Showing papers in "Annals of Science in 2015"
TL;DR: John Tyndall's approach, challenging Faraday's developing field theory with a model of diamagnetic polarity and the effect of magnetic forces acting in couples, was based on his belief in the importance of underlying molecular structure, an idea which suffused his later work, for example in the study of glaciers and to the interaction of substances with radiant heat.
Abstract: John Tyndall, Irish-born natural philosopher, completed his PhD at the University of Marburg in 1850 while starting his first substantial period of research into the phenomenon of diamagnetism. This paper provides a detailed analysis and evaluation of his contribution to the understanding of magnetism and of the impact of this work on establishing his own career and reputation; it was instrumental in his election as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1852 and as Professor of Natural Philosophy at the Royal Institution in 1853. Tyndall's interactions and relationships with Michael Faraday, William Thomson, Julius Plucker and others are explored, alongside his contributions to experimental practice and to emerging theory. Tyndall's approach, challenging Faraday's developing field theory with a model of diamagnetic polarity and the effect of magnetic forces acting in couples, was based on his belief in the importance of underlying molecular structure, an idea which suffused his later work, for example in relation to the study of glaciers and to the interaction of substances with radiant heat.
57 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss the role of Joseph Banks in the political battle against the Winsor group in 1807-8 by guiding James Watt Jr. as he prepared a paper (ostensibly composed by William Murdoch, Boulton & Watt's engineer) to demonstrate Murdoch's priority in the invention of gas lighting and thereby win him the Rumford Medal for scientific contributions to heat and light.
Abstract: including appearances by Sir Joseph Banks, the Royal Society’s president and friend of Matthew Boulton and James Watt. Banks played a key role in the political battle against the Winsor group in 1807–8 by guiding James Watt Jr. as he prepared a paper (ostensibly composed by William Murdoch, Boulton & Watt’s engineer) to demonstrate Murdoch’s priority in the invention of gas lighting (in part by taking credit for the work of others and attacking the claims of Winsor) and thereby win him the Rumford Medal for scientific contributions to heat and light. Murdoch thus became a ‘heroic inventor’ in the romantic historiography of the Industrial Revolution (pp. 148–151, 168). This is a beautifully-produced book, solidly bound with an attractive and colourful illustration on the dust jacket, readable typefaces, and many clear, detailed figures chiefly illustrating technical apparatus. Although marred by a few typographical errors, it is nevertheless well worth having for anyone interested in the interaction of science and technology in the origins of modern urban industrial society.
34 citations
TL;DR: What Did the Romans Know? as discussed by the authors is the most original and provocative contribution to the understanding of ancient science in many years and challenges common assumptions about the nature of science in th...
Abstract: What Did the Romans Know? is the most original and provocative contribution to the understanding of ancient science in many years. It challenges common assumptions about the nature of science in th...
18 citations
TL;DR: Adelene Buckland's Novel Science is a book that historians of nineteenth-century science will profit from but that literary scholars of 19th-century Britain need to read as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Adelene Buckland's Novel Science is a book that historians of nineteenth-century science will profit from but that literary scholars of nineteenth-century Britain need to read. For unlike many lite...
17 citations
TL;DR: For decades, the question of its origins in a much earlier period has suffered undeserved scho... as mentioned in this paper, however, this question has received undeserved attention from the media.
Abstract: The word ‘gaslight’ normally recalls a mid-nineteenth-century era of Victorian urban culture; for decades, however, the question of its origins in a much earlier period has suffered undeserved scho...
16 citations
TL;DR: In this article, it was shown that what was primarily at stake for these authors was a concern about the irreducibility of life and the mind to physics and that their theories can be regarded primarily as reactions to the law of conservation of energy, which was used among others by Helmholtz and Du Bois-Reymond as an argument against the possibility of vital and mental causes in physiology.
Abstract: During the period 1860-1880, a number of physicists and mathematicians, including Maxwell, Stewart, Cournot and Boussinesq, used theories formulated in terms of physics to argue that the mind, the soul or a vital principle could have an impact on the body. This paper shows that what was primarily at stake for these authors was a concern about the irreducibility of life and the mind to physics, and that their theories can be regarded primarily as reactions to the law of conservation of energy, which was used among others by Helmholtz and Du Bois-Reymond as an argument against the possibility of vital and mental causes in physiology. In light of this development, Maxwell, Stewart, Cournot and Boussinesq showed that it was still possible to argue for the irreducibility of life and the mind to physics, through an appeal to instability or indeterminism in physics: if the body is an unstable or physically indeterministic system, an immaterial principle can act through triggering or directing motions in the body, without violating the laws of physics.
