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Chronology of Science and Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Mary Shelley

David H. Guston, Ed Finn, Jason Scott Robert, Joey Eschrich, and Mary Drago (eds)

in Frankenstein: Annotated for Scientists, Engineers, and Creators of All Kinds

The editors provide a brief chronology of important dates in the history of science in the context of Mary Shelley’s life and important aspects of the novel.

Science in the Basement: Selling the Home Lab in the Interwar Years

Rebecca Onion

in Innocent Experiments: Childhood and the Culture of Public Science in the United States

Companies selling chemistry sets expanded their offerings greatly in the years between World War I and World War II. In their marketing materials, the box design of the sets themselves, and the ... More

Companies selling chemistry sets expanded their offerings greatly in the years between World War I and World War II. In their marketing materials, the box design of the sets themselves, and the manuals included in the sets, companies articulated a vision of home science as a project pursued by boys in small groups, away from their mothers and sisters.Less

Architectures of Air: Media Ecologies of Smart Cities and Pollution¹

Jussi Parikka

in Architectural Materialisms: Nonhuman Creativity

In this chapter Jussi Parikka discusses air pollution and waste as media, data and environmental art created in the contemporary smart city. The way these, otherwise unwanted, elements are sensed and ... More

In this chapter Jussi Parikka discusses air pollution and waste as media, data and environmental art created in the contemporary smart city. The way these, otherwise unwanted, elements are sensed and perceived unveil the political subjectivity in an urban context and as data feedback from various readings, understandings and governance of the city. This sort of a materiality is one that is about folds between architectures, data and the chemistry of the air -a sort of a media ecology of multiple materialities. The creative power of smog that intertwines old computational infrastructures of urban pollution and new infrastructures such as monitors, programming and data storage is explained. The chapter focuses on urban environments as defined by the emergence of new forms of measurement of the city -and its airborne pollution - through smog sensors. The smart, modern city as defined through its unwanted elements, in this case, pollution and waste, are further discussed.Less

Introduction: Slow-Motion Mobiles

Matthew C. Hunter

in Painting with Fire: Sir Joshua Reynolds, Photography, and the Temporally Evolving Chemical Object

Scottish-born banker James Coutts sat for a portrait with painter Joshua Reynolds in the early 1770s. Painted on a panel of unprimed mahogany, the resulting picture is now a wreck. Flakes tear ... More

Scottish-born banker James Coutts sat for a portrait with painter Joshua Reynolds in the early 1770s. Painted on a panel of unprimed mahogany, the resulting picture is now a wreck. Flakes tear through the forehead, eye, and cheeks; they pierce Coutts’s visible ear and tatter his throat. So problematic was the panel that it was given in the 1850s to Scotland’s national art gallery as a means for teaching a moral lesson to aspiring artists about the dangers of Reynolds’s risky painting techniques. That conception of the first president of Britain’s Royal Academy of Arts is difficult to square with familiar assessments. Yet, Reynolds’s chemical experiments were intensively discussed and collected by his votaries. By the mid-nineteenth century, they were seen to bear on painting and photography alike. This introduction argues that the force of Reynolds’s chemical experiments is reducible to neither painting nor photography; instead, it opens a history of “temporally evolving chemical objects”—of materials known and valued for changing visibly in time, while affording conceptual reflection on time. This introduction defines the temporally evolving chemical object and maps the structure of the book as a relay through and beyond British pictorial arts of the long eighteenth century.Less

“Pictures … in time petrify’d”

Matthew C. Hunter

in Painting with Fire: Sir Joshua Reynolds, Photography, and the Temporally Evolving Chemical Object

This chapter surveys research into artificial phosphorus conducted in the 1670s by leading figures in the early Royal Society of London. Mastered by itinerant chymists from German-speaking lands, ... More

