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 #01
Monday 13 July 2015
EDITORIAL:
Whewell’s Gazette the weekly #histSTM links list returns today, after a short break, with the first edition of its second year bringing you all the best that out editorial staff could sweep up of the histories of science, technology and medicine in the Internet over the last seven days. During that period many of our supporters and readers, who also supply much of the material collected here, were gathered together in Swansea for the annual conference of the BSHS discussing lots of interesting topics from the history of science. One central theme that is a principal interest of our long-suffering chief sub-editor was, how can science communicators use history of science?
Many of those present in Swansea are highly active on Twitter and tweeted this discussion in great detail. Katherine McAlpine, a curator, collected and storified those tweets and we present her efforts in place of an editorial for this edition.
storify: How do we tell the history of science?
As a bonus a couple of other BSHS15 tweet storifies.
storify: #bshs15 outtakes – the hype (and) en route
storify: #bshs15 The first full day
“It never helps historians to say too much about their working methods. For just as the conjuror’s magic disappears if the audience knows how the trick is done, so the credibility of scholars can be sharply diminished if readers learn everything about how exactly their books came to be written. Only too often, such revelations dispel the impression of fluent, confident omniscience; instead, they suggest that histories are concocted by error-prone human beings who patch together the results of incomplete research in order to construct an account whose rhetorical power will, they hope, compensate for gaps in the argument and deficiencies in the evidence.” – Keith Thomas h/t Sharon Howard
Quotes of the week:
“Your password must contain a ferrous metal, an embarrassing sexual memory, at least one Norse god and the seeds of its own destruction”. – @daniel_barker
“First rule of Thesaurus Club. You don’t talk, discuss, converse, speak, chat, confer, deliberate, gab, or gossip about Thesaurus Club”. – @SwedishCanary
“How long until we find out if Pluto has feathers?” – Tom Swanson {@Swansontea)
“”Genital” is an anagram of “gelatin.” I wonder who’s responsible for that”. – Allen Stairs (@AllenStairs)
“The pen is writier than the sword”. – Liam Heneghan (@DublinSoil)
“People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day.” – A.A. Milne (Winnie-the-Pooh)
“Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them in.” – Schopenhauer
“Part of making progress in science is about recognizing which problems are ready to be solved” – Frank Wilczek h/t Philip Ball
“‘Easy’ is a word to describe other people’s jobs.” – John D. Cook (@JohnDCook)
“When you treat people like children, you get children’s work.” – John D. Cook (@JohnDCook)
“It’s tempting to cover up boring with polish, but it rarely works.” – Seth Godin h/t @JohnDCook
“I’ve never known any trouble that an hour’s reading didn’t assuage.” ― Charles de Secondate.
“A man is responsible for his ignorance.” ― Milan Kundera
“The print codex is merely one form of “the book.” It is mutable, in both text & form. The change agent is human, not technological”. Shannon Supple (@mazarines) Tweet from #sharp15
“The age of innocent faith in science and technology may be over.” Barry Commoner (1966). h/t Michael Egan (@EganHistory)
“Science is about as emotion-free as poetry”. – Tom McLeish (@mcleish_t)
“In science, most ideas are obvious. It’s how to TEST them that requires cleverness”. – John Hawks (@johnhawks)
“Since it pissed off so many nerds yesterday, let me reiterate: evolutionary psychology is shoddy science used to uphold retrograde beliefs”. – Bailey (@the_author)
“Nature composes some of her loveliest poems for the microscope and the telescope”. – Theodore Roszak h/t @hist_astro
Birthdays of the Week:
90th Anniversary of the Scopes Trial 10 July Peddling and Scaling God and Darwin: Ninetieth Anniversary of the Scopes Trial
The teacher at the center of proceedings, John Thomas Scopes
Source: Wikimedia Commons
The New York Times: The Scopes Trial: Remembering When Teaching Evolution Went to Court
Smithsonian.com: The Scopes Trial Redefined Science Journalism and Shaped It to What It Is Today
Robert Fitzroy born 5 July 1805
Stay Thirsty: A Conversation with Juliet Aykroyd about Darwin & Fitzroy
FitzRoy later in life (probably mid-fifties).
