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 170th 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 20th 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 19th Century
NYAM: Dr. William Edmund Aughinbaugh, Medical Adventurer
Embryo Project: The Marine Biology Laboratory
The Wall Street Journal: The Man Who Invented Psychopathy
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 19th 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
Popular Science: How Not To Be Wrong – Jordan Ellenberg
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 17th 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
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
