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 #48
Monday 18 May 2015
EDITORIAL:
Another seven days have sped by and we’re back again with the forty-eighth edition of Whewell’s Gazette your weekly #histSTM links list bringing you all the best of the last week’s histories of science, medicine and technology from around the Internet.
Beginning with our next edition the ‘we’ will no longer be the royal we as we have gained a new recruit to our editorial staff to help keep the owls in order. I am very pleased to welcome Anna Gielas, as our new Editor in Chief for History of Science and Entertainment. Anna is a doctoral student at the University of St. Andrews, who describes herself as a Wissenschaftsgeschichtshungrige! For those of you who don’t speak German that translate as a person who hungers for the history of science. I bet you didn’t know that German has a word for that!
Anna’s fine example of applying for and becoming an important post in our editorial team inspires us to say that if any other Wissenschaftsgeschichtshungrige would like to help in producing Whewell’s Gazette every week they would be more than welcome to join the team. I promise you don’t have to eat the same snacks as the owls.
I’m sorry to say that the next edition of Whewell’s Gazette will be in two weeks and somewhat shorter than usual, as at the beginning of next week I shall be in England burying my elder brother who died last Friday.
Under the circumstances I would like to dedicate this edition of Whewell’s Gazette to my brother John Christie (22 May 1945 – 15 May 2015) one of the first nine people to graduate in Britain with a degree in computer science.
This week saw an op-ed in The New York Times, It Is, in Fact, Rocket Science, written by Leonard Mlodinow on the use of mythical anecdotes in the history of science, his main point being neatly summed up in the paragraph below:
The mythical stories we tell about our heroes are always more romantic and often more palatable than the truth. But in science, at least, they are destructive, in that they promote false conceptions of the evolution of scientific thought.
This piece provoked quite a few comments and exchanges on Twitter, which I have collected without comment. If you wish to add comments on the article or these comments you are welcome to do so.
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I’m less offended than many by the general phenomenon of inspiring science stories, though, because narrative is powerful. If you want to communicate science to a broad audience, you’d be a fool not to try to tap into our fascination with great stories. The problem isn’t the use of stories and inspirational figures in promoting science; it’s the LAZY use of oversimplified stories. It’s perfectly possible to use stories about famous scientists in a responsible way, inspiring without deceiving– encourage that. – Chad Orzel
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The way to advance science is not to find a series of Einsteins & worship their brilliance. Science is collaborative & takes hard work. Yes, Einstein was smart. He was also in a physics PhD program at ETH Zurich, working with world experts. He didn’t spring from nothing. – Katie Mack
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The damage done by oversimplified narratives in pop histories of science. Argument works for other histories too, IMHO. – Rebecca Onion
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“Telling that this @nytimes piece on oversimplified #histSTM narratives is written by a physicist not a historian”. – Ben Gross
“Why telling? What would a historian provide that a physicist cannot?” – Hank Campbell
Telling because it reinforces assumption that anyone can be a historian w/o formal training in the discipline. – Ben Gross
“A good point.“ – Hank Campbell
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“NYT op-ed on #histSTM simplifies to “history is complicated”” – Patrick McCray
“History is complicated. But science is also complicated. So complicated, in fact, that its history is best left to scientists!” – Ben Gross
“#WeinberStrikesAgain” – Patrick McCray
“Complications are complicated”. – Patrick McCray
“Not quite. Scientists didn’t correct the story about Darwin’s finches. Sulloway did”. – Gabriel Finkelstein
If only more scientists were aware of such examples when they set out to write/speak re: #histSTM. – Ben Gross
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“For some reason the media never asks historian of science to write about the history of science!!!“ – Thony Christie
“With a few exceptions (e.g.@HPS_Vanessa, @rebeccaonion, etc.) you’re right. Hopefully that will change. #histSTM – Ben Gross
“Maybe historians of science worry about (fear?) writing such op-ed pieces”. – Darren Hayton
“Do historians of science offer their expertise to media outlets? Physicists don’t shy away from it. Is their something about the culture in history of science that discourages media outreach?” – Darren Hayton
Quotes of the week:
“History is not written by the winners, it is written by the articulate.” – Ben Espen
“The first rule of anarchy club is that there is no first rule of anarchy club.” – @Swansontea
“If you marry a water nymph, she will acquire a soul. Otherwise she will die like a beast”. – Paracelsus h/t @senseshaper
For every mansplaining there’s an equal and opposite manshaming. – Liam Heneghan
“We are drawn to pyrotechnics, but history is made in the inner recesses of the mundane. We would do well to remember this. And to teach it”. – Michael Egan
“Stars are like animals in the wild. We may see the young but never the actual birth, which is a veiled and secret event” – Heinz R. Pagels
“If you torture data sufficiently, it will confess to almost anything” – Fred Menger
“Stupidity has a knack of getting its way.” – Albert Camus”
Okay to encourage others to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. But if you do, just remember, some people have no boots. – Neil deGasse Tyson
A philosopher who is not taking part in discussions is like a boxer who never goes into the ring. – Wittgenstein
“If you don’t make mistakes, you’re not working on hard enough problems. And that is a big mistake.” – Frank Wilczek
I’m increasingly thinking that I want to write my publications with my ‘blog voice’. I like it better and I think readers do, too. – Joanne Bailey
Suspicions amongst thoughts are like bats amongst birds, they ever fly by twilight. –Francis Bacon
“Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.” – Terry Pratchett
“They forced this invention of the devil upon me. Fortunately the thing has a knack of getting out of order” – Andrew Thomas Gage on the telephone 1910
“What a typewriter will do to a novice, the ribbon has gone on strike & has wound itself around the bowels of the machine in a most vicious manner” – E. Ray Lankester 1927
Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind. – Albert Einstein
Hofstadter’s Law: “It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter’s Law.”