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Dolly the Sheep
Embryo Project: Nuclear Transplantation
Dolly’s taxidermied remains
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Embryo Project: Ian Wilmut (1944– )
Science Notes: Today in Science History – July 5 – Dolly the Sheep
Nikola Tesla born 10 July 1956
Mental Floss: The Time Nikola Tesla Paid for His Hotel Room With a “Death Ray”
Excluded Middle: Nikola Tesla’s Earthquake Machine
Science Notes: Today in Science History – 10 July – Nikola Tesla WSJ: The Wizard of Houston Street
Tesla wearing a folk costume, c. 1880
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Engineering and Technology History Wiki: Initial Tesla Polyphase
PHYSICS & ASTRONOMY:
Smithsonian.com: Urban Explorations: The Great Moon Hoax Was Simply a Sign of Its Time
Yovisto: Henrietta Swan Leavitt and the Light of the Cepheids
Yovisto: Macquorn Rankine and the Laws of Thermodynamics
arXiv.org: The Collaboration of Mileva Maric and Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein and his wife Mileva Maric
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Motherboard: A Visual Tribute to Isaac Newton’s ‘Principia’
Universe Today: Who Was Nicolaus Copernicus?
AHF: J. Carson Mark
Voices of the Manhattan Project: Dorothy Wilkinson’s Interview
Science Notes: Today in Science History – 7 July – Giuseppe Piazzi
Voices of the Manhattan Project: Ralph Gates’s Interview
Atlas Obscura: Cincinnati Observatory
Plutovian: Planet X is 1200 times bigger than Earth – approximately
academia.edu: Learned modesty and the first lady’s comet: a commentary on Caroline Herschel (1787) ‘An account of a new comet’
AIP: Oral Histories: John Wheeler – Session I
AHF: John Wheeler
The Irish Times: The Grubbs: 19th-century Irish stargazers
Thomas Grubb: his apparent lack of formal education did not prevent him from tinkering with telescopes and becoming an astronomical observer
Source: Irish Times
The New York Times: Reaching Pluto, and the End of an Era of Planetary Exploration
Black Hills Pioneer: 50 years of deep discovery
Pugwash: The Russell-Einstein Manifesto 9 July 1955
Voices of Manhattan: Ray Gallagher’s Accounts of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki Missions
APS Physics: This Month in Physics History: Einstein and Women
The New York Times: Venetia Phair Dies at 90; as a Girl, She Named Pluto
academia.edu: A Book, a Pen, and the Sphere: Reading Sacrobosco in the Renaissance
Muslim Heritage: Glances on Calendars and Almanacs in the Islamic Civilization
Traditional Turkish Calendar (1452). This kind of calendar was based on a cycle of 12 months, each corresponding to a different animal. This calendar for the year of the monkey by Hamdi Mustafa b. Sunbul was presented to Mehmed II. Topkapi Palace Museum Library, MS B 309.
International Year of Light 2015 – Blog: Heaven on Earth
AHF: Remembering the Trinity Test
Christie’s The Art People: Newton, Sir Isaac (1643–1727) Philosophae Naturalis Principia Mathematica
National Geographic: Why Do We Call Them the ‘Dog Days’ of Summer?
Phys.Org: What is Halley’s Comet?
Discover: The Man Who (almost) Discovered Pluto…and Also (Almost) Discovered the Expanding Universe
EXPLORATION and CARTOGRAPHY:
BHL: The Description de L’Égyte: The Savants of Napoleon’s Egyptian Campaign
Canadaland: Q&A with Paul Watson, Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist, on why he just Resigned from the Toronto Star (The Franklin Ships Erebus & Terror)
Linguistic Geographies: The Gough Map of Great Britain
MEDICINE & HEALTH:
Atlas Obscura: The Pest House Medical Museum
From the Hands of Quacks: The Reed Hearing Test
Clinical Curiosities: History of Medicine at BSHS15
Forbes: Why Were Cases Of Autism So Hard To Find Before the 1990s?
