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 #09
Monday 14 September 2015
EDITORIAL:
It seems that we have just finished posting one edition of Whewell’s Gazette your weekly #histSTM links list when another one comes steaming full tilt around the corner carrying with it the best of the histories of science, technology and medicine that it could pick up in the last seven days in the Internet.
In recent times there has been much news in the science journals about the reproducibility of experimental results or rather the failure to reproduce them. A lot of these reports seem to think that this is a modern phenomenon caused by whatever bogey man that the writer has chosen to hang the blame on. However if these science writers had a better grounding in the history of science they would realise that this problem has been around since people have been doing science.
There have been both cases of genuine discoveries that contemporaries failed to confirm in their attempts to repeat the experiments and cases of discoveries that weren’t discoveries at all.
Just to take a couple of cases from the seventeenth century. Newton was attacked from all sides when he first announced his discovery that white light was actually a mixture of the whole colour spectrum. Much of that criticism was based on theoretical grounds but some of it was that others failed to obtain his results when repeating his prism experiments. In this case the blame lay on the poor quality of the glass prisms available but it did delay the acceptance of his theory considerably.
Earlier in the century many ‘discoveries’ were made and published with the new telescope that other observers were completely unable to confirm. This missing confirmation was because the discoveries weren’t discoveries at all but optical illusions caused by various factors. Francesco Fontana, a noted constructor of telescopes, even published a whole book of such discoveries, his Novae coelestium terrestriumq[ue] rerum observationes, et fortasse hactenus non vulgatae from 1645.
The progress of science is never smooth but proceeds by fits and starts.
Quotes of the week:
“In other words, don’t continually re-invent the wheel, use the tools that are already out there…” – Sophia Collins (@sophiacol)
I do not wish them [women] to have power over men; but over themselves.” – Mary Wollstonecraft
“Striking that in her 1953 Nature article, Franklin thanks Crick, Wilkins and Stokes “for discussion”, but *not* Watson”. – Matthew Cobb (@matthewcobb)
“’I’ve been a very bad girl,’ she said, biting her lip. ‘I need to be punished.’
‘Very well,’ he said and installed Windows 10 on her laptop”. – @50NerdsofGrey
“The duty we owe to history is to rewrite it.” – Oscar Wilde
“Writing is nature’s way of letting you know how sloppy your thinking is.” – Guindon
“Math is nature’s way of letting you know how sloppy your writing is.” – Leslie Lamport
“Formal math is nature’s way of letting you know how sloppy your math is.” – Leslie Lamport h/t @JohnDCook
“Algebra is the offer made by the devil to the mathematician. The devil says: I will give you this powerful machine, it will answer any question you like. All you need to do is give me your soul: give up geometry and you will have this marvellous machine”. —Sir Michael Atiyah, 2002 h/t @divbyzero
“Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted”. – Ralph Waldo Emerson h/@Fayway
Birthdays of the Week:
Jacque Boucher de Crèvecoeur de Parthes born 10 September 1788
Boucher de Perthes
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Yovisto: Jacques de Perthes and European Archaeology
Encyclopaedia Britannica: Jacque Boucher de Perthes
August Kekulé born 7 September 1829
Science Notes: Today in Science Histoy –September 7 – August Kekulé
PHYSICS, ASTRONOMY & SPACE SCIENCE:
Yovisto: James van Allen and the Weather in Space
Yovisto: Edward Appleton and the Ionosphere
The Washington Post: Richard G. Hewlett
Verso: Women Computing the Stars
Unidentified women and men standing outside the Mount Wilson Observatory’s Pasadena office, where women computers made the calculations necessary to answer some of the most profound questions in the field of astronomy during the early part of the 20th century. Detail from a photo taken on April 14, 1917, by an unknown photographer. The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens.
Voices of the Manhattan Project: Leroy Jackson and Ernest Wende’s Interview
Astronomical Society of the Pacific: Women in Astronomy: An Introductory Resource Guide
Voices of the Manhattan Project: David Hall’s Interview
ABC News: The old Perth observatory: From isolated weather station to centre of history
AIP: Arthur Holly Compton 1892–1962
AIP: Betty Compton – Session I
Corpus Newtonicum: Newton, the Man or: of valuable lists and juicy quotes
about education: J.J. Thomson Biography
Voices of the Manhattan Project: John W. Healy’s Interview
History NASA: Emblems of Exploration (pdf)
Science Notes: Today in Science History – September 11 – Harvey Fletcher
Yovisto: Irène Joliot-Curie and Artificial Radioactivity
Irène and Marie Curie
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Highbrow: Leó Szilárd
Science Notes: Today in Science History – September 12 – Moon
EXPLORATION and CARTOGRAPHY:
Royal Museums Greenwich: Looking across the Atlantic in 18th-century maps
in propria persona: On the legal basis for English possession of North America
Halley’s Log: Halley writes from Dartmouth
Halley’s Log: Paramore pink at Spithead
Chart of Spithead by William Heather, 1797; Spithead is the channel north-east of the Isle of Wight (Source: Wikimedia Commons)
Yovisto: Henry Hudson’s Voyages in North America
MEDICINE & HEALTH:
Public Health: Worldly approaches to global health: 1851 to the present
Remedia: Showing the Instruments: Vesalius and the Tools of Surgery and Anatomy
Andreas Vesalius, De humani corporis fabrica, Instruments (© National Library of Medicine).
