Showing papers in "Annals of Science in 2014"
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a collection of articles about the role of the Pacific and especially of Tahiti projecting the myth of a Golden Age in European conceptions of progress and improvement, focusing especially on Forsters, father and son.
Abstract: cartography in Joseph Banks’s many endeavours, at home and abroad, mirroring the map metaphor omnipresent as much in encyclopaedic knowledge as in numerous systems of classification. Meanwhile, German scholars used their links to British explorers and naturalists to develop scholarship in their universities especially the budding science of anthropology at Göttingen as Gascoigne explains in ‘Blumenbach, Banks, and the beginnings of Anthropology at Göttingen’ (VIII) and in ‘The German Enlightenment in the Pacific’ (IX). The latter of these two articles is an especially stimulating account of the role of the Pacific and especially of Tahiti projecting the myth of a ‘Golden Age’ (IX, p. 156) in European conceptions of progress and improvement, focusing especially on the Forsters, father and son. Altogether, this is an interesting and intellectually stimulating collection of articles, which build on each other to provide a good overview of the multiple facets of the Enlightenment in Europe.
59 citations
TL;DR: This paper traces the Europe-wide discussion on theatre architecture between 1750 and 1830 and will be shown that the period of investigation is marked by an increasing interest in auditorium acoustics, one linked to the emergence of a bourgeois theatre culture and the growing socio-political importance of the spoken word.
Abstract: SummaryThe establishment of the discipline of architectural acoustics is generally attributed to the physicist Wallace Clement Sabine, who developed the formula for reverberation time around 1900, and with it the possibility of making calculated prognoses about the acoustic potential of a particular design. If, however, we shift the perspective from the history of this discipline to the history of architectural knowledge and praxis, it becomes apparent that the topos of ‘good sound’ had already entered the discourse much earlier. This paper traces the Europe-wide discussion on theatre architecture between 1750 and 1830. It will be shown that the period of investigation is marked by an increasing interest in auditorium acoustics, one linked to the emergence of a bourgeois theatre culture and the growing socio-political importance of the spoken word. In the wake of this development the search among architects for new methods of acoustic research started to differ fundamentally from an analogical reasoning o...
32 citations
TL;DR: In the middle of the nineteenth century, a new wave of interest resulted in a new interest in the possibility of supernatural events as mentioned in this paper, which has provided fodder for debate and conversation over many generations.
Abstract: Issues regarding allegedly supernatural events have provided fodder for debate and conversation over many generations. However, in the middle of the nineteenth century a new wave of interest result...
23 citations
TL;DR: Borrello as mentioned in this paper explores the political dimensions of the Animal Dispersion story, exploring the ways in which the political views of participants and their institutional contexts informed their scientific views on the nature of the relationship between individuals and communities.
Abstract: Edwards’ Animal Dispersion in Relation to Social Behaviour (1962) an intervention which, he contends, established and has continued to shape the terms of subsequent debates on group selection. Animal Dispersion also allows him to grips with the overtly and covertly political dimensions of his story, exploring the ways in which the political views of participants and their institutional contexts informed their scientific views on the nature of the relationship between individuals and communities. His discussion of the parallels between Wynne-Edwards and Kropotkin is as he acknowledges indebted to Daniel P. Todes’ classic study of Kropotkin (Darwin Without Malthus: The Struggle for Existence in Russian Evolutionary Thought [Oxford, 1989]), but he provides some highly original analysis of the ways in which the reception of Wynne-Edwards’ became caught up in the wider arguments provoked by Paul Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb (1968), the 1972 Ecologist editorial outlining ‘A Blueprint for Survival’, E.O. Wilson’s Sociobiology (1975) and Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene (1976). Evolutionary Restraint is based on Borrello’s 2002 PhD thesis, and the book is set out in the manner of a dissertation: he presents his analysis clearly, dutifully, and with much careful attention to the potential objections of his readers. Unlike much recent literature on evolution, this is a book avowedly and unashamedly written for a specialist readership. Borrello nimbly avoids the pitfalls associated with a study of a single figure: while he clearly has great affection for his subject, and has ambitions for Wynne-Davies’ rehabilitation as a major figure in twentieth-century life science, his reflective and well-theorised analysis leavens what might otherwise have come across as an old-fashioned attempt to restore the reputation a forgotten hero of science. In doing so, he acknowledges the parallel trajectories of history and historiography in this case, raising the question of what is the appropriate level of analysis for understanding the emergence (one wants to say ‘evolution’) of consensus amongst communities of scientists. And he highlights the need for further research on the wider politics of group selection, particularly in the hostile landscape of post-Wilson, post-Dawkins genetics. As is so often the case in histories of the life sciences, one comes away from Evolutionary Restraints feeling that the unacknowledged heroes of the story are creatures particularly birds, one of Wynne-Edwards’ passions from his boyhood in Leeds and his time at Rugby School. Borrello’s narrative is alive with them: tawny owls and fulmars, whirligig beetles and mutton birds, even neuter bees an insect which provokes the reader to return once more to Darwin, and his own anxieties over the pleasures and perils of a solitary versus a social existence.