Yovisto: Camillo Golgi and the Golgi Apparatus
The Recipes Project: Of Quacks and Caustics
Titlepage: Novum lumen chirurgicum
Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images
images@wellcome.ac.uk
http://wellcomeimages.org
Dr Alun Withey: Religion & the Sickness Experience in Early Modern Britain
Fiction Reboot–Daily Dose: Are we running out of Bodies? Dissection, Cadavers, and Medical Practice
Notches: The Sacred Precincts of Marital Bedrooms: Religion and the Making of Griswold
Embryo Project: Wilhelm His, Sr. (1831–1904)
Christie’s The Art People: The ‘Google Maps’ of the human body
Objects in Motion: Material Culture in Transition: The Skeleton Trade: Life, Death and Commerce in Early Modern Europe
Circulating Now: Medieval Herbals in Movable Type 
Nautilus: The Split Personality of the Color Yellow
NPR: The Salt: From Medicine to Modern Revival: A History of American Whiskey, In Labels
Nain, Mam and Me: Allenburys hygienic baby bottle: a picture of domestic bliss Concocting History: The snake-goddess, the satyr and the parturient: Jean Chièze’s Hippocratic illustrations
TECHNOLOGY:
Motherboard: This Is What 70 Years of Computing Sounds Like
Conciatore: True Colors
Aldrovandi’s pica marina
Source: Conciatore
Conciatore: Don Giovanni in Flanders
Conciatore: The Material of All Enamels
Teylers Museum: Berliner Gramophone 4 sound clips
Canada Science and Technology Museum: Cycling: The Evolution of an Experience, 1818–1900
Smithsonian.com: Five Epic Patent Wars That Don’t Involve Apple
Science Notes: Today in Science History – 11 July – NASA’s Skylab space station returns to Earth
BuzzFeed: 11 Female Inventors Who Helped Power The Information Age
Harry Kalish / Chemical Heritage Foundation (CC BY-SA 3.0) / Via commons.wikimedia.org
Wordnik: Come Fly With Me: 9 Common Words with Aviation Origins
EARTH & LIFE SCIENCES:
The Alfred Russel Wallace Website: Wallace Medal LA Times: Alexander von Humboldt: The man who made modern nature
Palaeoblog: Born This Day: Ernst Mayr
MSN News: The story of John Money: Controversial sexologist grappled with the concept of gender
Yovisto: Albert von Kölliker and the Origins of Embryology
xroads.viginia.edu: Alexander Wilson
Science Notes: Today in Science History – 6 July – Rabies Vaccine
Evolution Institute: Truth and Reconciliation for Social Darwinism
The Sloane Letters Blog: The Sad Kiss of 1722
Atlas Obscura: Thomas Jefferson Built This Country on Mastodons
Drawing of an early 19th century attempt at a mammoth restoration. Note the upside-down tusks. (Image: WikiCommons/Public Domain)
The Alfred Russel Wallace Website: Early evolution pioneers’ artwork now online
The H-Word: Sexism in science: did Watson and Crick really steal Rosalind Franklins’ data?
