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 147th 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 100th 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: 160th 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 19th 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 18th 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 19th-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 18th 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.](https://whewellsghost.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/molitor_1489_witch_weather.jpg)
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 18th-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
Lawrence Lipking
History of Philosophy: without any gaps: 196. Arts of Darkness: Introduction to Medieval Philosophy
The Royal Society: Visual Science
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
The International Committee for the History of Technology, ICOHTEC, welcomes submissions for the Maurice Daumas Prize, which aims to encourage innovative scholarship in the history of technology.
British Library: Exhibition: Lines in the Ice: Seeking the Northwest Passage opens 14 November
Business Wire: Siebel Chair in the History of Science at Illinois Named
The Royal Society: Conference: Publish or Perish? The past, present and future of the scientific journal 19-21 March 2015
Scientiae Toronto 2015: CfP: Victoria College, University of Toronto, 27-29 May 2015
Map History: ‘Maps and Society’ Lectures Programme for 2014–2015 Warburg Institute
UCL Events: Keep the Candle Burning: A re-enactment of Michael Faraday’s Christmas Lectures 11 December 2014
University of Helsinki: CfP: Workshop “Investigating Interdisciplinary Practice: Methodological Challenges” (Univ. Helsinki, 15-17 June 2015)
University of Helsinki: CLMPS: 15th Congress of Logic, Methodology, and Philosphy of Science Helsinki 3–8 August 2015
The Warburg Institute: Henry More (1614–1687) A conference to mark the fourth centenary of his birth 5 December 2014
University of Wisconsin: Department of the History of Science: CfP: 2015 Midwest Junto for the History of Science 17-19 April 2015
London PUS Seminar: From ‘Any Woman’ Thrush to Pitiful AIDS: The Construction of HIV-Positive Identities in Just Seventeen Magazine, 1983-1997 26 November 2014
Routledge: Call for proposals for a new Routledge series ‘Medicine and Healing of Antiquity’.
Universities of Washington and Saint Louis: Conference: Vesalius and the Modern Body February 26-28 2015
The Science and Entertainment Laboratory: Stories About Science: Exploring Science Communication and Entertainment Media University of Manchester, 4-5 June 2015
CFP: Postgraduate Medical Humanities Conference 2015 University of Exeter, 20-21 July 2015
LOOKING FOR WORK?
Lyman Briggs College – Michigan State University: Assistant Professor of History, Philosophy and Sociology (HPS) of Computing, Networks or Big Data
University of Cambridge: THREE-YEAR FIXED-TERM LEVERHULME TRUST PHD STUDENTSHIP IN THE HISTORY OF EARLY MODERN FRENCH MEDICINE, 2015-2018
Wellcome Trust: Research Assistant (6 months)
USA Jobs: National Science Foundation: Historian
Yonsei University: Underwood International College Assistant Professor, History or Philosophy of Science
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