12 citations
TL;DR: The circumstances of composition of the annotated edition of Newton's Principia that was printed in Geneva in 1739–1742, which ran to several editions and was still in print in Britain in the mid-nineteenth century is examined.
Abstract: SummaryThis contribution examines the circumstances of composition of the annotated edition of Newton's Principia that was printed in Geneva in 1739–1742, which ran to several editions and was still in print in Britain in the mid-nineteenth century. This edition was the work of the Genevan Professor of Mathematics, Jean Louis Calandrini, and of two Minim friars based in Rome, Thomas Le Seur and Francois Jacquier. The study of the context in which this edition was conceived sheds light on the early reception of Newtonianism in Geneva and Rome. By taking into consideration the careers of Calandrini, Le Seur and Jacquier, as authors, lecturers and leading characters of Genevan and Roman cultural life, I will show that their involvement in the enterprise of annotating Newton's Principia answered specific needs of Genevan and Roman culture. The publication and reception of the Genevan annotated edition has also a broader European dimension. Both Calandrini and Jacquier were in touch with the French republique ...
10 citations
TL;DR: In this article, Agar has toiled to produce a synthetic account of science in the twentieth century, composing a story that crosses conventional disciplinary annealing, and has been published as a book.
Abstract: Resisting the fashion for specialised monographs, Jon Agar has toiled to produce a synthetic account of science in the twentieth century, composing a story that crosses conventional disciplinary an...
10 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, Voskuhl argues that mechanical objects are products of a mechanical age, and argues that they are not the products of the Androids in the Enlightenment.
Abstract: Are mechanical objects the products of a mechanical age? Adelheid Voskuhl's Androids in the Enlightenment argues for a resounding no. With much brilliance and analytical acumen, Voskuhl shows that,...
9 citations
9 citations
TL;DR: The nineteenth-century chemist and natural philosopher Michael Faraday (1791--1867) is widely regarded as the father of British electromagnetism and electrochemistry as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: The nineteenth-century chemist and natural philosopher Michael Faraday (1791--1867) is widely regarded as the father of British electromagnetism and electrochemistry His main discoveries include e
TL;DR: The history of three methods for detecting bloodstains during the first half of the nineteenth-century in France is reconstructed to reveal how the senses of smell and vision were employed in order to produce convincing evidence in both academies and courts.
Abstract: SummaryThis paper analyses the development of three methods for detecting bloodstains during the first half of the nineteenth-century in France. After dealing with the main problems in detecting bloodstains, the paper describes the chemical tests introduced in the mid-1820s. Then the first uses of the microscope in the detection of bloodstains around 1827 are discussed. The most controversial method is then examined, the smell test introduced by Jean-Pierre Barruel in 1829, and the debates which took place in French academies and learned societies during ensuing years are surveyed. Moving to the courtrooms a review is conducted of how the different methods were employed in criminal trials. By reviewing these cases, the main arguments against Barruel's test during the 1830s are explored as well as the changes making possible the return of the microscope to legal medicine around 1840. By reconstructing the history of these three methods, the paper reveals how the senses of smell and vision (colours and micr...
TL;DR: A French effort to produce an edition with annotations by scientists and scholars was intended to rival two of the period's other distinguished multi-volume books of knowledge, Diderot and D'Alembert's Encyclopédie and Buffon's Histoire naturelle, to which it is compared.
Abstract: SummaryThis paper analyses the revival of Pliny's Naturalis historia within the scientific culture of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, focusing on a French effort to produce an edition with annotations by scientists and scholars. Between the Renaissance and the early eighteenth century, the Naturalis historia had declined in scientific importance. Increasingly, it was relegated to the humanities, as we demonstrate with a review of editions. For a variety of reasons, however, scientific interest in the Naturalis historia grew in the second half of the eighteenth century. Epitomizing this interest was a plan for a scientifically annotated, Latin-French edition of the Naturalis historia. Initially coordinated by the French governmental minister Malesherbes in the 1750s, the edition was imperfectly realized by Poinsinet a few decades later. It was intended to rival two of the period's other distinguished multi-volume books of knowledge, Diderot and D'Alembert's Encyclopedie and Buffon's His...