Wonders & Marvels: History is Sometimes Made by Great Men (and Women)
Embryo Project: Studies in Spermatogenesis (1905), by Nettie Maria Stevens
PRI: Meet the man who gave the name to the creatures we now know as dinosaurs
Medievalist.net: Avalanches in the Middle Ages
Tand Online (OA): The Rat-Catcher’s Prank: Interspecies Cunningness and Scavenging in Henry Mayhew’s London
Cambrian News Online: 17th century nature under the microscope
Paige Fossil History: Additional Pieces of Neandertal 1: History Aiding Science
The Guardian: Conjoined piglets and two-faced kittens: Victorian oddities – in pictures
Preserved conjoined piglets, European, 19th century
Photograph: Rosamund Purcell
The Recipes Project: A Cartography of Chocolate
Medievalist.net: Medievalist helps scientists rewrite climate records
Niche: ICHG 2015: Environmental, but not necessarily environmental history
The Scientist: Water Fleas, 1755
CHEMISTRY:
Open Culture: Marie Curie’s Research Papers Are Still Radioactive 100+ Years Later
Science Notes: Today in Science History – 9 July – Loenzo Romano Carlo Avogadro di Quarengna e di Cerreto
Back Re(Action): Liquid Helium
Heike Kamerlingh Onnes (left) and Johannes Diderik van der Waals in 1908 in the Leiden physics laboratory, in front of the apparatus used later to condense helium. (Source: Museum Boerhaave, Leiden)
META – HISTORIOGRAPHY, THEORY, RESOURCES and OTHER:
Nautilus: The Nautilus Weekly Science Quiz: How Much Science Is In The Constitution?
The Recipe Project: First Monday Library Chat: The Boots Archive
Niche: ICHG 2015: Big Ideas in Historical Geography and “Door Crashers”
The Chronicle of Higher Education: Scholars Spin Their Own Nursery Rhymes (Without the Happy Endings)
Jack and Jill Went up the hill To fetch a pail of water and met an anonymous peer reviewer they threw down the well Douglas Hunter
Nautilus: How Science Helped Write the Declaration of Independence
flickr: University of Victoria Libraries
The Telegraph: A Clerk of Oxford’s guide to a bright old world
homunculus: Does anyone have any questions?
Royal Society: Conservative attitudes to old-established organs: Oliver Lodge and Philosophical Magazine
Digital Bodleian: Makes These Extraordinary Library Collection Available Online For The Very First Time…
Translation and Print: Translations and the making of Early English Print Culture (1473–1660)
CHF: Episode 200: Distillations Turns 200
Andrew teaching in Italy
British Naval History: Why I Became a Historian: Peter Hore
Ether Wave Propaganda: The Benefits of Technology: Productivity as a Measure
ESOTERIC:
distillatio: On the word “Alchumy”, “Alconamye” and variations thereof in English
BOOK REVIEWS:
Popular Science: Chilled – Tom Jackson
Science Book a Day: The Door in the Dream: Conversations with Eminent Women in Science
Science Book a Day: The Earth: From Myths to Knowledge 
British Journal for the History of Science: Book Reviews
TLS: Dissent of man: Piers J. Hale Political Descent: Malthus, mutualism, and the politics of evolution in Victorian England
Morbid Anatomy: The Call of Abandoned Souls: Guest Post and New Book By Ivan Cenzi of Bizzaro Bazar
The Financial Times: ‘A Beautiful Question’, by Frank Wilczek
The New York Review of Books: How You Consist of Trillions of Tiny Machines
NEW BOOKS:
Historiens de la santé: Indian Doctors in Kenya, 1895–1940: The Forgotten History 
The Guardian: Colouring-in books boom continues with volume of mathematical patterns
Barnes & Nobel: History of Chemistry Books
Occult Minds: Forthcoming publications
ART & EXHIBITIONS
University of Lincoln: Exhibition to celebrate the life and legacy of George Boole forefather of the information age
Glucksman: Boolean Expressions: Contemporary art and mathematical expression 25 July–8 November 2015
John Craig Freeman: Platonic Solids
Gulf Times: Three great Muslim inventors
Shackleton 100: By Endurance we Conquer: The Polar Museum: Shackleton and his men 22 September 2015–18 June 2016
M Library Blogs: New Online Exhibit: Beer Brewing and Technology
Cecilia Brunson Projects: A Garden for Beatrix 20 May-July 24 2015
Lucia Pizzani A Garden for Beatrix Series
Life: Artatomy 5 June-6 September 2015
Science Museum: The Science and Art of Medicine
Grain: Album 31: Exhibition: 19 June-29 August 2015
The National Library of Wales: ‘The Secret Workings of Nature’ 7 July 2015–9 January 2016
Explore Art at Gracefield Arts Centre: Dumfries Crichton Royal – A Hidden Gem 18 July–22 August 2015
Chelmsford Museum: World of Wallace Last Chance closes 19 July
London Museum of Health and Medicine: The Riddle of Shock 17 July 2015–30 June 2016
THEATRE AND OPERA:
Young Vic: A Number 3 July-15 August 2015
Theatre Royal Haymarket: The Elephant Man 19 May-8 August 2015 
Arts Theatre: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein 14 July–31 July 2015
FILMS AND EVENTS:
Science Museum: Beyond Vision: Photography, Art and Science symposium 12 September 2015
The Guardian: Guardian Masterclasses: Everything you need to know about science communication
The Royal Institution: To infinity and beyond: the story of the spacesuit 30 July 2015
Shadow and Act: Film Based on Story of Black Women Mathematicians Who Worked for NASA During the Space Race, in the Works
Margot Lee Shetterly
Image Credit: NASA/David C. Bowman
Morbid Anatomy Museum: Morbid Anatomy One Year Anniversary Festival of Arcane Knowledge and Devil’s Masquerade Party Fundraiser with MC Even Michelson!