21 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the detailed processes of Renaissance scholarship in sixteenth-century France and England through a consideration of the mathematical histories constructed by the authors of the histories. But the authors focus on the mathematical aspects of the history.
Abstract: This rewarding book sheds new light on the detailed processes of Renaissance scholarship in sixteenth-century France and England, through a consideration of the mathematical histories constructed b...
19 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors follow Willcocks' voyages across the British Empire and show how hydraulic science moved from one colonial centre to another, and how this movement contributed to the construction and maintenance of colonialism on the ground.
Abstract: SummarySir William Willcocks (1852–1933) was a prominent British irrigation engineer who served in various British colonies. Best known as the chief designer of the Old Aswan Dam, Willcocks was born and trained in India, achieved prominence with his contribution to the development of centralized and perennial irrigation in Egypt, and was hired at the end of his career by the Ottomans to restore the ancient irrigation works of Mesopotamia (which was then on the verge of being acquired by the British). In this article, I follow Willcocks' voyages across the British Empire and show how hydraulic science moved from one colonial centre to another, and how this movement contributed to the construction and maintenance of colonialism on the ground. Often sent to newly acquired territories with ambitious projects to redesign the landscapes of property and agriculture, Willcocks and other engineers who gained their expertise in the colonies relied on lessons from their day-to-day struggle with the land and other so...
19 citations
TL;DR: This paper analyses examples of synergies between science, education and trade, which denotes, inter alia, the existence of a broad and solid educational structure in the Manila Mission that sustained the strength of research enterprise.
Abstract: In 1865, Spanish Jesuits founded the Manila Observatory, the earliest of the Far East centres devoted to typhoon and earthquake studies. Also on Philippine soil and under the direction of the Jesuits, in 1884 the Madrid government inaugurated the first Meteorological Service in the Spanish Kingdom, and most probably in the Far East. Nevertheless, these achievements not only went practically unnoticed in the historiography of science, but neither does the process of geophysical dissemination that unfolded fit in with the two types of transmitter of knowledge identified by historians in the missionary diffusion of the exact sciences in colonial contexts. Rather than regarding science as merely a stimulus to their functionary and missionary tasks, Spanish Jesuits used their overseas posting to produce and publish original research--feature that would place them within the typology of the 'seeker' rather than the 'functionary' (in stark contrast to what the standard typology sustains). This paper also analyses examples of synergies between science, education and trade, which denotes, inter alia, the existence of a broad and solid educational structure in the Manila Mission that sustained the strength of research enterprise.
19 citations
14 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that fiction in such instances is localized, situated, and signaled by the markers that frame and control it, and offer a method through which to understand the epistemological function of fiction within cosmopoetic texts.
Abstract: of the book. A more helpful index would allow readers to search for thematic and formal threads as well. The shared history of astronomy and the novel is a tangle of probability, possibility, and fiction according to Aı̈t-Touati, who leverages an array of disciplinary tools in order to reveal and describe the knots and why they matter. As she notes, scholars have been arguing for some time now that a Snowian divide between literature and science cannot characterize early modern literate culture (indeed, perhaps it is not characteristic of any historical period). With Fictions of the Cosmos, Aı̈t-Touati helps resolve the tension many feel when they encounter clearly fictional elements within natural philosophy; arguing that fiction in such instances is ‘localized, situated, (and) signaled by the markers that frame and control it’, and she offers a method through which to understand the epistemological function of fiction within cosmopoetic texts (p. 196).
14 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a central figure of early modern natural philosophy, Robert Boyle, invested great intellectual energy into his depiction of the history of philosophy, mediated through an array of textual traditions: classical, patristic, humanist and contemporary.
Abstract: SummaryHistorians of science have neglected early modern natural philosophers' varied attitudes to the history of philosophy, often preferring to use loose labels such as ‘Epicureanism’ to describe the survival of ancient doctrines. This is methodologically inappropriate: reifying such philosophical movements tells us little about the complex ways in which early modern natural philosophers approached the history of their own discipline. As this article shows, a central figure of early modern natural philosophy, Robert Boyle, invested great intellectual energy into his depiction of the history of philosophy. Boyle's historical worldview was mediated through an array of textual traditions: classical, patristic, humanist and contemporary. Drawing extensively on his manuscript notes, this is examined for three topics. First, from his turn to natural philosophy in the late 1640s, Boyle combined a sceptical attitude towards philosophy's potential – stemming from humanist historicisations of the ‘speculative’ he...
