Whewell’s Gazette: Vol. #21

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 #21

Monday 10 November 2014

EDITORIAL:

Your favourite weekly #HistSTM links list Whewell’s Gazette has reached its twenty-first edition and would thus in the time of its Editor In Chief have reached maturity or adulthood. It had an easy childhood and although it displayed occasional tardiness in its adolescence has on the whole maintained a high standard of public presentation. We the editorial staff hope that it will continue to grow and mature for many editions to come and in doing so to reflect a healthy and thriving #HistSTM Internet community.

Quotes of the Week:

“Do not sentence me completely to the treadmill of mathematical calculations – leave me time for philosophical speculations” – Johannes Kepler

“Computers in the future may have only 1000 vacuum tubes and perhaps weigh just 1.5 tons.” — Popular Mechanics, 1949 h/t @kasthomas

Birthdays of the Week:

Marie Curie born 7 November 1867

The last week saw the 147^th anniversary of the birth of the Polish–French physicist and chemist Marie Curie one of the dominant figures of early twentieth-century science whether male or female. The first woman to win a Nobel Prize and the only person up to now to win a Nobel Prize in two different scientific disciplines, physics in 1903

Nobel Prize in Physics photo (1903)

and chemistry in 1911.

Nobel Prize in Chemistry photo (1911)

She was also the first woman to become a professor at the University of Paris. The list of her scientific achievements and her honours are too long to be listed here but she remains a shining beacon for all women wishing to follow a career path in the sciences.

Yovisto: Marie Curie – Truly an Extraordinary Woman

Brain Pickings: Marie Curie on Curiosity, Wonder, and the Spirit of Adventure in Science

Hedy Lamarr born 9 November 1914: A famous film star hailed as the most beautiful woman in the world the Viennese actress more much more than a pretty face.

Hedy Lamarr (1913-2000)

Una Sinott: Happy 100^th Birthday Hedy Lamarr, inventor of the wireless network

Yovisto: Hedy Lamarr – a Hollywood Star Invents Secure Communications Technology

Nature born 4 November 1869

Fun Nature fact: the Wordsworth quote on the first masthead was altered. The Nature version reads “To the solid ground of Nature trusts the mind which builds for aye.” Wordsworth capitalized “Mind” and not “nature.” By Melinda Baldwin

Yovisto: The World’s most important Scientific Journal – Nature

Nature: First Issue of Nature

Nature Podcast: November 1869: Nature is born

PHYSICS & ASTRONOMY:

Blink: Celestial Astronomy

Compass Wallah: Reading List: The Celestial Cinema

AIP History: Oral History Transcript – Dr Nick Holonyak

Medievalist.net: Quadrant Constructions and Applications in Western Europe During the Early Renaissance

Space Watchtower: 160^th B-day: Transit of Venus Admirer John Philip Sousa

Discover: Beautiful Maps of Space Throughout the Ages

Planet Vulcan 1846 A.D.
Library of Congress

Great American Eclipse: Total solar eclipses of the 19^th century

American Science: Atomic Shells

The Daily Beast: The Other Side of Stephen Hawking: Strippers, Aliens, and Disturbing Abuse Claims

The Telegraph: Stephen Hawking: driven by a cosmic force of will

Hindu History: Erwin Schrödinger: Vedantist and Father of Quantum Mechanics

EXPLORATION and CARTOGRAPHY:

Guardian: Uncovering the secrets of John Franklin’s doomed voyage

British Library: Learning Mapping Minds: Ptolemy’s World Map 1482

Board of Longitude Project: Longitude Legends: Isaac Newton

Georgian Gent: Travel in the 18^th Century

Linear maps printed by Bowles and Co – this is one showing the journey between Banbury and Bristol.

Behind the scenes at the map museum

MEDICINE:

Perceptions of Pregnancy: How ‘Orals’ Altered the Contraceptive Marketplace in 1960s Britain

Panacea: “Death in the Pot!” Part II

Guardian: Murder at the museum: death and decay go on display

Early Modern Medicine: Comforting Cocoa

History of the Ancient World: Contraception and Abortion in the Ancient World

Medieval Abortion 13th century
Pseudo-Apuleius

FWSA: Being a Woman, Being a Mother: Infertility in early modern England

Slate Vault: How 19^th-Century Doctors Used Daguerreotypes For Consultation on Difficult Cases

Points: The Blog of the Alcohol and Drugs History Society: Rethinking Patent Medicine

global-e: Viral Consumption

The Embryology Project: The Report of the Committee of Inquiry into Human Fertilisation and Embryology (1984), by Mary Warnock and the Committee of Inquiry into Human Fertilisation and Embryology

Remedia: Locating Convalescence in Victorian England

Yovisto: Hermann ‘Klecks’ Rorschach and his Eponymous Test

Yovisto: Florence Sabin – Preparing the Ground for Women in Medical Science

Smithsonian.com: George Washington Didn’t Have Wooden Teeth – They Were Ivory

CHEMISTRY:

Yovisto: Daniel Rutherford and the Isolation of Nitrogen

Mail Online: Build Fireworks the 18^th Century Way

Public Domain Review: Picturing Pyrotechnics

Image showing fireworks at The Hague, June 14, 1713 on the occasion of the “Peace of Utrecht”, found in Klebeband 10 of the Fürstlich Waldecksche Hofbibliothek

Distillato: Gunpowder that doesn’t go bang:

Conciatore: Neri’s Cabinet #8: Sulfur

EARTH & LIFE SCIENCES:

Palaeoblog: Died This Day: Oliver Perry Hay

The Embryo Project: Lysogenic Bacteria as an Experimental Model at the Pasteur Institute (1915-1965)

History of Geology: The Season of the Witch: Climate-Change and Witch-Hunt Through the Ages

Witches cause a hailstorm, illustration from the “De Laniss et phitonicis mulieribus” [Concerning Witches and Sorceresses], by the scholar Ulrich Molitoris, published in 1489.