Birthdays of the Week:
Johann Friedrich Blumenbach born 11 May 1752
Johann Friedrich Blumenbach
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Embryo Project: Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (1752–1840)
Yovisto: Johann Friedrich Blumenbach and the Human Race
Blumenbach’s five races.
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Wonders & Marvels: Why Caucasian is a Dirty Word
Inge Lehmann born 13 May 1888
Inge Lehmann in 1932
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Trowelblazers: Inge Lehmann
Time: New Google Doodle Honors Pioneering Seismologist Inge Lehmann
Letters from Gondwana: Inge Lehmann
AMNH: Inge Lehman: Discoverer of the Earth’s Inner Core
True Anomalies: A Journey to the Center of the Earth
Figures from Inge Lehmann’s 1936 paper, P’, showing seismic wave signatures at many Danish stations.
Source: True Anomalies
PHYSICS & ASTRONOMY:
Philly.com: Testing Galileo’s artistic chops 400 years later
Restricted Data: The Nuclear Secrecy Blog: What did Bohr do at Los Alomos?
Ptak Sciene Books: Albert Einstein: Part Time Civil Servant
The Guardian: Alexei Leonov, the first man to walk in space
Occam’s Corner: The birth of soft matter physics, the physics of the everyday
Ansamed: Hittits-Egyptians, scientific cooperation 2000 years ago
Forbes: What Einstein Should Have Known
1001 Invention: 1001 Inventions and the World of Ibn Al-Haytham
Teyler’s Museum: Rebound Trajectory
Skywatchers: Rose O’Halloran
AEON: In the beginning
teleskopos: Eighteenth-century eclipse maps by Halley and Whiston
Airspace Blog: Finding Pluto With the Blink Comparator
The National Museum of American History: Painting – Measurement of the Earth (Eratosthenes)
Perimeter Institute: General Relativity From A to Z
Tehran Times: Khayyam statue looking for apt location in United States
EXPLORATION and CARTOGRAPHY:
Tennessee State Library and Archive: Free Exhibit Highlights State Library and Archives’ Vast Collection of Maps
British Library: Endangered archives blog: New online collections – May 2015
Public Domain Review: Maps from Geographicus
Eiland Ormus, of Jerun, engraved by Jacob Van der Schley under the supervision of J. Bellin for the c. 1750 edition of Provost’s L`Histoire Generale des Voyages
Ptak Science Books: A Nearly-Blank Outline Map of the World
Ptak Science Books: World Map of the Geography of Homer
University of Southern Maine: Osher Map Library
Public Domain Review: Highlights from the 20,000+ maps made freely available online by New York Public Library
New York Public Library: The Great War and Modern Mapping: WWI in the Map Division
![The battle fronts of Europe - Stanford's Geographical Establishment [1917]](https://whewellsghost.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/battle-fronts-of-europe.jpg)
The battle fronts of Europe – Stanford’s Geographical Establishment [1917]
Medievalist.net: Abortions in Byzantine times (325–1453 AD)
Social History of Medicine: ‘A virtue beyond all medicine’: The Hanged Man’s Hand, Gallows Tradition and Healing in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-century England
Dr Alun Withey: Unhealthy Beards? Denouncing Facial Hair in History
The Recipes Project: How to grow your beard, Roman style
Wellcome Library: Digitisation at the Royal College of Surgeons England
The Cullen Project: The Medical Consultation Letters of Dr William Cullen
The Recipes Project: Wigging Out: Mrs Corlyon’s Method for extracting Earwigs From The Ear
Unidentified species of Earwig, order Dermaptera, possibly Forficulidae, by JonRichfield,Wikimedia Commons
Books Combined: Obsessions and olfaction: scent and the seduction of books
The New York Times: A Grisly Find Under a Supermarket Illuminates France’s Medieval Past
Medievalist.net: Why All the Fuss about the Body? A Medievalist’s Perspective
The Quack Doctor: The mysterious Doctor Du Brange
academia.edu: Health, Medicine and the Family in Wales c. 1600 – c. 1750 PhD Thesis Alun Withey
Genotopia: An early use of the term “precision medicine”
Slate Vault: A Depression-Era Medicinal Plant Map of the United States
“Medicinal Plant Map of the United States of America.” Edwin Newcomb and the National Wholesale Druggists’ Association, 1932.