13 citations
TL;DR: Possessing the Dead as mentioned in this paper is the second monograph to explore the murky world of nineteenth-century anatomy, and it is the only work that explores the anatomy of the human body.
Abstract: Possessing the Dead is Helen MacDonald's second monograph to explore the murky world of nineteenth-century anatomy. While her previous work, Human Remains, read more as a cultural history of dissec...
TL;DR: For centuries, philosophers have been trying to answer this question and all kinds of criteria of demarcation have been proposed by which science can supposedly be differentiated f... as mentioned in this paper. But none of these criteria have been proven to be valid.
Abstract: What is science? For centuries, philosophers have been trying to answer this question and all kinds of criteria of demarcation have been proposed by which science can supposedly be differentiated f...
TL;DR: A remarkable series of first-rate studies of the history of chemistry in the nineteenth century, centred on what he has aptly termed the "quiet revolution" as mentioned in this paper, was given by Rocke.
Abstract: Alan Rocke has given us a remarkable series of first-rate studies of the history of chemistry in the nineteenth century, centred on what he has aptly termed the ‘quiet revolution’; the development ...
TL;DR: Ait-Touati as discussed by the authors analyzes an array of astronomical and literary texts in order to argue that "the history of astronomy is (the) history of the novel" (p. 95).
Abstract: Frederique Ait-Touati's ambitious work analyzes an array of astronomical and literary texts in order to argue that ‘the history of astronomy … (is) the history of the novel’ (p. 95). In doing so, s...
TL;DR: The authors provide a comparative picture of scientific-historical myths and argue that the personal appeal of the former without sacrificing the analytical depth of the latter is a question all working historians need to confront.
Abstract: intriguing comparative picture of scientific-historical myths. A dominating trope is that of the single, relatively simple moment of insight: the notion that we can synecdochially pin discovery onto a particular time, place, and person. It helps, too, if the audience can feel a sense of empathy with the character in the story. Once the myth appears, an uncritical acceptance of expert authority serves to promulgate it. I know from the experience of reading examination essays that many students are much more likely to retain in memory a colourful anecdote than a nuanced picture of multiple interacting causalities. How to engage the personal appeal of the former without sacrificing the analytical depth of the latter is a question all working historians need to confront. This book provides many good starts towards confronting that question.
TL;DR: The extent to which US foreign science policy could operate as (stealth) industrial policy to secure a competitive technological advantage and the prospects of US manufacturers in a future European market is illustrated.
Abstract: SummaryThe spread of the modern computer is assumed to have been a smooth process of technology transfer. This view relies on an assessment of the open circulation of knowledge ensured by the US and British governments in the early post-war years. This article presents new historical evidence that question this view. At the centre of the article lies the ill-fated establishment of the UNESCO International Computation Centre. The project was initially conceived in 1946 to provide advanced computation capabilities to scientists of all nations. It soon became a prize sought by Western European countries like the Netherlands and Italy seeking to speed up their own national research programs. Nonetheless, as the article explains, the US government's limitations on the research function of the future centre resulted in the withdrawal of European support for the project. These limitations illustrate the extent to which US foreign science policy could operate as (stealth) industrial policy to secure a competitive...
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TL;DR: The Annals of Science celebrated the publication of its seventieth volume at a reception at the International Conference on the History of Science, Technology and Medicine, held at Mancheste....
Abstract: Last year, Annals of Science celebrated the publication of its seventieth volume at a reception at the International Conference on the History of Science, Technology and Medicine, held at Mancheste...
TL;DR: In this paper, the Runge family archives and a wealth of other sources have been used to produce a rich history not only of Iris but also of the context, for she provides much information on fellow industrial mathematicians and scientists; Iris was not alone either as female industrial scientist, or as a holder of a doctorate.
