Failed Historical Scientific Instruments

Erscheinungsjahr 2024
ISBN: 978-90-04-68909-1
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 10, 250 Seiten, Format (B × H): 157 mm x 238 mm, Gewicht: 534 g

Reihe: Scientific Instruments and Collections

Can a scientific instrument be regarded as a failure? Why and how? By shedding light on the complexity of these questions, the volume marks a step forward in the way historical scientific instruments can be analysed and displayed.

The essays show how diverse failures can be, and how the assessment of scientific devices may change over time — some surprisingly becoming more successful. In addition to studies of how technical features led to failure, the authors examine the roles played by social bias and behaviour, commercial and economic circumstances, and political factors.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Weitere Mitwirkende

Schechner, Sara J.

Talas, Sofia

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Europäische Länder
• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaften: Allgemeines Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften, Formalen Wissenschaften & Technik
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Europäische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Wissenschafts- und Universitätsgeschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of Illustrations

Contributors

Introduction: Failed Historical Scientific Instruments

Sara J. Schechner and Sofia Talas

1. An Archive of Failed Inventions: The Museum of the Admiralty Compass Observatory

Richard Dunn

2. The Diffusion Hygrometer: A Commercial Failure

Jean-François Loude

3. “Extremely Poor”: An Equatorial Mount that Failed

Johan Kärnfelt

4. A Telescope’s Lack of Fortune: The Newall Telescope

Panagiotis Lazos and George N. Vlahakis

5. Not All Bad: Rehabilitating Phrenology in Museums

Tacye Phillipson

6. Finding Way at Sea – Alternatives to the Log-Line and Sand Glass. The British Experience in the Hanoverian Era: Conservative Navigational Practice or Technological Failure?

D.J. Bryden

7. The Transmission X-Ray Microscope: Super Microscope for Biology or Yet Another Niche Instrument?

Andreas Junk

8. From Complex to Simple: The Example of Qibla-Indicators

Razieh S. Mousavi

9. Pedro Nunes, Tycho Brahe, and Orazio Borgondio: Two Failed Schemes to Read Angular Scales?

Luís Tirapicos

10. Thomas Young’s Eriometer: Wrong Time, Wrong Inventor, Wrong Users?

Michelle Mercier

11. Black and White Images in a Grey Area of Failure: The Photo-Theodolite at the Royal Geographical Society in the 1920s

Jane Wess

12. A Failure, an Icon or Beyond: The Cloud Chamber of the University of Padua

Sofia Talas and Giulio Peruzzi

13. Failures, an Instrument Maker’s Perspective

Nicolàs de Holster

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Sara J. Schechner is David P. Wheatland Curator of the Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments and Lecturer on History of Science at Harvard University. She serves on the Editorial Board for the Scientific Instrument Commission’s series, Scientific Instruments and Collections.

Sofia Talas is the Curator of the Giovanni Poleni Museum, at the University of Padua.