David Rumsey Map Collection
The Guardian: Man who died 1,500 years ago may have brought leprosy strain to UK
Wonders & Marvels: Feeling Swinish: Or the Origins of “Pandemic”
Hektoen International: The arsenic eaters of Styria
History of Vaccines: History of Smallpox
Brought to Light: Country Joe McDonald’s Florence Nightingale collection will be preserved in UCSF Archives
My Wonderland.Mental Health Blog: The Rise of Psychiatry has Augmented the Rise of Madness through Medication
Dorset Echo: Help historians find stories from the asylum
Throb: There Was No Viagra in 1918. But There Was This Penis Splint
Forbes: Julius Caesar’s Health Debate Reignited: Stroke or Epilepsy
Deathplaining: The Attritional Mortality Myth
TECHNOLOGY:
The New York Times: Ghostly Voices From Thomas Edison’s Dolls Can Now Be Heard
Conciatore: The Neri Godparents II
Conciatore: The Neri Godparents III
Conciatore: The Neri Chapel
Vir History: Navy Radio Traffic Handling, Circuits, and Messages
Rhode Island Radio: Dedicated to the history of radio in Rhode Island
Smithsonian Libraries: Unbound: Durable Pianos
Ivers & Pond Piano Co., Boston, MA. Ivers & Pond Pianos, circa 1890, pages 32-33, Style 13, Ivers & Pond Small Parlor Grand Piano.
io9: The Illustrated History of Jet Packs
The New York Times: Moore’s Law Turns 50
Smithsonian.com: How 75 Years Ago Nylon Stockings Changed the World
CHF: Nylon A revolution in Textiles
Cornell University: Dawn’s Early Light: The First 50 Years of American Photography
O Say Can You See: The oldest microscope in the museum
Ptak Science Books: Bombing Subs with Exploding Birds, 1918
Tylers Museum: Bourdon type barometer
Barometer, Bourdon type or aneroid + case, F.W. Funckler
Source: Teylers Museum
Ptak Science Books: Hot Bunks and Cool Air in (All White?) Community Fallout Shelter
Auckland Meccano Guild: The Cambridge Meccano Differential Analyser
150 Great Things About The Underground: 37. The world clock at Piccadilly Circus
Engineering and Technology Wiki: Theordore Maiman and the Laser
Ptak Science Books: Unusual Questions 1: Are the London Bridges Too Far Apart? 1904
Linda Hall Library: Plates from Jacquard machine analysed and explained, by E.A. Posselt, 1892
Inside the Science Museum: The Pegasus Computer
EARTH & LIFE SCIENCES:
Patheos: 11 recurring mistakes in the debate over the “historical Adam”
AIP:Expanding NBL&A resources to include meteorology
An Awfully Big Blog Adventure: “Mamma’s Kindness to Me”
The West Wales Chronicle: Special party treat for Garden Members
The Atlas of Living Australia: Over 10 million collections-based records on the Atlas
PBS: Alfred Wegener
The Junto: Natural Histories
BHL: Notes & News: Mars Invaders: The Wonderful World of Microfungi
Fig. 2. Symptoms and spore diversity of rust fungi from Rust, smut, mildew and mould: an introduction to the study of microscopic fungi. By M.C. Cooke and illustrated by J.E. Sowerby. London, 1898.