Abstract: stream of mainly short papers that were published in house or academic journals, or as chapters in books; she was also active in various German technological societies. The Second World War did not substantially affect her type of work, but it changed her attitude to it. Long an adherent to social democracy, she never joined the Nazi party, but the threat of war increased her interest in switching to the history of science. In 1934 George Sarton tried to secure a post for her at Harvard as his assistant. He failed, but she was to contribute to the history of spectroscopy, another speciality of her father. She also wrote a biography of him, which was eventually published as book in 1949. Three years earlier she had been appointed to a lectureship in physics at Humboldt University in East Berlin; in 1950 she was given a full professorship (the only female at that level in the University), from which she retired in 1952. Profiting from the Runge family archives and a wealth of other sources, the author has produced a rich history not only of Iris but also of the context, for she provides much information on fellow industrial mathematicians and scientists; Iris was not alone either as female industrial scientist, or as a holder of a doctorate. Several colleagues are shown in a suite of photographs that also includes family members and groups. The bibliography is substantial in both original and historical sources; it is a pity that there is only a name index. The original edition of this book appeared from Steiner Verlag in 2010; the translation is good enough to be unnoticable. The author includes a wide range of documents, here just in English. Some texts are biographical, especially a remarkably long account of conditions in Berlin in May 1945, during and after the Russian army came through, that Iris wrote for her family. An exceptional life has been captured in an exceptional biography.
TL;DR: Zur Shalev's Sacred Words and Worlds as mentioned in this paper is a study of a kind of early modern scholarship little known to most historians of science: sacred geography. Yet it stands as a corrective to a more familiar...
Abstract: Zur Shalev's Sacred Words and Worlds is a study of a kind of early modern scholarship little known to most historians of science: sacred geography. Yet it stands as a corrective to a more familiar ...
TL;DR: How nineteenth-century Liverpool became such an advanced city with regard to public timekeeping, and the wider impact of this on the standardisation of time is explored, and one of the most important technologies in measuring the accuracy of the Greenwich time signal took shape in the experimental operation of the time ball.
Abstract: This paper explores how nineteenth-century Liverpool became such an advanced city with regard to public timekeeping, and the wider impact of this on the standardisation of time. From the mid-1840s, local scientists and municipal bodies in the port city were engaged in improving the ways in which accurate time was communicated to ships and the general public. As a result, Liverpool was the first British city to witness the formation of a synchronised clock system, based on an invention by Robert Jones. His method gained a considerable reputation in the scientific and engineering communities, which led to its subsequent replication at a number of astronomical observatories such as Greenwich and Edinburgh. As a further key example of developments in time-signalling techniques, this paper also focuses on the time ball established in Liverpool by the Electric Telegraph Company in collaboration with George Biddell Airy, the Astronomer Royal. This is a particularly significant development because, as the present paper illustrates, one of the most important technologies in measuring the accuracy of the Greenwich time signal took shape in the experimental operation of the time ball. The inventions and knowledge which emerged from the context of Liverpool were vital to the transformation of public timekeeping in Victorian Britain.
TL;DR: The primary aim of this exercise is to show that the apparently recent Internet phenomenon of ‘crowdsourcing’, especially as it relates to scientific research, actually has a pre-Internet history that is worth studying.
Abstract: Mid twentieth century meteor astronomy demanded the long-term compilation of observations made by numerous individuals over an extensive geographical area Such a massive undertaking obviously required the participation of more than just professional astronomers, who often sought to expand their ranks through the use of amateurs that had a basic grasp of astronomy as well as the night sky, and were thus capable of generating first-rate astronomical reports When, in the 1920s, renowned Swedish astronomer Knut Lundmark turned his attention to meteor astronomy, he was unable to rely even upon this solution In contrast to many other countries at the time, Sweden lacked an organized amateur astronomy and thus contained only a handful of competent amateurs Given this situation, Lundmark had to develop ways of engaging the general public in assisting his efforts To his advantage, he was already a well-established public figure who had published numerous popular science articles and held talks from time to time on the radio During the 1930s, this prominence greatly facilitated his launching of a crowdsourcing initiative for the gathering of meteor observations This paper consists of a detailed discussion concerning the means by which Lundmark's initiative disseminated astronomical knowledge to the general public and encouraged a response that might directly contribute to the advancement of science More precisely, the article explores the manner in which he approached the Swedish public, the degree to which that public responded and the extent to which his efforts were successful The primary aim of this exercise is to show that the apparently recent Internet phenomenon of 'crowdsourcing', especially as it relates to scientific research, actually has a pre-Internet history that is worth studying Apart from the fact that this history is interesting in its own right, knowing it can provide us with a fresh vantage point from which to better comprehend and appreciate the success of present-day crowdsourcing projects
TL;DR: McGrigor's role as a member of the Army Medical Board from 1815 until his retirement in 1851 just before the 1851 War of 1851 as mentioned in this paper was studied.
Abstract: This is an ambitious study that seeks not only to re-assess the ‘heroic role’ of Sir James McGrigor as director of the Army Medical Board from 1815 until his retirement in 1851 just before the medi
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TL;DR: The celebrated Swedish natural philosopher and visionary theologian Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) devoted major efforts to the establishment of a reliable method for the determination of longitude at sea.
