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 #50
Monday 08 June 2015
EDITORIAL:
Somewhat delayed, you can now admire, read, consume, criticise, use, abuse or simple ignore the fiftieth edition of the weekly #histSTM links list Whewell’s Gazette bringing the best of the histories of science, technology and medicine, which our special team of search owls could dig up over seven days in the Internet, to computer screen all over the world.
The fiftieth edition! When I decided to lay On Giants’ Shoulders the monthly history of science blog carnival to rest and to start this weekly links list in its place, I naively thought that in doing so I would reduce my workload. Each edition being only a quarter of a month would only require a quarter of the effort, right? Unfortunately my own fervour, tendency to perfection and nerd desire for completeness have meant that the Gazette has grown into monster of undreamed of dimensions, consuming far more of my time and energy than On Giants’ Shoulders ever did.
The above should not be seen in anyway as a complaint. Perverse as I am, I enjoy the work and as a good friend of mine used to say, it keeps me off the streets and stops me beating up old ladies. Although I’m now approaching the period of life where the old ladies are more likely to beat me up rather than the other way around.
As long as I have a working computer and the necessary health to continue I see no reason why Whewell’s Gazette shouldn’t continue to collate and present the Internet’s contributions to #histSTM to those eager to consume them. The next two weeks will see the nominal year completed with the fifty-first and fifty-second editions then there will be a brief hiatus, as I shall be off on an adventure more about which more will be revealed on The Renaissance Mathematicus in due time.
Quotes of the week:
“They must often change, who would be constant in happiness or wisdom”. – Confucius
“I don’t know why we are here, but I’m pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves”. – Wittgenstein
“Watch out for the fellow who talks about putting things in order! [That] always means getting other people under your control”. – Diderot
“When scholars work alone, mistakes are made in private. When scholars collaborate, mistakes are made in public, and everyone learns”. – Tom Scheinfeldt (@foundhistory)
“For what could be more beautiful than the heavens which contain all beautiful things?” – Nicolaus Copernicus
Them “You’re too angry. You’ll catch more flies with honey…”
Me “Why the fuck would I want to catch flies.” – @Evie_Eliot
“’Historians’ who put ideology ahead of actual research should simply shut up” – Samuel McLean (@Canadian_Errant)
“History doesn’t have to be old. History starts only a few hours ago.” – ESA Space History
“History is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation.” – Patrick McCray (@LeapingRobot)
“People remember stories, not facts. Scientists need to use stories or storytellers will (are) make(ing) bad science stick” – Mhari Stewart (@ScienceArtReach)
“Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company.” – Mark Twain
“To talk is the best way not to speak about the essential” – Arjen Dijksmam (@materion)
“Before I begin speaking, there is something I’d like to say.” – Raymond Smullyan
“My daughter just asked why we say “hang up” the phone and now I feel 90”. – Jason English (@EnglishJason)
“Thou lookest like the backe syde of my barrell of small beere!” – Insult 1610 h/t Jonathan Healey (@SocialHistoryOx)
“One 17th century newspaper was described by its critics as ‘an increaser of Bum-fodder’.” – Jonathan Healey (@SocialHistoryOx)
PHYSICS & ASTRONOMY:
Ptak Science Books: Anti-Gravity Anti-Gravitas
Image source: My Ear Trumpet via Ptak Science Books
arXiv.org: Galileo in early modern Denmark, 1600–1650
Slate: Genius move: Max Planck, the unlikely founder of quantum physics, knew how to change his mind.
Popular Science: Here’s Where Astronomers Discovered We Are All Star Stuff
Big Island Now: Caltech To Shut Down Observatory in September
Phys.org: History of the NASA Skylab, America’s first space station
astro.uni.edu: Ptolemaic System Simulator
AIP: Werner Heisenberg on the scientific style of Bohr and others
Yovisto: Carnot and Thermodynamics
Epoch Times: Music and Physics: The Connections Aren’t Trivial
tuson.com: Astronomer Bart Bok studied the Milky Way
The Hindu: The monsoon watchers
The astronomical observatory in Thiruvananthapuram is one of the oldest in the India. Photo: Anand Narayanan
The Jerusalem Post: Hebrew University unveils new statue of Albert Einstein on Jerusalem campus
arXiv.org: The Marquise du Chatelet: A Controversial Woman of Science
Ptak Science Books: Isaac Newton, Alpha and Omega
Pacific Standard: Without Christianity, What Year Would It Be?