Oxford Today: Award for 200 unbroken years of Oxford weather records
The Secret Library: Little Chunks of History
Sandwalk: James Hutton and John Playfair and a genealogical connection
University of Glasgow Library: An artistic reinterpretation of William Hunter
The New York Times: The Greatest Generation of Scientists
The Friends of Charles Darwin: John Stevens Henslow
Yovisto: Ilya Mechnikov and the Macrophages
Élie Metchnikoff (1845-1916)
microBEnet: Where does the term microbiome mean? And where did it come from? A bit of a surprise…
CHEMISTRY:
CHF: Justus von Liebig and Friedrich Wöhler
CHF: Where’s the Beef?
About Education: Who was the first chemist?
Chemistry World: All set for chemistry
Some of the earliest sets came in mahogany cases and were very expensive © Science Museum, London, Wellcome Images
META – HISTORIOGRAPHY, THEORY, RESOURCES and OTHER:
The New York Times: Peter Gay, Historian Who Explored Social History of Ideas, Dies at 91
Living Anthropologically: Real History versus Guns Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond
CHF: Heritage Day Awards
Forbes: The Role of Philosophy in Physics
AHA Today: AHA Announces New Taxonomy of Historical Fields
Shady Characters: Pilcrows in the service of science: a Shady Characters field trip
Science Museum Group Journal: Issue 3 Spring 2015
The Mary Sue: Everyone, We Need to Talk About 17th-Century Badass Writer Margaret Cavendish
Wellcome Collection: The Catalogue for the Public Library of Private Acts
University of Glasgow Library: Glasgow Incunabula Project and exhibition update
Sir Thomas Browne, taken from a copy of “Religio Medici” (Photo by Universal History Archive/Getty Images), Photograph: UniversalImagesGroup/Getty Images
Vox: Science is often flawed. It’s time we embraced it.
Wellcome Collection: Open Platform
Constructing Science Communities: People Powered Science
Open Culture: 6,000 Years of History Visualised in a 23-Foot-Long Timeline of World History, Created in 1871
Nautilus: The Trouble With Scientists
Girl, Interrupting: We’ve all got troubles (including Open Science Network)
University of Cambridge Museums: Innovation: The Emperor’s New Clothes?
The H-Word: Beware Eurosceptic versions of history and science
The Renaissance Mathematicus: History or political propaganda?
Notches: Inaugural Monthly Digest
The Guardian: 150 years of mathematics in the UK – in pictures
NY Book Editors: Inside an Edit: Non-Fiction Structural Changes
ESOTERIC:
distillatio: My alchemical demonstrations at re-enactment events
Ultraculture: 3 Ways to Become a ‘Magician’, by a 16th Century Alchemist
Natural Magick, by Giambattista della Porta
SV Educational Services: Medieval Alchemy – The Art and Science of Transmutation
BOOK REVIEWS:
Brain Pickings: Richard Feynman on Science vs. Religion and Why Uncertainty is Central to Morality
JHI: Practical Past, Runaway Future
Brain Pickings: Richard Feynman on the Universal Responsibility of Scientists
Science Book a Day: The Journals of Lewis and Clark
Financial Times: ‘Scientific Babel: The Language of Science’ by Michael Godin
HNN: Why I wrote a Book About the Wright Brothers
New Books in Science, Technology, and Society: Galileo’s Idol: Gianfrancesco Sagredo and the Politics of Knowledge
Nature: The man who bared the brain
History Today: Aphrodisiacs, Fertility and Medicine in Early Modern England
Nature: In search of self and science
The Guardian: The Water Book by Alok Jha review – this remarkable substance
The Economist: A man for all seasons: Universal Man: The Lives of John Maynard Keynes
Popular Science: How UFOs Conquered the World: The History of a Modern Myth
academia.edu: Review – McLeish’s Faith and Wisdom in Science
Science Book a Day: The Age of Radiance: The Epic Rise and Dramatic Fall of the Atomic Age
Popular Science: Einstein’s Masterwork: 1915 and the General Theory of Relativity
The Washington Post: John Hemming follows three British scientists who made significant discoveries in the Amazon
NEW BOOKS:
Historiens de la santé: Hippocrate et les hippocratismes: médicine, religion, société
University of Pennsylvania Press: Medieval Robots: Mechanism, Magic, Nature and Art
Historiens de la santé: La santé en guerre 1914–1918. Une Politique pionnière en univers incertain
University of Pittsburgh Press: The Crown and the Cosmos: Astrology and the Politics of Maximilian I
THEATRE:
YouTube: The Royal Society: A dramatic experiment: science on stage
FILM:
The Guardian: Jane Hawking: “There were four of us in our marriage”
Facebook: John Farrell: Sungenis Admits His Movie Was a Flop, Promises More
TELEVISION:
BBC: Cosmonauts: How Russia Won the Space Race
SLIDE SHOW:
VIDEOS:
Classical Confidential: Caesar’s Strokes and the Fate of an Empire
Science Dump: 10 of Tesla’s best ideas that prove he was the ultimate science bad ass!