Discover Medicine: Walking Tour: The Making of Thoroughly Modern Medicine
Discover Medicine: Walking Tour: Healers and Hoaxers
The List: Lecture: Faith and Wisdom in Science York Minster 22 July 2015
Bethlem Museum of the Mind: He Told Me That His Garden… 16 July 2015
PAINTINGS OF THE WEEK: “Newton” by William Blake, 1795–c. 1805
Newton 1795/c.1805 William Blake 1757-1827 Presented by W. Graham Robertson 1939 http://www.tate.org.uk/art/work/N05058
Dr. Philippe Pinel at the Salpêtrière, 1795 by Tony Robert-Fleury. 
Pinel ordering the removal of chains from patients at the Paris Asylum.
TELEVISION:
Forbes: Review: ‘First Peoples’ Series Chronicles Origins And Spread of Modern Humans SLIDE SHOW:
VIDEOS:
Youtube: Revelations: The science of making a daguerreotype Museo Galileo: Pre-telescopic astronomy
Astronomy Central: Discovery: 100 Greatest Discoveries 1 of 9 Astronomy {History… Youtube: AHF: Trinity Test Preparations Youtube: AHF: Moving the Plutonium Core RADIO:
BBC: HG and the H-Bomb
BBC: The Life Scientific: Dorothy Bishop
BBC Radio 4extra: Georg Mendel – A Monk and Two Peas
Voices of the Manhattan Project: Nuclear War Radio Series
BBC Radio 4:Science Stories: Seeing is Believing – The Leviathan of Parsonstown
PODCASTS:
Science Friday: The Ultimate Geek Road Trip
Route layout by Randal Olson
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
National Maritime Museum: Conference: Ways of Seeing 17 July 2015
St Anne’s College Oxford: Workshop: Texts and Contexts: The Cultural Legacies of Ada Lovelace 8 December 2015
University of Leeds: CfP: Alternative Histories of Electronic Music
George Boole 200: Get Involved: Celebrate the life and legacy of George Boole with UCC: Boole2School 2 November 2015
University of Winchester: CfP: Death, Art and Anatomy Conference 3-6 June 2016
Royal Society: Cells: from Robert Hooke to Cell Therapy – a 350 year journey 5-6 October 2015
Society for the Social History of Health: CfP: Health, Medicine and Mobility: International Migrations in Historical Perspective University of Prince Edward Island: 24-26 June 2016
Flamsteed Astronomy Society: Flamsteed Lecture
BSHS: Ayrton Prize
The Renaissance Diary: Call for Contributions: Literary & Scientific Cultures of Early Modernity
University of Bucharest: Master Class: Isaac Newton’s philosophical projects 6-11 October 2016
LOOKING FOR WORK:
The Royal Society: Newton International Fellowship
Royal Museums Greenwich: Curator of Cartography
University of Toronto: Assistant Professor – History of Technology
Whewell's Ghost 
