Tag Archives: 18th century

Lovelace, longitude and lady computers

Posted on October 8, 2011 by Rebekah Higgitt

I also wrote a post yesterday to mark Ada Lovelace Day [read more].

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Scheming Jack

Posted on October 6, 2011 by Rebekah Higgitt

Some time back, Adrian Teal was good enough to share a great quote with me, and it is high time that I got it up onto the Longitude Project blog. It is nice because it gives us a very different view of John … Continue reading →

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The virtue of simplicity

Posted on July 5, 2011 by Rebekah Higgitt

A week or so ago I was fortunate enough to be included in the annual Research Day at UCL’s Department of Science and Technology Studies, where staff, students and Honorary Fellows get together to hear what everyone is up to. I … Continue reading →

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Three in one, and all alone

Posted on March 21, 2011 by Rebekah Higgitt

On Saturday I was in Cambridge, with the Cambridge Science Festival in full flow. I was there to be a panelist for an event called Can You Make A Difference? but during the afternoon I also took in the play Let Newton Be!, written … Continue reading →

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Rehabilitating Nevil Maskelyne

Posted on February 9, 2011 by Rebekah Higgitt

Today is the bicentenary of the death of the fifth Astronomer Royal, Nevil Maskelyne. He is best known as the villain of Dava Sobel’s Longitude. This depiction is unfair, as is this book’s suggestion that astronomical and chronometric solutions to the problem … Continue reading →

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Hands-on science

Posted on February 3, 2011 by Rebekah Higgitt

Visitors to the Science Museum are often either delighted or slightly bemused by the contrasts provided by its exhibits. The oldest gallery, containing delightfully old-fashioned dioramas of agricultural machinery at work, faces one of the newer, on plastics. Both the topics … Continue reading →

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Longitude ups and downs

Posted on January 13, 2011 by Rebekah Higgitt

The Longitude Project blog is now taking off nicely and, even at this early stage, it is demonstrating how the, possibly stale-sounding, topic of the history of the Board of Longitude reaches into all sorts of interesting areas in Georgian history … Continue reading →

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Hume, Curiosity, and the Justification of Scientific Endeavor

Posted on October 1, 2010 by Brandon Watson

A considerable portion of the philosophy of David Hume can be interpreted as an attempt to formulate a proper philosophical account of the scientific endeavor itself. This certainly is a major concern for Hume; much of his discussion of causation, … Continue reading →

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