Abstract: SummaryThe celebrated Swedish natural philosopher and visionary theologian Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772) devoted major efforts to the establishment of a reliable method for the determination of longitude at sea. He first formulated a method, based on the astronomical observation of lunar position, while in London in 1710–12. He issued various versions of the method, both in Latin and in Swedish, throughout his career. In 1766, at the age of 78, he presented his scheme for judgment by the Board of Longitude in London. The rich archive of Swedenborg's career allows an unusually detailed historical analysis of his longitude project, an analysis rather better documented than that available for the host of contemporary projectors who launched longitude schemes, submitted their proposals to the Board of Longitude, and have too often been ignored or dismissed by historians. This analysis uses the longitude work to illuminate key aspects of Swedenborg's wider enterprises, including his scheme to set up an astron...
TL;DR: The Fresh-Water Fishes of Great Britain (1828-1838) as discussed by the authors constitutes the first study of the textual and contextual significance of The Freshwater Fishes in the history of ichthyology.
Abstract: SummarySince first appearance, reviews and accounts of The Fresh-Water Fishes of Great Britain (1828–1838) have been surprisingly few. All agree that this rare work is remarkable for its illustrations. Its importance as a whole in the history of ichthyology, however, is largely unknown, or ignored. This article therefore constitutes the first study of the textual and contextual significance of The Fresh-Water Fishes of Great Britain. By examining in chronological order where, and by whom, the work was first reviewed and referenced until the 1860s, the extraordinary contributions that its author, Sarah Bowdich, made to ichthyology at the forefront of the field in the late 1820s can better be appreciated. Indeed, this multiple evidence demonstrates Sarah Bowdich's merits as an ichthyologist of the first order, and as the first woman ichthyologist. But establishing the significance of The Fresh-Water Fishes of Great Britain for the history of ichthyology then raises a further question. Why has it and its aut...
TL;DR: Stengers as discussed by the authors describes the Lagrangian and Hamiltonian operators as physical-mathematical factishes, and highlights their singularity in order to highlight their "ecological singularity".
Abstract: subjects remains entirely non-technical. Her focus lies in relating these examples drawn from history to the programmatic hypotheses of the earlier chapters. Accordingly, she is, for example, describing the Lagrangian and Hamiltonian operators as ‘physical-mathematical factishes’ (p. 222) in order to highlight their ‘ecological singularity’ (p. 115). With respect to the historical side of the analysis, it might be said that Cosmopolitics I does not contribute many new insights. There are no references to relevant literature in the field, such that works like Stephen Brushes’ classic The Kind of Motion We Call Heat (North Holland, 1976), which treats Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics in full historical and systematic detail, remain unmentioned. Most of the rare bibliographical references in the endnotes allude to philosophers like Latour, Deleuze, or Guattari. Stengers’ work can therefore only be recommended to readers who have a preference for fancy jargon and philosophical speculations which are so bold, that they are ‘not even false’, as the great father of the neutrino, Wolfgang Pauli, would have put it.
TL;DR: Capecchi as mentioned in this paper is a professor of the mechanics of solids and of the history of science at the University of Roma La Sapienza (Italy) and a member of the Birkhauser Science Networks Historical Studies series.
Abstract: Danilo Capecchi is professor of the mechanics of solids and of the history of science at the University of Roma La Sapienza (Italy). The Birkhauser Science Networks Historical Studies–series is co-...
TL;DR: The authors argued that cosmopolitanism was essential to the ethic of science especially in the 1940s and 1950s (p. 448) and extended this argument to recover the cosmopolitan dimension within the native Indian madhyabitta bhadralok scientists in early 20th century India.
Abstract: with regionalism, nationalism and imperialism in science during the colonial period. Anderson hints at an answer by saying that cosmopolitanism was essential to the ethic of science especially in the 1940s and 1950s (p. 448). It would be useful to extend this argument to recover the cosmopolitan dimension within the native Indian madhyabitta bhadralok (middle class intelligentsia) scientists in early 20th century India. These issues apart, Nucleus and Nation richly contributes to several fields: history of science and technology, South Asian history, and the history of colonialism. Anderson weaves in rich detail the complex interplay between science and culture in the Indian context, thus expanding the context of science and technology studies to non-Western cultures.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a book about vision and its historical fragility, which samples from numerous different cultural and scientific areas of "vision" (e.g., microscop...
Abstract: ‘This is a book about vision and its historical fragility’. So opens Martin Willis's new book that samples from numerous different cultural and scientific areas of ‘vision’. These include microscop...