TL;DR: For over a half-century after, chemists struggled to reconcile proposed structures for benzene and other aromatic compounds with their resistance to chemical transformation and tendency to maintain the type during reaction, leading chemists to doubt the utility and universality of ‘aromaticity’ as a concept.
Abstract: Kekule first suggested a hexagonal structure for benzene in 1865. For over a half-century after, chemists struggled to reconcile proposed structures for benzene and other aromatic compounds with their resistance to chemical transformation and tendency to maintain the type during reaction. The combined structural and reactivity features of these compounds were eventually covered by the term 'aromaticity'. Kekule, Bamberger and Thiele had each proposed a criterion for aromaticity; all were either empirically contradicted or incapable of evaluation. In the 1930s, two rival quantum mechanical methods succeeded in establishing a physical basis for aromaticity. Using valence bond theory, Pauling attributed benzene's stability to its being a resonance hybrid of several Lewis structures. Calculating resonance energies was challenging but manipulating Lewis structures was not; that procedure provided qualitative insights into aromatic structure and reactivity. Resonance theory appealed especially to organic chemists and eclipsed Huckel's contemporaneous molecular orbital approach, which remained relatively inaccessible. In the 1950s, however, simple rules derived from Huckel's mathematics, combined with proton NMR data, provided seemingly universal criteria for aromaticity. In the event, post-1950 discoveries of non-organic, three-dimensional compounds such as ferrocene and the fullerenes that exhibit aromatic properties led chemists to doubt the utility and universality of 'aromaticity' as a concept. A recent consensus maintains that aromaticity is a multi-variable phenomenon that cannot be reduced to a strict definition, a property it shares with other core chemical concepts such as 'acidity' and 'reactivity'.
TL;DR: The influence of Hofmann and Fischer on the shaping of national scientific institutions in Germany, from founding of the German Chemical Society in 1867 to the first institutes of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society founded in 1911, their academic leadership in other areas including the shaping a successful academic-industrial symbiosis in organic chemistry, and finally their response to war as a force disruptive of scientific internationalism are considered.
Abstract: This paper's primary goal is to compare the personalities, values, and influence of August Wilhelm Hofmann and Emil Fischer as exemplars and acknowledged leaders of successive generations of the German chemical profession and as scientists sharing a 19th-century liberal, internationalist outlook from the German wars of unification in the 1860s to Fischer's death in 1919 in the aftermath of German defeat in World War I. The paper will consider the influence of Hofmann and Fischer on the shaping of national scientific institutions in Germany, from founding of the German Chemical Society in 1867 to the first institutes of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society founded in 1911, their academic leadership in other areas including the shaping of a successful academic-industrial symbiosis in organic chemistry, and finally their response to war as a force disruptive of scientific internationalism. All of these developments posed serious dilemmas, exacerbated by emerging strains of nationalism and anti-Semitism in German society. Whereas Hofmann's lifework came to a relatively successful end in 1892, Fischer was not so fortunate, as the war brought him heavy responsibilities and terrible personal losses, but with no German victory and no peace of reconciliation--a bleak end for Fischer and the 19th-century liberal ideals that had inspired him.
TL;DR: In this article, the story of American scientific development in the post-WWII period is described through the lens of science, and the authors present a collection of articles from the Johns Hopkins Introductory Studies in the History of Science.
Abstract: This book, part of Johns Hopkins Introductory Studies in the History of Science, tells the story of American scientific development in the post-WWII period. Through the lens of science, it concerns...
TL;DR: The eco-prefix can be found everywhere from the mundane to the exotic as mentioned in this paper, and it can even be found in the name of an eco-religion, and even in the Bible.
Abstract: As readers of Annals of Science have surely noticed, the eco-prefix can be found everywhere from the mundane to the exotic. You can study ecophilosophy, pray to an eco-religion, vote in favour of e...