The Macropod: A Trumpery Affair

Letters from Gondwana: The Poetry of the Ice Age:

Yovisto: Spyridon Marinatos and the Discovery of Akrotiri

The Artful Amoeba: Origin of Mysterious Portuguese Mathematical and Geographical Tiles Revealed

Thinking Like a Mountain: Environment(s) in Public: Histories of Climate, Landscape & Ecology at UEA

Raw Story: The myth of race: Why are we divided by race when there is no such thing?

The Embryo Project: “Evolution and Tinkering” (1977), by Francois Jacob

TECHNOLOGY:

Smithsonian Air and Space Museum: Spacecraft. Marina 10, Flight Spare

Thick Objects: Researchers as Craftspeople: Glass Microtools and Microscopy

Inside the Science Museum: Dogs in Space

Dog spacesuit and ejector seat used on suborbital rocket flights launched from Kapustin Yar, Soviet Union, c. 1955. Credit: Zvezda Research, Development and Production Enterprise, photo by Rosizo.

Scientific American: Remembering Laika the Dog’s Trip to Space, 57 Years Later

Conciatore: The Dance of Lead Crystal Reprise

Motherboard: The First Electronic Voting Machine

The Atlantic: The First Plastic Football Helmets Often Broke on Impact

The Telegraph: the barmy inventions that time forgot

Science Museum: Empire type world clock for indicating time around the globe, 1909

The Royal Institution: Hacking at the Royal Institution

My Medieval Foundry: How not to make a stone mould for pewter spoons

META:- HISTORIOGRAPHY, THEORY, RESOURCES and OTHER:

Frontispiece for the Penny magazine of the society for the diffusion of useful knowledge Source British Museum h/t @beckyfh

Leaping Robot: Golden Fleece 2.0

Judge Starling: Seven Citations of a Paper that Doesn’t Exist: Has Science Become a Game of Chinese Whispers

Royal Museums Greenwich: Letting off steam (punk) with Jeff VanderMeer

The Geek Pund: The Geek Pound VS Museums: Interview with curator Heloise Finch-Boyer, Royal Museums Greenwich

IEEE Spectrum: Nikola Tesla Slept Here

Guinevere Glasfurd: Descartes in Amsterdam

The Science and Entertainment Laboratory: Pulsars, Pills and Post-Punk: Designed for Unknown Pleasures

Conciatore: Bibliomaniac

Irish News: Bicentenary of mathematician George Boole to be celebrated

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

The Guardian: Leonore Davidoff Obituary

The Hindu: Mythology, science and society

JISC Digitisation and Content: Medical Insights

Hyperallergic: 800,000 Pages of Patient Art and Mental Health Archives Are Going Online

British Library: Asian and Africa studies blog: Arabic scientific manuscripts go live in Qatar Digital Library

Humanities: Scholar Stretches Truth: English Professor Bruce Holsinger on Writing Historical Fiction

A²HPS³: David Oldroyd (1936–2014) Obituary

Harvard University Library: Digital Library Collection: Contagion: Historical Views of Diseases and Epidemics

ESOTERIC:

Early Modern Experimental Philosophy: Astrology and the novatores, part 2

Academia.edu: The Problems of Disenchantment: Scientific Naturalism and Esoteric Discourse, 1900–1939 Introduction

BOOK REVIEWS:

Brian Pickings: Cosmigraphics: Picturing Space Through Time in 4000 Years of Mapping Space

Guardian: Stuff Matters by Mark Miodownik

Guardian: Serving the Reich by Philip Ball

Physics Today: Churchill’s Bomb: How the United States Overtook Britain in the First Nuclear Arms Race

NEW BOOKS:

History News Network: He Was Scottish and He Changed the World: And Hardly Anyone Knows His Name

THEATRE:

FILM:

The Independent: Benedict Cumberbatch as Alan Turing in The Imitation Game: Why scientists make tricky leading men

Scientific American: Science goes to the movies

Slate: How Accurate Is The Theory of Everything?

Inside the Science Museum: The Imitation Game at the Science Museum

The Pilot ACE computer, 1950. Image credit: Science Museum / SSPL

TELEVISION:

VIDEOS:

Princeton University Research: Beyond the bomb: Atomic research changed medicine, biology

Princeton University historian Angela Creager spent more than a decade researching early efforts to transform knowledge and technology developed for the Manhattan Project to peaceful uses.

Youtube: John Wilkins: What Is The Philosophy of Science All About?

Youtube: Why Studying the History of Science is Important – Lawrence Principe

Youtube: Lotions and Potions: Medical Books from the Middle Ages – Dr Erik Kwakkel

Vimeo: Chemical Heritage Foundation: Exhibition preview: Book of Secrets: Writing and Reading Alchemy

RADIO:

BBC Radio 3: New Generation Thinkers: Greg Tate: The Poetry of Science

PODCASTS:

New Books in Astronomy: What Galileo Saw: Imagining the Scientific Revolution