Medievalist.net: Vegetables in the Middle Ages
Bohemcan Youtube Channel: Alchemy (Show One & Two)
YouTube: The Pegasus Computer
YouTube: Leading interdisciplinary research, Professor Tom McLeish
YouTube: Darwin on the evolution trail
RADIO:
PODCASTS:
Dr Alvin: The Most Trusted Name in Wisdom: Einstein’s Dice & Schrödinger’s Cats by Paul Halpern chats with Dr Alvin
Advances in the History of Psychology: New Books in STS Interview: Matthew Heaton’s Black Skin, White Coats
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
University of Cambridge: Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry Meeting 15 June 2015
Museum for the History of Science Oxford: Exhibition: Dear Harry: Henry Moseley – A Scientist Lost to War 14 May–18 October 2015
Royal Society: People-powered science: Symposium: citizen science in the 19th and 21st centuries
University of Manchester: Symposium: Stories About Science: Exploring Science Communication and Entertainment Media 4–5 June 2015
Morbid Anatomy: Daniel Rushkoff and the Narrative Lab! Alchemy Lecture and Workshop Series! History of the Sacred Heart of Jesus! Arcane Media! Upcoming Events
University of Warwick: Gems in Transit: Materials, Techniques and Trade, 1400–1800 18-19 May 2015
Seton Hall University: The 2015 Biennial Conference of the Aphra Behn Society for Women in the Arts, 1660-1830: CfP: Women in the Global Eighteenth Century 5-6 November 2015
University of Northampton: Masculinity and the Body in retain, 1500–1800 18 June 2015
Colloque de la SFHSH – Histoire des sciences humaines et sociales Paris, 5-6 novembre 2015
UCL: STS Research Day 2015 Programme
University of Manchester: CHSTM: Workshop: Medicines, Histories and Translations 11-12 June 2015
World Health Organization Global Health Histories: Online webinar: ‘Chemical and Biological Weapons’ 21 May 2015
University of Notre Dame: Locating Forensic Science and Medicine 24-25 June 2015
Caltech: Lecture: Andrew Hodges: “Alan Turing: An Individual of the Twentieth Century” 21 May 2015
University of Warsaw: The Tree of Knowledge: Theories of Science and Art in Central Europe, 1400–1700 28 May 2015
Maastricht University: CfP. Theorizing the Body in Health and Medicine 26–27 November 2015
H-Histsex: Notches: CfP: Histories of Sexualities In Africa
The Northern Network for Medical Humanities: Workshop: University of Sheffield 10 June 2015
University of Durham: Thomas Harriot Seminar 2015 6–7 July
IET: Newcastle Discovery Museum: Conference: The history of power generation, distribution, utilisation and other engineering specialisms 6–7 June
Institute of English Studies, Senate House, University of London: Biennial London Chaucer Conference: Science, Magic and Technology 10-11 July 2015
University of Wales Trinity Saint David: Astrology as Art: Representation and Practice 27-28 June 2015
LOOKING FOR WORK:
University of Zurich: Two Postdocs in History of Medicine
University of Strathclyde: Lectureship in the History of Medicine
University of Pennsylvania: Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Humanities 2016-2017
MOSI: Fully-funded AHRC PhD studentship: The Rise and Fall of The Manchester Motor Industry, 1896–1939
University of Sussex: Sussex Humanities Lab Doctoral Research Scholarships (2015)
Museum of the History of Science, Oxford: Part-time twelve-week Collections intern
University of Edinburgh: Postdoctoral Teaching and Research Fellowship in the History of Medicine
Smithsonian Institute: Museum Curator (Aeronautics)
University of York: Teaching Fellow in the History of Science and Medicine
Whewell's Ghost 
I find it quite amusing that Mr Mlodinow should moan about inaccurate portrayal of history of science, but his own recent book The Upright Thinkers both perpetuates the ‘Bruno burned at the stake for his science’ myth and tells us that Max Born, rather than Gilbert Lewis, named the photon.