University of Glasgow Library: Pox, pustules and pestilence A history of syphilis treatment
BBC: Silicon Valley’s 91-year-old designer
Thomas Morris: A 19th-century doctor’s guide to etiquette
Thomas Morris: Do no harm – unless it’s a criminal
Center for the History of Medicine: On View: Post-mortem set in wooden case, 1860–1880
Yovisto: Marthe Louise Vogt and the Neurotransmitters
Marthe Louise Vogt
Yovisto: Bernard Siegfried Albinus and his Anatomic Works
Slate: Phineas Gage, Neuroscience’s Most Famous Patient
Yovisto: Thomas Sydenham – the English Hippocrates
Thomas Morris: The self-inflicted lithotomy
Academia: When foods became remedies in ancient Greece: The curious case of garlic and other substances
Center for the History of Medicine: Oral History: Carola Eisenberg
Center for the History of Medicine: Anne Pappenheimer Forbes
Photograph of Anne Pappenheimer Forbes, M.D.
1962
io9: Early Forensics Helped Solve England’s Gruesome “Jigsaw Murders” Case
A Covent Garden Gilflurt’s Guide to Life: A Gruesome Tale of Self-Surgery
Yovisto: Phineas Gage’s Accident and the Science of the Mind and the Brain
TECHNOLOGY:
Science & Society: Picture Library: Johnson the First Rider on the Pedestrian Hobbyhorse, 1819
Visualising Late Antiquity: Going Down the Drain in Late Antiquity
Trans Newcomen Soc: Humphrey Gainsborough (1718–1776) Cleric Engineer and Inventor (pdf)
Medium: Close at Hand: A Pocket History of Technology
Georgian Gentleman: When cotton was king… a visit to Quarry Bank Mill
Conciatore: A Very Good Run
James S. Huggins’ Refrigerator Door: First Computer Bug
Science Notes: September 9 – Today in Science History – First Computer Bug
Dark Roasted Blend: Antique Digital Calculators & Other Steampunk Gear
Yovisto: Émile Baudot and his Telegraph
Yovisto:Harvey Fletcher – the Father of Stereophonic Sound
Zen Pencils: Robert Goddard
Jalopnik: That Victorian-Living Couple is Just Playing Dress-up Until They Get A Real Victorian Car
Nautilus: This Used To Be the Future
Science Notes: Storm Glass Barometer Pendant Instructions
The Guardian: Battle to save historic rail line that heralded the age of science
EARTH & LIFE SCIENCES:
Yovisto: Comte de Buffon and his Histoire Naturelle
Notches: Women’s Experiences in Fornication and Paternity Suits in Massachusetts, 1740–1800
Archaeodeath: The Dead at the Hunterian
Medievalist.net: Ten Strange Medieval Ideas about Animals
University of Cambridge: Research: What is a monster?
Smithsonian: NMNH: Unassuming Octocoral Collected over 55 Years Ago Found to be New Genus and Species
The Plate: Contrary to Popular Belief, the Modern Pig has Many Parents
ars technica uk: Scientific Method/Science & Exploration: Humans aren’t so special after all: The Fuzzy evolutionary boundaries of Homo Sapiens
Ellen Hutchins: Ireland’s First Female Botanist
Natural History Museum (2014). http://data.nhm.ac.uk/specimen/a47cd2ee-3c50-498e-be1b-bd2c941f4f61
AMNH: Green Frogs Mating & Frog Dissection
Penn Biographies: Joseph Leidy (1823–1891)
Letters from Gondwana: The Legacy of Ulisse Aldrovani
Yovisto: Luigi Galvani’s Discoveries in Bioelectricity
Mirror: Charles Darwin confessed his atheism in a private letter which has gone up for auction
NMNH: Human Family Tree
Trowelblazers: Rising Star Trowelblazers
Powered by Osteons: Who needs an osteologist? (Installment 29)
Embryo Project: Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002)
Audubon: Sketch: The Oilbird: Is This Thing Even a Bird
AMNH: Wonderful World of Wasp Nests
Smithsonian.com: Four Species of Homo You’ve Never Heard Of
The Atlantic: 6 Tiny Cavers, 15 Odd Skeletons, and 1 Amazing New Species of Ancient Human
Hyperallergic: A 17th-Century Woman Artist’s Butterfly Journey
Maria Sibylla Merian, Plate 49 from ‘Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium’ (1705) (courtesy Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg, Frankfurt)
Anita Guerrini: History, animals, science, food: The biologist in the ashram (with a walk-on by Harpo Marx)
Science Notes: Today in Science History – September 13 – Hans Christian Joachim Gram
CHEMISTRY:
Science Notes: Today in Science History – September 8 – Willard Frank Libby
CHF: Prototype for the Perkin-Elmer Model 12 Infrared Spectrophotometer
Science Notes: September 10 – Today in Science History – Waldo Semon
Waldo Semon – Discovered plasticized PVC or vinyl. Credit: Washington University Chemical Engineering Department
META – HISTORIOGRAPHY, THEORY, RESOURCES and OTHER:
Communication of the ACM: Innovators Assemble: Ada Lovelace, Walter Isaacson, and the Superheroines of Computing
Double Refraction: Histories of science as murder mysteries, or: Steven Weinberg as Henning Mankell
Inside the Science Museum: From Moscow to the Museum
The Recipes Project: First Monday Library Chat: National Library of Scotland
The Recipes Project: Giving Welsh Pupils a Flavour of Antiquity
Technologies of Daily Life: Schools Day. Image courtesy of Evelien Bracke.
