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 #24
Monday 28 December 2015
EDITORIAL:
Christmas has come and gone but here comes the next edition of the weekly #histSTM links list, Whewell’s Gazette, to chase away those post Christmas blues by bringing you the best of the histories of science, technology and medicine that found its way into the Internet over the last seven days.
25 December, Christmas Day saw the anniversary of Isaac Newton’s birth, or did it? Many people, including myself, posted various things on the Internet in celebration of the day but a small minority of spoilsports posted on Twitter and Facebook that it wasn’t Newton’s birthday because of the calendar reform. In reality in our times Newton’s ‘real’ birthday falls on 4 January. If you’re confused you can read the grisly details in an old blog post of mine, Calendrical confusion or just when did Newton die? Despite the title it also deals with the date of Newton’s birth.
Now as I’ve written more than once in the past, Newton was born on Christmas Day in his own time and celebrated his birthday eighty-four years long on Christmas day and so I think, although it is calendrically wrong, it is somehow more apposite to celebrate his birthday on Christmas Day than on 4 January. So despite the spoilsports I for one shall continue to do so.
Interestingly 27 December saw the anniversary of Johannes Kepler’s birth with an equally large number of people throughout the Internet celebrating the fact. However nobody pointed out the fact that his birthdate is old style i.e. according to the Julian Calendar and therefore we should wait until 6 January before celebrating! One rule for Isaac and another for Johannes it would appear.
MHS Oxford Advent Calendar
Day 21: ‘Tower’ Table Clock, by ‘HP’ or ‘HR’, German, 17th Century
Day 22: Microscope Slides in Small Cardboard Box
Day 23: Dissecting Microscope, by E. Leitz, Wetzlar, c.1900-25
Day 24: Globe Clock and Sundial, Dial by Ulrich Schniep, French and Germany, 16th Century
Culham Research Group: Advent Calendar
Day 21: Winter Mint
Day 22: Healing Christmas: Cinnamon
Day 23: Night of the Radishes
Day 24: King Protea
After the twenty-four days of Advent we of course have the twelve days of Christmas
12 Days of Royal Museums Christmas
Royal College of Physicians Twelve days of Christmas
The Recipes Project: Happy Holidays
The book of household management by Mrs Beeton
Credit: Wellcome Library, London.
Quotes of the week:
Hypothesis: many people confuse their hypotheses with the truth. – Liam Heneghan (@DublinSoil)
“A small error at the beginning of something is a great one at the end” – Thomas Aquinas h/t @JohnAllenPaulos
A little nonsense now and then, is cherished by the wisest men. — Roald Dahl h/t @berfois
“There is no such thing as an empty space or an empty time… In fact, try as we may to make a silence, we cannot.” – John Cage h/t @t3dy
“Discretion, like the hole in a doughnut, does not exist except as an area left open by a surrounding belt of restriction.”—R. Dworkin h/t @GuyLongworth
“Asked what Walter Benjamin means when he says that capitalism is a religion, a student answered with one word: Christmas”. – Jan Mieszkowski (@janmpdx)
“A gingerbread man sits inside a gingerbread house. Is the house made of flesh? Or is he made of house? He screams, for he does not know”. – Kris Wilson (@TheKrisWilson)
“Science knows no country because knowledge belongs to humanity, and is the torch which illuminates the world.” – Louis Pasteur h/t @embryoproject
Birthday of the Week:
The Transistor was born 23 December 1947
Wired: Dec. 23, 1947: Transistor Opens Door to Digital Future
Youtube: AT&T Archives: Genesis of the Transistor
Yovisto: The Birth of the Transistor
Canada Science and Technology Museums: Transistor
PHYSICS, ASTRONOMY & SPACE SCIENCE:
AIP: Bryce DeWitt and Cecile DeWitt-Morette
AIP: Ira Sprague Bowen
Cosmos: Celebrating James Maxwell the father of light
Mathematician and poet James Clerk Maxwell.
CREDIT: SPL/ GETTY IMAGES/ (BACKGROUND) SOLA
Voices of the Manhattan Project: Roger Fulling’s Interview
NASA: Apollo 8
Fourier’s Heat Conduction Equation: History, Influence, and Connections
The Conversation: What can science tell us about the Star of Bethlehem?
Science Alert: Can astronomy explain the Biblical Star of Bethlehem?