TL;DR: The chronographe imprimant, which permits de reduire les equations personnelles des observateurs, s'impose, d'abord aux Etats-Unis, puis en Angleterre, en instrument-embleme de cette transformation profonde, symbolise ce passage a une economie industrieuse des pratiques scientifiques as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: ResumeLes observatoires occidentaux se transforment en veritable usine scientifique a partir du milieu du 19e siecle. L'astrometrie symbolise ce passage a une economie industrieuse des pratiques scientifiques. Le chronographe imprimant, qui permet de reduire les equations personnelles des observateurs, s'impose, d'abord aux Etats-Unis, puis en Angleterre, en instrument-embleme de cette transformation profonde. En France, les initiatives de l'astronome Liais restent prototypiques. Ce n'est qu'au debut du 20e siecle, par les voies detournees de l'observatoire d'Hendaye et de l'abbe Verschaffel, que le chronographe imprimant fait son retour et conquiert les espaces savants. La centralisation excessive de l'astronomie francaise, l'autoritarisme du directeur de l'Observatoire de Paris Urbain Le Verrier, et la faiblesse du marche des instruments expliquent pourquoi le chronographe imprimant n'a fait souche que tres tardivement en France.
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TL;DR: Diffraction gratings have contributed enormously to modern science and this paper discusses their development and use in the period up to about 1880 before Rowland began to produce them.
Abstract: SummaryDiffraction gratings have contributed enormously to modern science. Although some historians have written about them, there is much more to be brought to light. This paper discusses their development and use in the period up to about 1880 before Rowland began to produce them. Rittenhouse described the action of a diffraction grating in 1786, but no explanation was possible until the wave theory of light was developed. Fraunhofer discovered the dark lines in the solar spectrum in 1814, and then investigated diffraction, producing the first ruled gratings, making detailed measurements and calculating the wavelengths of prominent spectral lines. After Bunsen and Kirchhoff showed the association between spectral lines and chemical elements there was an upsurge of interest in measuring wavelengths. The gratings used in this work almost all came from one source, a relatively unknown instrument maker called Nobert, who made them by an extremely laborious process using a machine he had built himself. The m...
TL;DR: One feature of Ward's and Wren's responses to Galileo's 1638 Discorsi is examined, namely their decision to re-write several of Galileo's geometrical demonstrations into the language of symbolic algebra.
Abstract: SummaryA heretofore overlooked response to Galileo's 1638 Discorsi is described by examining two extant copies of the text (one which has received little attention in the historiography, the other apparently unknown) which are heavily annotated. It is first demonstrated that these copies contain annotations made by Seth Ward and Sir Christopher Wren. This article then examines one feature of Ward's and Wren's responses to the Discorsi, namely their decision to re-write several of Galileo's geometrical demonstrations into the language of symbolic algebra. It is argued that this type of active reading of period mathematical texts may have been part of the regular scholarly and pedagogical practices of early modern British mathematicians like Ward and Wren. A set of Appendices contains a transcription and translation of the analytical solutions found in these annotated copies.
TL;DR: Melting and boiling points as characteristic values emerge from this study as products of laboratory standardization, developed by chemists in their struggle to classify, understand and control organic nature.
Abstract: SummaryThis essay explains why and how nineteenth-century chemists sought to stabilize the melting and boiling points of organic substances as reliable characteristics of identity and purity and how, by the end of the century, they established these values as ‘Constants of Nature’. Melting and boiling points as characteristic values emerge from this study as products of laboratory standardization, developed by chemists in their struggle to classify, understand and control organic nature. A major argument here concerns the role played by the introduction of organic synthesis in driving these changes. Synthetic organic chemistry vastly increased the number of known organic substances, precipitating the chemical identity crisis of my title. Successful natural product synthesis, moreover, depended on chemists’ ability to demonstrate the absolute identity of synthetic product and natural target – something late nineteenth-century chemists eventually achieved by making reliable, replicable melting and boiling p...
TL;DR: William Barlow was an important if unconventional scientist, known for having developed the ‘closest-packing’ atomic models of crystal structure, which resumed an early nineteenth-century tradition of utilizing crystallographical and chemical data to determine atomic arrangements in crystals.
Abstract: William Barlow (1845-1934) was an important if unconventional scientist, known for having developed the 'closest-packing' atomic models of crystal structure. He resumed an early nineteenth-century tradition of utilizing crystallographical and chemical data to determine atomic arrangements in crystals. This essay recounts Barlow's career and scientific activity in three parts: (a) His place in the tradition of determining atomic arrangement in context of this earlier tradition and of contemporaneous developments of crystallography and chemistry, (b) his unconventional career, and (c) the 'success' of his program to determine atomic arrangements in crystals and its influence on the work of William Lawrence Bragg.