Springer Link: History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences: Special Issue: Experimentation in Twentieth-Century Agricultural Science Contents Page
Niche: Cultivation
William Savage: Pen and Pension: Censoring History
Prospect: Science is fallible, just like us
JHI Blog: Global Microhistory: One or Two Things That I Know About It
CHoM News: Follow us on Twitter and Instagram @HarvardHistMed
Fiction Reboot: Daily Dose: The Act of Becoming: History and Process
The Newsstand: Clemson professor delving into the foundation of scientific philosophy
Stanford News: After 20 years, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy thrives on the web
The Recipes Project: History Bound Up in Every Bite: Food, Environment, and Recipes in the Western Civ Survey
Double Refraction: Lorraine Daston on history as fiction – critical thoughts
Nautilus: Why Futurism Has a Cultural Blindspot
Concocting History: A perfume of Syria
Second century Roman glass. Some of these bottles may have contained perfume. Source: Wikipedia.
Six Degrees of Francis Bacon: Reassembling the early modern social network
Early Modern Experimental Philosophy: Leibniz’s early reflections on natural history and experiment
ESOTERIC:
Conciatore: Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni di Cosimo I de’ Medici
Academia: Court Astrologers and Historical Writing in Early Abbasid Baghdad: An Appraisal (pdf)
Enchanted History: New Blog on Witchcraft in Early Modern England and Beyond
UCL: Museums & Collections Blog: Robert Noel and the ‘Science’ of Phrenology
Conciatore: Stonework
BOOK REVIEWS:
The New Rambler: Sleight of Hand
Nature: Genetics: Dawkins, redux
The History of Emotions Blog: History in British Tears
Popular Science: A is for Arsenic – Kathryn Harkup
THE: The Invention of Science: A New History of the Scientific Revolution, by David Wootton
Review 31: Against Nature Sex Addiction: A Critical History
The Spectator: Did Hans Asperger save children from the Nazis – or sell them out?
homunculus: Nature: the biography
Forbes: Ancient Guides, Ancient Science, And A Virtual Academy For Idlers
NEW BOOKS:
Historiens de la santé: Mental health nursing: The working lives of paid carers, 1800s–1900s
Colossal: New Japanese Paper Notebooks Featuring Vintage Science Illustrations Merged with Hand-embroidery
University of Chicago Press: Making “Nature” The History of a Scientific Journal
Historiens de la santé: A History of Male Psychological Disorders in Britain, 1945–1980
Historiens de la santé: Cultural Politics of Hygiene in India, 1890–1940: Contagions of Feeling
ART & EXHIBITIONS
Mystic Seaport – The Museum of America and the Sea: Ships Clocks & Stars 19 September 2015–28 March 2016
Captain James Cook (1728-1779), by William Hodges. Cook relied on chronometers in his later voyages. Image courtesy National Maritime Museum.
Science Museum: Cosmonauts: Birth of the Space Age Opens 18 September 2015
Royal Society: Seeing Closer: 350 years of microscopy 29 June–23 November 2015
Museum of the History of Science: Henry Moseley: A Scientist Lost to War 4 Weeks Till Exhibition Closes!
THEATRE AND OPERA:
The Guardian: Nicole Kidman admits to nerves before stage return in Photograph 51
Buxton Opera House: The Trials of Galileo 21 September – International Tour: March 2014–December 2017
FILMS AND EVENTS:
ICCESS: The Time Travelling Operating Theatre
L0001839 A surgical operation being performed, circa 1900.
Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images
images@wellcome.ac.uk
http://wellcomeimages.org
A surgical operation being performed by W.G. Spencer and others at the Westminster Hospital, London.
Photograph
circa 1900 Broadway
Published: 1900
Royal Asiatic Society: Brian Houghton Hodgson Study Day 26 September 2015
Philly Voice: Games & debate abound at Women in Science event 19 September 2015
BBC: Steve Wozniak: Shocked and amazed by Steve Jobs movie
Royal Society: Open House Weekend 2015 19–20 September
Oxford Playhouse: Charles Simonyi Lecture: Putting the Higgs Boson in its Place
Westminster Arts Library: London Plague: Sick City 24 September 2015
The Heritage Alliance: The H word: ‘heritage’ revisited
Royal Society: Hooke’s microscopic world 19 September 2015
Royal Society: Scientific conflict through the ages 20 September 2015
Royal Society: Darwin and the evolution of emotion 19 September 2015
Royal Society: A 13th century theory of everything 19 September 2015
PAINTING OF THE WEEK:
Galileo before the Holy Office, by Joseph-Nicolas Robert-Fleury
TELEVISION:
pbs: NOVA: Dawn of Humanity
AHF: Manhattan: Season One Recaps
SLIDE SHOW:
Scientific American: Good and Bad Inventions from 1865
Diving Mask An inventor in Braddock’s Field, Penn, added a simple valve to the mouthpiece for exhaling and inhaling air.
VIDEOS:
History of Alchemy Podcast Presents: Rudolf Two Trippin Cam
Youtube: Podcastnik: History of Alchemy Episode 1: Introduction
CHF: Making and Knowing (fake) Coral
Wikimedia Commons: How to edit Wikipedia – RSC series – Andy Mabbett
Youtube: BSHS Plenary Lecture: Iwan Morus Wales, science and Welsh science
Youtube: Anna Ziegler talks about writing Rosalind Franklin for ‘Photograph 51’
Vimeo: Train Journeys in to Manchester in 1850
Youtube: Berkeley Lab Founder Ernest O. Lawrence Demonstrates the Cyclotron Concept
RADIO:
BBC World Service: Discovery: Death of a Physicist
BBC Radio 4: An Eye for Pattern: The Letters of Dorothy Hodgkin
Molecular model of penicillin by Dorothy Hodgkin, c. 1945
Source: Wikimedia Commons
BBC Radio 4: Computing Britain
PODCASTS:
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
University of Warwick: CfP: Shaping the Shelf: Print culture and the construction of collective identity (1460–1660) 5 March 2016
Royal Society: Open House: #histsci lectures 19-20 September 2015
University of Durham: Where Science and Society Meet 23–24 September 2015
CHF: Brown Bag Lectures Fall 2015
Image: Wikimedia Commons
Werkgroep 18e eeuw: CfP: Flavours of the Eighteenth Century Brussels 10-11 March 2016
St John’s College Oxford: Architecture and Experience in the Nineteenth Century 17–18 March 2016
Spinoza Research Newtwork: CfP: Life and Death in Early Modern Philosophy Birckbeck College 14–16 April 2016
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada: CfP: Eighth Joint Meeting BSHS, CSHPS, and HSS 22–25 June 2016
Durham University: CN-CS: CfP: One day Conference: Victorian Culture and the Origin of Disciplines 12 March 2016
International Cartographical Association: Announcement of the 1st International Workshop on the Origin and Evolution of Portolan Lisbon, Portugal Charts 5-6 June 2016
Wellcome Library Blog: History of Pre-Modern Medicine seminar series 2015–2016
National Maritime Museum Greenwich: CfP: From Sea to Sky: the Evolution of Air Navigation from the Ocean and Beyond 10 June 2016
Institute of Welsh Maritime Historical Studies: 7th Annual Conference of MOROL 31 October 2015
National Maritime Museum: Maritime History and Culture Seminars 2015–16
Leipzig & Hannover: Leibniz Summer School 7–16 July 2016
LOOKING FOR WORK:
University of Uppsala: 1-2 Ph.D. positions in History of Science and Ideas linked to the research programme “Medicine at the Borders of Life: Foetal Research and the Emergence of Ethical Controversy in Sweden”
University of Uppsala: 1-2 Postdoctoral positions in History of Science and Ideas linked to the research programme “Medicine at the Borders of Life: Foetal Research and the Emergence of Ethical Controversy in Sweden”
HSS: Dependent Care Grant Application – 2015 Meeting
Norwegian University of Science and Technology: PhD Positions at the NTNU, Faculty of Humanities
University of Vienna: 1 Doctoral Student Position & 6 Associate Positions The Sciences in Historical, Philosophical and Cultural Contexts
South East DTC: ESRC Postgraduate Funding
Whewell's Ghost 