The Renaissance Mathematicus: Christmas Trilogy Part 1: The famous witty Mrs Barton
Catherine Barton, Isaac Newton’s half-niece
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Leicester Mercury: Barwell meteorite: 50th anniversary of the day it fell to earth
NASA: Johannes Kepler
Brown: Ladd Observatory Blog: The Boston Time-Ball
AHF: Emilio Segrè
EXPLORATION and CARTOGRAPHY:
Atlas Obscura: Northeasterners Were Always Snobs – And These Maps Prove It
Geographical: On This Day: 1915, Shackleton marches on Christmas Day
Royal Geographical Society (with IBG)
World Digital Library: Mappamundi
MEDICINE & HEALTH:
Spitalfields Life: Phil Maxwell at the London Hospital
Shakespeare & Beyond: The Four Humors: Eating in the Renaissance
Royal College of Physicians: Robert Willan and the history of dermatology
A Covent Garden Gilflurt’s Guide to Life: Sir Percivall Pott: A Doctor from Threadneedle Street
The Chirugeon’s Apprentice: Not Just For Kissing: Medicinal Uses of Mistletoe (Past & Present)
Wellcome Library: Edward Jenner: pamphleteer
RCS Bulletin: The compassionate surgeon: Lessons from the past
Thomas Morris: The perils of Christmas pudding
The Recipes Project: Gluttony and “Surfeit” in Early Modern Europe
Slate: The Death of Jacqueline Smith
Thomas Morris: The hidden dangers of a Victorian Christmas
Quartz: Thank Columbus! The true story of how syphilis spread to Europe
Thomas Morris: A Victorian hospital Christmas
Medical Daily: Mad Scientists: 6 Scientists Who Were Dismissed as Crazy, Only to be Proven Right Years Later
Ptak Science Books: A Plate Full of Eyes (1851)
The Daily Beast: The Nixon-Masked Man Who Helped End Homosexuality as a Disease
Embryo Project: The Pasteur Institute (1887– )
TECHNOLOGY:
Conciatotre: The Rise and Fall
Conciatore: Fake Pearls
Johannes Vermeer
“Girl with a pearl earring” (1665-6)
History Matters: The End of Coal: An Industry Out of Time
Motherboard: The Primitive Streetlights That Predicted Electronic Music in 1899
The National Museum of American History: Aaron Cane Torsion Pendulum Clock
Wired: Dec. 22, 1882: Looking at Christmas in a New Light
Today in Science: The First Electric Christmas Tree Lights
Photo taken on 25 Dec 1882 showing Edward H. Johnson’s Christmas tree with strings of electric lamps.
Yovisto: The World’s Fastest Aircraft – Lockheed SR-71
Yovisto: James Rumsey’s Steam Boat
Chemical Heritage Magazine: Celluloid: The Eternal Substitute
The Renaissance Mathematicus: Christmas Trilogy Part 2: Understanding the Analytical Engine
Trial model of a part of the Analytical Engine, built by Babbage, as displayed at the Science Museum (London)
Source: Wikimedia Commons
The Renaissance Mathematicus: Christmas Trilogy Part 3: Roll out the barrel
ASME: Radio City Music Hall Hydraulically Actuated Stage 1932
EARTH & LIFE SCIENCES:
Embryo Project: Petr Alekseevich Kropotkin (1842–1921)
The Public Domain Review: Robin Redbreast (1907)
Yovisto: Jean-Henri Fabre – The Virgil of Insects
Science League of America: “Not Proved and Not Provable”
The East End: Charles Jamrach
The Atlantic: The Forgotten Father of Environmentalism
BHL: Tired of Poinsettias? Bah, Humbug! Then into the Smithsonian Library
Smithsonian.com: How Joel Poinsett, the Namesake for the Poinsettia, Played a Role in Creating the Smithsonian
John Roberts Poinsett (1779-1851) (Library of Congress)
jamescungureanu: Newcomb and the Christian Evolutionists
Motherboard: The Eight Best Extinct Species Discovered in 2015
Medievalists.net: Medieval Beekeeping
The New York Times: The Subway Garnet
Atlas Obscura: 9 Beautiful Portraits of Rescued Owls
The cover of Leila Jeffreys new book Bird Love, published by Abrams.
