the Toilet Since the 1940s
Science League of America: Evolution for John Doe, Part 3
Yovisto: Robert Morison and the Classification of Plants
Plaeophile: Voyage of the Beagle (Non-fiction fan fiction)
Embryo Project: Wilhelm Johannsen’s Genotype-Phenotype Distinction
The Recipe Project: The Exotic Taste of Rice
Notches: Homophile Priests, LGBT Rights, and Scottish Churches 1967–1986
AMNH: How to Experiment Like Darwin
Natural History Museum: Alfred Russel Wallace (1823–1913)
Natural History Museum: Wallace Letters Online
Famous Scientists: Evolutionary Theories Before Darwin:
Social Evolution Forum: Shopping For a Von Humboldt Bust
Independent: Classroom posters get a design makeover: The one-man mission to transform the walls of our schools
CHEMISTRY:
Historical Notes: History of Medicine Collection spotlight: Lavoisier’s “Elements of Chemistry”
META – HISTORIOGRAPHY, THEORY, RESOURCES and OTHER:
Hisiheyah Arts: GIF Icons of women in science
Conciatore: Benedetto Vanda
Ada Lovelavce: Celebrating 200 years of a computer visionary: Somerville, science and Wikipedia
Medievalists.net: Why the Scientific Revolution Did Not Take Place in China – or Didn’t It?
Social History of Medicine: Volume 28 Issue 4 November 2015 Contents
The Recipes Project: Leftovers: Cooking, Blogging, and Studying History from Old Recipes
The Guardian: On the Origin of Species voted most influential academic book in history
The H-Word: How do we decide which academic book is the ‘most influential’ ever written?
A classic on undergraduate reading lists long before the upstart ‘Origin’ was even published… Photograph: Jim Sugar/Corbis
The Atlantic: Science Doesn’t Work the Way You Might Think: Not Even for Einstein
Chicago Journals: Osiris Vol. 30, No. 1, 2015 Scientific Masculinities Contents
Taylor And Francis Online: History of Science Free Access Articles
The Guardian: Don’t be a conference troll: a guide to asking good questions
E-International Relations: Interview – John R. Mitchell (environmental historian)
Tropics of Meta: Atlanta Loses Its Greatest Listener: Cliff Kuhn, 1952–2015 Executive Director of the Oral History Association
Technology Spectator: How computers broke science
Forum for History of Human Science: Website
Medievalists.net: Medieval and Renaissance Book Production
The Renaissance Mathematicus: Hans Holbein and the Nürnberg–Ingolstadt–Vienna Renaissance mathematical nexus
Nicholas Kratzer, 1528 painting by Hans Holbein the Younger
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Medievalists.net: Five Medieval Chronicles that you can read translated online
Taming the American Idol: 95 Theses on Innovation
Dana Research Centre and Library: Opened 9 November 2015 The Library offers 18 reading desks and around 5,500 volumes of books and recent journals in the history and biography of science, technology and medicine and in museology. 165 Queens Gate, London SW7 5HD
Medievalists.net: The Medieval Magazine: Animals in the Middle Ages (Issue 141)
Skulls in the Stars: “Science Chamber of Horrors” talk at the Schiele Museum
DSI: Database of Scientific Illustrators 1450–1950
History Buff: When Does Science Begin? A Conversation with David Wootton
Reader Project in the History of Science—Survey: Help us choose the 10 most influential articles in #HistSTM during the last 25 years
ESOTERIC:
Conciatore: A Dominican Connection
20th-century photograph of the old distillery at S.M. Novella.
BOOK REVIEWS:
Science Book a Day: A is for Arsenic: The Poisons of Agatha Christie
The Bookseller: Slack wins biennial Samuel Pepys Award
The Space Review: Kepler and the Universe
Chemistry World: Pyrite: a natural history of fool’s gold
ars technica: Scientific Method/Science & Exploration: The messy reality of science revealed by the long hunt for a missing planet
The Guardian: NeuroTribes: by Steve Silberman review – an enlightened take on autism and difference
Nature: History of science: Trial by gender
The Friends of Charles Darwin: The Invention of Science
The Guardian: The Invention of Nature: The Adventures of Alexander von Humboldt, the Lost Hero of Science
The Dispersal of Darwin: Origins: The Scientific Story of Creation
The Dispersal of Darwin: Evolution: The Whole Story
NEW BOOKS:
Biographile: That Time Einstein Debunked Vulcan, a Planet That Never Existed
The Public Domain Review: Selected Essays, Vol II
University of Chicago Press: Groovy Science: Knowledge, Innovation, and American Counterculture
Historiens de la santé: The Corrigible and the Incorrigible: Science, Medicine, and the Convict in 20th Century Germany
Palgrave: Marine Insurance Origins and Institutions, 1300–1850
Yale University Press: Science Blogging: The Essential Guide
John Allen Paulos: A Numerate Life
ART & EXHIBITIONS
The New York Review of Books: Amazing Building Adventures
Ashmolean: Power and Protection: Islamic Art and the Supernatural 20 October 2016–15 January 2017
The Guardian: Sex and the city: 1660s London brought to life at National Maritime Museum
CLOSING SOON: Royal Society: Seeing closer: 350 years of microscope
Museum of the History of Science: Henry Moseley: A Scientist Lost to War Runs until 31 January 2016
CLOSING SOON: University of Dundee: A History of Nearly Everything Runs until 28 November 2015
The Huntarian: The Kangaroo and the Moose Runs until 21 February 2016
Science Museum: Cosmonauts: Birth of the Space Age Runs until 13 March 2016
Museum of Science and Industry: Meet Baby Every Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, & Saturday
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York: The Luxury of Time: European Clocks and Watches 16 November 2015–27 March 2016
Clockmaker: Ferdinand Berthoud (French, 1727–1807); Case maker: Balthazar Lieutaud (French, ca. 1720–1780, master 1749). Longcase astronomical regulator (detail), ca. 1768–70. Case: oak veneered with ebony and brass, with gilt-bronze mounts; Dial: white enamel; Movement: gilded brass and steel; Height: 90.5 in. (229.9 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, (1982.60.50).