Forbes: Twenty Years of Bose-Einstein Condensation
Ptak Science Books: Early “Image” of Hiroshima – as a Cartoon
Brunellesci: Operations of the Geometric and Military Compass of Galileo Galilei (pdf)
Discover: A History of General Relativity
AZ Daily Sun.com: The View from Mars Hill: The discovery of Charon has Flagstaff roots
Teylers Museum: Fluroscoop naar Becquerel, J. Duboscq
EXPLORATION and CARTOGRAPHY:
arXive.org: The search for longitude: Preliminary insights from a 17th Century Dutch perspective
Mapping London: Hexagonal Map of London
Halley’s Log: Return to sea
The Bodleian’s Map Room Blog: Cartoon Maps
European Revue, Kill that Eagle, Published by Geographia in 1914 and drawn by J. Amshewitz. C1 (407)
Yovisto: Knud Rasmussen – the Father of Eskimonology
MEDICINE & HEALTH:
Early Modern Experimental Philosophy: “Secta Empírica y Dogmáticos Racionales”: medicine and the ESD in early modern Spain
A Covent Garden Gilflurt’s Guide to Life: A Bladder-Stone Operation: A Most Unusual Composition
New York Times: Medicine’s Hidden Roots in an Ancient Manuscript
Forbes: Castration Affected Skeleton of Famous Opera Singer Farinelli, Archaeologists Say
Mosaic: How to mend a broken heart
Discover: Researchers’ Quest for an Artificial Heart
Mad Art Lab: Lymph, There It Is: Florence Sabin, Pioneer Woman of Medical Research (Women in Science 39)
NYAM: An Eye for Conservation: William Clift, Fenwick Beekman, and John Hunter
Northumberland Archives: Mary Ann Fulcher – School Headmistress
Medievalist.net: What’s Wrong with Early Medieval Medicine?
Inside the Science Museum: A mystery object
Advances in the History of Psychology: Remembering Oak Ridge: A Digital Exhibit
A Canadian Treasury of Medical History
The Atlantic: The Tampon: A History
The Walrus: Archaic instruments from the attic of Montreal’s Royal Victoria Hospital
Wellcome Collection: Exhibitions: Treating yourself
TECHNOLOGY:
Inside The Science Museum: Wonderful Things: Ancient Egyptian Curling Tongs
The Public Domain Review: The Forth Bridge: Building an Icon
Detail from “Plans and sections for a bridge of chains proposed to be thrown over the Frith of Forth at Queensferry”, James Anderson, 1818.
Tylers Museum: Instrumentzaal: Set telefoons, naar Bell, door Maldant & Cie, 1880
Nature: Ancient humans brought tools to Europe
Louis Prang and Chromolithography: Lithographer
Today’s Document: Patent Drawing for T. Newman’s Poison Warning Bottle 6/2/1908
The Public Domain Review: The Nightwalker and the Nocturnal Picaresque
Ptak Science Books: Socialism, Civilization, and Fertilizer…and Nazis (1945)
The Renaissance Mathematicus: A twelve-year flash of genius
James Eckford Lauder: James Watt and the Steam Engine: the Dawn of the Nineteenth Century, 1855
Inside the Science Museum: Revealing the invisible
The Enlightened Economist: Inventors and manufacturers, and their economics
AEON: Losing the thread
EARTH & LIFE SCIENCES:
APP: In memoriam: Zofia Kielan-Jaworowska (1925–2015)
Geschichte der Geologie: Die Geburt and der Tod von Kontinente
Amgueddfa Blog: Wallace Goes West…
Embryo Project: Charles Benedict Davenport (1866–1944)
Evolution News: Darwin, Design, and Phototropism
Fossil History: On Being Remembered: Huxley, Busk, & Scientific Friendship
Thinking Like a Mountain: Understanding & Altering the Climate: Historical Perspectives
USGS: The Early History of Seismology (to 1900)
Yovisto: James Hutton – the Father of Modern Geology
Popular Science: The Church of George Church
Embryo Project: Petr Alekseevich Kropotkin (1842–1921)
Trowelblazers: Gertrude Caton Thompson
Science Comma: CHOTS Away! At Down House
The Alfred Russel Wallace Correspondence Project: Annual report on work of the project 14 May 2014–13 May 2015
National Geographic: Read Francis Crick’s $6 Million Letter to Son describing DNA
The Royal Society: The Repository: Nature’s pins and needles
BHL: World Oceans Day: Ernst Haeckel and Art Forms in Nature
Ocean Portal: Art Forms in Nature: Marine Species From Ernst Haeckel
The siphonophores are an order of marine animals in the phylum Cnidaria (the same phylum containing jellyfish).