Science at Play: Sciencecraft Mineralogy Outfit No. 510, c. 1940
Medievalists.net: 10 Natural Disasters that Struck the Medieval World
CHEMISTRY:
AHF: Otto Hahn
Tyler’s Museum: Curie, Marie (Dutch)
AHF: Marie Curie
CHF: Scientific Instrument Makes Leap from Lab to Historical Significance
Conciatore: Sal Ammoniac
CHF: Louis Pasteur
META – HISTORIOGRAPHY, THEORY, RESOURCES and OTHER:
EME Calendar: A Calendar of Calls and Events about Early Modern Experimentation
Yovisto: Leopold von Ranke and the Science of History
Leopold von Ranke
(1795 – 1886)
TPM Online: Biology vs Physics: Two Ways of Doing Science?
Academia: Scientific Celebrity: The Paradoxical Case of Emil du Bois-Reymond
The Guardian: Science and Christmas: a forgotten Victorian romance
Ancient Greek Philosopher: Against Empiricism: Galen’s Arguments
The Ordered Universe Project: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Materialism and the Value of Conscious Life
the scholarly kitchen: Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Our Story: Hamiltunes and the Burden of Founding Histories
digital.deutsches-museum.de: Gründungssammlung des Deutsches Museum
Why Evolution is True: Kevin J Connolly (1936–2015)
University of Oxford: 15cBookTrade
facebook: John Wesley Honors College: 2015 Aldergate Prize Awarded to Australian Laureate Fellow
Epistemocritique: Belles lettres, science et littérature
The New York Times: Robert Spitzer, Psychiatrist Who Set Rigorous Standards for Diagnosis, Dies at 83
Dr. Robert L. Spitzer was a major architect of the modern classification of mental illnesses in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Credit Alex di Suvero for The New York Times
History of Science: Carla Nappi: “Hey, historians of sci/med/tech: submit things to the History of Science journal! We’re looking for innovative, risk-taking work. Help push the field in new directions and send us your grooviness”
ESOTERIC:
Heterodoxology: Review symposium on “The Problem of Disenchantment”
BOOK REVIEWS:
The Guardian: Science and Nature: Observer Books of the Year 2015
Mad Art Lab: The Women in Science Reading List: The Twenty Best (and Four Not Best) Books to Read and Own
New York Review of Books: Lead Poisoning: The Ignored Scandal
Science Book a Day: 10 Great Books on Climate Change Fiction
Science Book a Day: Why Things Break: Understanding the World by the Way It Comes Apart
The Boston Globe: ‘The Invention of Science by David Wooton (sic)
The Scientist: Capsule Reviews
Cosmos: Light from the East
NEW BOOKS:
Brill: Virtuoso by Nature: The Scientific Worlds of Francis Willughby FRS (1635–1672)
Francis Willughby 1635 – 1672
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Margot Lee Shetterly: Hidden Figures: The African American Women Mathematicians Who Helped NASA and the United States Win the Space Race: An Untold Story
University of Pennsylvania Press: Thinking in Public: Strauss, Levinas, Arendt
The University of Chicago Press: Charles Bell and the Anatomy of Reform
ART & EXHIBITIONS
Royal College of Physicians: Scholar, courtier, magician: the lost library of John Dee 18 January–29 July 2016
Royal Geographical Society: Enduring Eye: The Antarctic Legacy of Sir Ernest Shackleton and Frank Hurley 21 November 2015–28 February 2016
Dogs watching Endurance in the final stages of its drift, shortly before it sank to the bottom of the Weddell Sea
Source: Wikimedia Commons
The Huntarian: The Kangaroo and the Moose Runs until 21 February 2016
Science Museum: Cosmonauts: Birth of the Space Age
Museum of the History of Science: Henry Moseley: A Scientist Lost to War Runs until 31 January 2016
LAST CHANCE: Guiding Lights: 500 years of Trinity House and safety at sea Runs till 4 January 2016
Museum of Science and Industry: Meet Baby Meet Baby Every Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, & Saturday
Oxford University Museum of Natural History: Handwritten in Stone: How William Smith and his maps changed geology Runs to 31 January 2016
National Library of Scotland: Plague! A cultural history of contagious diseases in Scotland Runs till 29 May 2016