Royal Museums Greenwich: Guiding Lights: 500 years of Trinity House and safety at sea Runs till 4 January 2016
THEATRE & OPERA & FILMS:
Houston Press: An Unsung Female Astronomer Gets Her Due in Main Street Theater’s Stirring Silent Sky
A galaxy of possibilities.
Pin Lim/Forest Photography
Berkeley City Club: Ada and the memory machine Runs till 22 November 2015
Wonders & Marvels: The Black Stork: A physician’s cinematic argument for eugenics
CLOSING VERY SOON: Noel Coward Theatre: Photograph51 Booking until 21 November 2015
Gielgud Theatre: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time Booking to 18 June 2016
CLOSING VERY SOON: Blue Orange Theatre: Jekyll & Hyde 18-21 November 2015
EVENTS:
University of Manchester: Postgraduate taught courses open day 25 November 2015
University of Lincoln: MA Open Day School of History and Heritage 8 December 2015
British Library: Eccles Centre: The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt’s New World 18 November 2015
Natural History Museum: BBC Radio 4: Natural Histories The Big Story Hintze Hall 27 November 2015
Litteraturhuset i Bergen: Talk: Philip Ball The history of invisibility 28 November 2015
CHF: Not Just Fun and Games? STEM, Toys, and Gender 19 November 2015
Museum of Natural History, Oxford: The Oxford Dodo: Culture at the Crossroads 18 November 2015
Royal Society: Unifying physics and technology in light of Maxwell’s equations 16-17 November 2015
Royal Institution: The Tsar’s cup 27 November 2015
Bethlem Museum of the Mind: Explore Your Archive from 18 November 2015
PAINTING OF THE WEEK:
Woodcut, The Physician, Hans Holbein the Younger, Dance of Death, 1538
TELEVISION:
AHF: “Manhattan” Season 2, Episode 5: Separation Anxiety
SLIDE SHOW:
VIDEOS:
Vimeo: The Plague – Dr Stanley B. Burns
Youtube: Gresham College: The Scientific Life of Ada Lovelace – Professor Ursula Martin
Youtube: Gresham College: Hanna Neumann: A Mathematician in Difficult Times – Dr Peter Neumann
Vimeo: The Legend of Mendeleev’s Dream
Vimeo: Mendeleev’s Chemical Solitaire
Youtube: Armillary Sphere animation
Youtube: Amazing piece of metal (speculum)
Youtube: Brian Greene Explains That Whole General Relativity Thing to Stephen Colbert
RADIO:
The Sloane Letters Blog: Sloane becomes a BBC Radio 4 Natural History Hero
PODCASTS:
History Today: A year in medieval England (with lots on Trotula)
Bottle Rocket Science: Startup Geometry Podcast EP 104: Renaissance Mathematicus Thony Christie
History of Philosophy without any gaps: Animal, Vegetable, Mineral: Albert the Great’s Natural Philosophy
Environmental History Resources: Religion and the Origins of American Environmentalism
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
St Anne’s College, Oxford: CfP: Medicine and Modernity in the Long Nineteenth Century 10–11 September 2016
BSHS: Ayrton Prize
Hertha Ayrton
Source: Wikimedia Commons
The Courtauld Institute of Art: CfP: Placing Prints: New Developments in the Study of Print 1400–1800 12–13 February 2016
University of Cambridge: CfP: Treasuries of Knowledge: Collecting and Transmitting Information in the Early Modern Period 8 April 2016
British Society for Literature and Science: CfP: Annual Conference 2016 University of Birmingham 7–9 April 2016
Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI): Final CFP: “The History of Science and Contemporary Scientific Realism” Conference 19-21 February 2016
University of Canterbury New Zealand: CfP: Histories of Forensic Psychology and Forensic Psychiatry 17–18 February 2016
Society for the History of Chemistry: CfP: Annual Meeting Singapore 2016
BSHS: The BSHS John Pickstone Prize Nominations Open
John Pickstone
Source: Wikimedia Commons
University of Leeds: Workshop: Electrifying the country house 1 February 2016
University of Cambridge: Registration open for BSHS Postgraduate Conference 6–8 January 2016
McMaster University: Hannah History of Medicine Speaker Series 2015–2016 Schedule
LOOKING FOR WORK:
University of Cambridge: Isaac Newton Trust Research Fellowship 2016
TU Eindhoven: Assistant Professor in the History of Technology
Royal Society: Public Engagement Officer & Public Engagement Intern
The entrance to the Royal Society in Carlton House Terrace, London
University of Leeds: Postdoctoral Research Fellow – Men, Women and Care
University of Aberystwyth: Postdoctoral Research Assistant (‘Unsettling Science Stories’)
Annapolis: The Third Biennial Early-Career Conference for Historians of the Physical Sciences 6–10 April 2016