Credit: Ernst Haeckel, Kunstformen der Natur / Biodiversity Heritage Library
Braintree & Witham Times: Free new exhibition at Chelmsford Museum explores the exotic collections of Alfred Russel Wallace
Trowelblazers: Nieves López Martínez
CHEMISTRY:
Yovisto: Richard Smalley – the Father of Nanotechnology
Buckminsterfullerene C60
META – HISTORIOGRAPHY, THEORY, RESOURCES and OTHER:
Ptak Science Books: An Alphabet of Ages of Scientific Terms
Newsweek: Frankenstein Has Been Given a Bad Rap – And Science Suffers
The Recipes Project: First Monday Library Chat: The Huntingdon Library
NYAM: Recommended Resources
Harvard Gazette: ‘a completely new life was beckoning’: Beyond the reach of monsters, Gerald Holten found infinite possibilities
Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics and Professor of the History of Science, Emeritus Gerald Holton is pictured in his Cambridge home. He first arrived at Harvard in 1943. Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Staff Photographer
AIP: New Oral Histories Website
The Partially Examined Life: Science, Technology and Society IV: Paul Feyerabend
In the Middle: How Do We Write? Dysfunctional Academic Writing
Reflections: Blog of the STS Department at the University of Vienna: The Science of Science Maps
Connected Histories: Digital Resources
The Guardian: Readers suggest the 10 best unsung female scientists
Informs: History and Traditions
How do we tell the history of science?
LSE: The Academic Book of the Future: exploring academic practices and expectations for the monograph
Objects in Motion: Material Culture in Transition: Setting “Objects” in Motion
History Womble: Toe-dipping in the mainstream
Popular Science: My Temple, My Mountain
Enviromental History: Volume 20 Issue 3 July 2015 Table of Contents
Open Culture: The History of Philosophy, from 600 B.C.E. to 1935, Visualized in Two Massive, 44-Foot High Diagrams
ESOTERIC:
Conciatore: Agnolo della Casa
Conciatore: Dear Friends
Conciatore: Artificial Gems
Pastes (glass) set in silver openwork (Portugal c. 1750)
Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
Acq. nr. M.68-1962
Astrolabes and Stuff: Drawing up a medieval horoscope
Beyond the Reading Room: Another Book from the Library of Isaac Newton
Corpus Newtonicum: The world has heeded my plea! Another Newton book found
academia.edu: Dis/unity of Knowledge: Models for the Study of Modern Esotericism and Science
BOOK REVIEWS:
National Geographic: In Age of Science, Is Religion ‘Harmful Superstition’?
Scientific American Blogs: Cross–Check: Book by Biologist Jerry Coyne Goes Too Far Denouncing Religion, Defending Science
Wall Street Journal: Preaching to the Converted
THE: Radium and the Secret of Life, by Luis A. Campos
St John’s History Department: Book Review: Laura J. Snyder Eye of the Beholder
Termessos: The Born Family in Göttingen and Beyond
Viktor Weisskopf, Maria Göppert and Max Born
on bicycles in Göttingen in the 1920s
Popular Science: Professor Povey’s Perplexing Problems
NEW BOOKS:
Ashgate: Renaissance Mad Voyages and the ‘Culture of Play, 1300–1700’ series
Historiens de la santé: When Good Drugs Go Bad: Opium, Medicine, and the Origins of Canada’s Drug Laws
ART:
Royal Museums Greenwich: Strange Creatures: The Art of Unknown Animals at the Grant Museum
The Kongouro from New Holland (Kangaroo), George Stubbs, 1772
The Recipes Project: Clear as Crystal: Leonardo da Vinci’s Walnut Oil
Science Museum: First operation performed using anaesthesia, 1846
Science Museum: The Rise of Anatomy, a dissection in the 14th century
Science Museum: Exhibition: Revelations: Experiments in Photography 20 March–13 September 2015
THEATRE AND OPERA:
Theatre Royal Winchester: Matchbox Theatre in conversation with Michael Frayn (Copenhagen)
FILMS AND EVENTS:
Glasgow Science Festival: Festival of Light: Illuminating James Clerk Maxwell 13 June 2015
Glasgow Science Festival: Science on the Street 13 June 2015
Welcome Collection: Exhaustion Then and Now 11 June 2015
PAINTING OF THE WEEK:
DAVID TENIERS THE YOUNGER, The surgeon-barber , oil on cloth 57,15 x 73,66 cm The Chrysler Museum of Art,
Norfolk, VA. Gift Walter P. Chrysler, Jr.