Royal Geographical Society: The Enduring Eye: The Antarctic Legacy of Sir Ernest Shackleton and Frank Hurley 21 November 2015 – 28 February 2016
Replica of the Small-Scale Experimental Machine (SSEM) at the Museum of Science and Industry in Castlefield, Manchester
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Southbank Centre: Faraday’s synaptic gap Runs till 10 January 2016
Science Museum: Leonardo da Vinci: The Mechanics of Genius 10 February 2016–4 September 2016
The Mary Rose: ‘Ringing the Changes’: Mary Rose Museum to re-open in 2016 with unrestricted views of the ship
Royal Museums Greenwich: Samuel Pepys Season 20 November 2015–28 March 2016
Royal College of Surgeons: Designing Bodies 24 November 2015–20 February 2016
Natural History Museum, London: Bauer Brothers art exhibition Runs till 26 February 2017
Science Museum: Ada Lovelace Runs till 31 March 2016
British Library: 20th Century Maps 4 November 2016–1 March 2017
Royal Pavilion, Brighton: Exotic Creatures 14 November 2015–28 February 2016
National Maritime Museum: Samuel Pepys: Plague, Fire, Revolution Runs till 28 March 2016
Bethlem Museum of the Mind: The art of Bedlam: Richard Dadd Runs till 6 February 2016
THEATRE, OPERA AND FILMS:
Gielgud Theatre: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time Booking to 18 June 2016
EVENTS:
CRASSH: Cambridge: Symposium: Death and the Afterlife 22 January 2016
CRASSH: Cambridge: Workshop: Orientalism and its Institutions in the Nineteenth Century
EconoTimes: Historymiami Museum to Host Largest Map Fair in the Western Hemisphere for 23rd Year 5–7 February 2016
Cliva A. Burden 1 Thornton South Carolina
Dittrick Museum: Book Signing, Death’s Summer Coat 20 January 2016
11th Cambridge Wellcome Lecture in the History of Medicine: Michael Stolberg: Curing Diseases and Exchanging Knowledge: Sixteenth-Century Physicians and Their Female Patients 14 January 2016
Schwetzingen: Astronomie-Tagung: Von Venus-Transit zum Schwarzen Loch 19 März 2016
Chelsea Physic Garden: Round Table Discussion: Dark brilliance: Agatha Christie, poisonous plants and murder mysteries 2 February 2016
Royal Astronomical Society: RAS Public Lecture: 100th Anniversary of the election of Women to the RAS Fellowship 12 January 2016
Science Museum: Symposium: Revealing the Cosmonaut 5 February 2016
British Library: Medieval manuscripts blog: Postgraduate Open Day on our Pre-1600 Collections 1 February 2016
PAINTING OF THE WEEK:
Members of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters, painted by Peder Severin Krøyer
Source: Wikimedia Commons
TELEVISION:
Royal Institution: Christmas Lecture 2015
SLIDE SHOW:
VIDEOS:
FiveThirtyEightLife: The Queen of Code
Youtube: UCC Ireland: An Investigation of the Laws of Thought – George Boole
Youtube: NASA: Hidden Figures: The Female Mathematicians of NACA and NASA
Youtube: Space Debris: 1957–2015
RADIO:
BBC Radio 4: In Our Time: Michael Faraday
Michael Faraday by Thomas Phillips oil on canvas, 1841-1842 NPG
Source: Wikimedia Commons
PODCASTS:
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
University of Groningen: CfP: The Politics of Paper in the Early Modern World 9–10 June 2016
University of Groningen: Conference: Early Modern Women on Metaphysics, Religion and Science 21–23 March 2016
Western University in London Ontario: CfP: 16th Annual Philosophy of Logic, Math and Physics Graduate Student Conference 910 June 2016
Durham University: Conference: Self-Commentary in Early Modern European Literature 26–27 February 2016
Barts Pathology Museum and the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons, London: CfP: Corpses, Cadavers and Catalogues: The Mobilities of Dead Bodies and Body Parts, Past and Present, 17–18 May 2016
LOOKING FOR WORK:
University of Kent: School of History: Postgraduate Funding
UCL: CELL: Research Assistant
University of Cambridge: UL in Science, Technology and Medicine before 1800
CHF: Fellowships 2016-17 Applications due by 15 January 2016
St. Cross College, Oxford: History and Philosophy of Physics Visiting Fellow
Universitat Pompeu Fabra: Post-Doctoral position “Juan de la Cierva”: History of Nuclear Energy and Society in Europe.