TL;DR: The methods by which scholars have attempted to circumvent this seemingly insurmountable contradiction, first posed by Hippocrates of Cos in the... as discussed by the authors, are described in detail in the Appendix.
Abstract: Ars longa, vita brevis – ‘art is long, life short’. The methods by which scholars have attempted to circumvent this seemingly insurmountable contradiction, first posed by Hippocrates of Cos in the ...
TL;DR: This paper, part of a larger study exploring Herschel's contributions to astronomy, examines his work in the context of positional astronomy, the dominant form of astronomical practice throughout his lifetime.
Abstract: SummaryJohn Herschel (1792–1871) was the leading British natural philosopher of the nineteenth century, widely known and regarded for his work in philosophy, optics and chemistry as well as his important research and popular publications on astronomy. To date, however, there exists no extended treatment of his astronomical career. This paper, part of a larger study exploring Herschel's contributions to astronomy, examines his work in the context of positional astronomy, the dominant form of astronomical practice throughout his lifetime. Herschel, who did not himself practice positional astronomy and who was known for his non-meridional observations of specific stellar objects, was nonetheless a strong advocate for positional astronomy—but for very different reasons than the terrestrial applications to which it was most often put. For Herschel, the star catalogues of positional astronomy were the necessary observational foundation upon which information about the stars as physical objects could be construc...
TL;DR: The origins of these complex relationships under Carl Löwig and Georg Städeler are outlined and the complex career path of Johannes Wislicenus’ career path is followed, showing how this context, including the roles of cantonal and federal support, and the physical constraints created by shared laboratory facilities, shaped chemical research and instruction in Zürich.
Abstract: SummaryThe development of universities and technical schools in nineteenth century Switzerland is commonly assumed to be similar to the development of comparable schools in Germany. To a large extent this is correct, but there are subtle differences in the founding and organization of Swiss institutions that are reflective of the Swiss national and local cantonal contexts. In the case of Zurich, the specific local political and financial conditions underlying the formation of the University of Zurich, the Zurich Cantonal School and the Swiss Federal Polytechnic resulted in a complex set of dual appointments and shared facilities that were absent at comparable chemical laboratories at German universities. This essay outlines the origins of these complex relationships under Carl Lowig (1833–1853) and Georg Stadeler (1853–1870) and follows in more detail the complex career path of Johannes Wislicenus in Zurich from his appointment as Privatdozent in 1860 to his appointment as Director of the Polytechnic in 1...
TL;DR: A fragment on the conic sections that appear in the Codex Atlanticus, fols.
Abstract: SummaryThis article studies a fragment on the conic sections that appear in the Codex Atlanticus, fols. 611rb/915ra. Arguments are put forward to assemble these two folios. Their comparison with the Latin texts available before 1500 shows that they derive from the De speculis comburentibus of Alhacen and the De speculis comburentibus of Regiomontanus, joined together in his autograph manuscript (Vienna, Oster. Nationalbibliothek, Cod. 5258). Having identified the sources, and discussed their mathematics, the issue of their transmission is targeted. It is shown that these notes were written by Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli, through whom they reached the notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci.
TL;DR: In the Enlightenment, much of the work produced during the Enlightenment espoused the possibility of progress whether of science, medicine, technology, government or more grandly of humanity itself.
Abstract: Much of the work produced during the Enlightenment espoused the possibility of progress whether of science, medicine, technology, government or more grandly of humanity itself. There were those, ho...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a collection of essays from the early modern Netherlands focusing on art, science, and culture, with a focus on early modern Dutch art and culture.
Abstract: book lacks an index or even a collective bibliography, making it difficult for the interested scholar to locate a particular reference or to see how certain themes and figures might overlap among and between the various essays. This puzzling absence of something so obviously necessary might well diminish the book’s utility, and that would be unfortunate; there is much of value here for historians with an interest in the early modern Netherlands. Its varied and thoughtful essays provide a colourful window on a time and place that undeniably deserves further scrutiny from historians of art, of science, and of Netherlandish culture.