TELEVISION:
ITV News: A long-lost microscope
SLIDE SHOW:
VIDEOS:
University of Cambridge: Rebekah Higgitt – Longitude found
Torch Oxford: Aristotle on Perceiving Objects
Youtube: Robert Oppenheimer speaking at UCLA 5/14/1964
Youtube: Albert Einstein statue unveiled in Jerusalem
Ustream: Webcast: Unseen Connections – A Natural History of the Cellphone
Science Museum: Cosmonauts: Birth of the Space Age
De Uzeren Eeuw: Een nieuwe wereld Aflevering 10: Dubois en Lorentz
Youtube: What Range of subjects did Newton study at Cambridge?
Youtube: Information Age: The microchip that changed our world
RADIO:
cbc radio: Ideas: Science Under Siege, Part 1
cbc radio: Ideas: Science Under Siege, Part 2
BBC: Lisa Jardine on Desert Island Discs
Source: The Independent 10 June 2015 Photographer: Unknown
PODCASTS:
History of Philosophy without any gaps: Full of Potential: Thirteenth Century Physics
Open Culture: Listen as Albert Einstein Calls for Peace and Social Justice in 1945
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Gresham College: Lecture: Babbage and Lovelace 19 January 2016
University of Notre Dame: Locating Forensic Science and Medicine. University of Notre Dame Global Gateway, London: 24-25 July 2015
The Alfred Russel Wallace Website: Exhibition: Specimens of Natural History: Komunitas Salihara Gallery Jakarta 15 August–15 September 2015
Difficult Women Conference: CfP: Difficult Women in the Long Eighteenth Century: 1680–1830 University of York 28 November 2015
University of Umeå: Workshop: CfP: History of field research stations at Umeå University 26–27 August 2015
University of Swansea: Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies Regional Conference: Technologies of Daily Life in Ancient Greece 2–3 July 2015
University of Durham: Feyerabend 2015: Forty Years ‘Against Method’ 15–16 July
York Festival of Ideas: Talk: The Occult Roots of Modern Psychology 13 June 2015
The Hidden Persuaders Project and the Birkbeck Institute for the Moving Image present:
Brainwash: History, Cinema and the Psy Professions 3-4th July 2015
Discover Medical London: Study Tour: Path–ologies: A capital’s contagious geography 29 June 2015
Discover Medical London: Women and Medicine – For dates see website
The Royal Institution: Talk: The story of life – Matthew Cobb & Nick Lane 11 June 2015
University of Wales Trinity Saint David: Sophia Centre: Astrology as Art 27-28 June 2015
Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry: An incredibly varied spring meeting, from alchemy to Arrhenius, elixirs to electrons Clare Hall Cambridge 15 June 2015
CHF: Synthesis Lecture Series: Joseph Gabriel, “Medical Monopoly: Intellectual Property Rights and the Origins of the Modern Pharmaceutical Industry”
Objects in Motion: Material Culture in Transition: About 18–20 June 2015
University of Kent: Conference: Science and Engineering in Cultural Context 25–26 June 2015
LOOKING FOR WORK:
University of Valencia: Master in History of Science and Scientific Communication
RCN Foundation: Monica Baly Bursary for Scholarship in Nursing History
King’s College London: Research and Teaching Associate History of Science and Medicine
Whewell's Ghost 