This chapter surveys research into artificial phosphorus conducted in the 1670s by leading figures in the early Royal Society of London. Mastered by itinerant chymists from German-speaking lands, artificial phosphorus could be synthesized from human waste, then rubbed onto visual art to make it glow in the dark. But, it also spoke to broader interests: studies of light and combustion, production of organic vitality, and other problems of central interest to Restoration experimentalists. Tracking phosphorus research through those networks, the chapter centers on a spectacular lecture read twice before the Royal Society in summer 1682 by Robert Hooke. The final installment of his lectures on light, Hooke’s text used competing preparations of artificial phosphorus to model the ontology of time and to explain key features of human temporality. Examining how Hooke’s controversial claims about time would be reconfigured by contemporaries such as Nehemiah Grew, the chapter concludes by examining the ways in which the phosphorus research theorized by Hooke would later be claimed in larger chemical genealogies of photographic image-making.Less

Space, Time, and Chemistry: Making Enlightenment “Photography” in the 1860s

Matthew C. Hunter

in Painting with Fire: Sir Joshua Reynolds, Photography, and the Temporally Evolving Chemical Object

This chapter considers how late-eighteenth-century chemical replicas after chemically unstable academic paintings were rediscovered in the early 1860s. Seeking to acquire a prototype of James Watt’s ... More

This chapter considers how late-eighteenth-century chemical replicas after chemically unstable academic paintings were rediscovered in the early 1860s. Seeking to acquire a prototype of James Watt’s steam engine from the Soho manufactory established by Matthew Boulton in the mid-1760s, curator Francis Pettit Smith unearthed a set of replicas, which he called “sun pictures.” Smith identified the images as early photographs. On that basis, he claimed that photography must have been invented at Soho in the final decades of the eighteenth century. Although Smith’s story found support among several leading photographers in the 1860s, it was strongly opposed by Matthew Piers Watt Boulton, grandson of the Soho industrialist. This chapter demonstrates how M.P.W. Boulton destroyed Smith’s story. It also highlights the ways in which Boulton simultaneously integrated Smith’s chemo-mechanical findings into his own aircraft designs. The chapter concludes by arguing for the extensive connections between the leading inventors of photography and combustion-engine research.Less

Art History in/as an Age of Combustion

Matthew C. Hunter

in Painting with Fire: Sir Joshua Reynolds, Photography, and the Temporally Evolving Chemical Object

The conclusion critically examines one possible legacy for the relay of chemical image-making and its fusions with combustion-engine research examined in this book: the Anthropocene. Noting ways in ... More

The conclusion critically examines one possible legacy for the relay of chemical image-making and its fusions with combustion-engine research examined in this book: the Anthropocene. Noting ways in which James Watt and British industrialism have figured in the historiography of an epoch of humanity’s influence on the global climate (and in critiques of the Anthropocene), the conclusion highlights the abiding, art-historical force of tools and concepts rooted in the work of Alois Riegl. Against persisting resistance within art history to interpretations privileging materials and techniques, it concludes by considering the contours and possibilities of an “elemental art history.”Less

Microbes and Minerals

David Rickard

in Pyrite: A Natural History of Fool's Gold

Pyrite consists of two elements—iron and sulfur—but considerations of pyrite formation have mainly concerned sulfur. Iron is extremely abundant in the Earth; in fact, ... More

Pyrite consists of two elements—iron and sulfur—but considerations of pyrite formation have mainly concerned sulfur. Iron is extremely abundant in the Earth; in fact, it is the fourth most abundant element on Earth and is less localized in its distribution. By contrast, sulfur is the 17th most abundant element in the Earth’s crust, and there are about 100 times more iron than sulfur. The interest in the primary role of sulfur in pyrite formation continues to the present day. In the Old Latin of early Republican Rome (i.e., before c. 200 BCE), sulfur was called sulpur or burning stone (i.e., brimstone). The p was pronounced with a puff of air. This puff was transliterated with an h following the p. When the f sound was introduced into classical Latin, p was often changed to ph in Latin words of Greek origin. Sulpur, however, had no Greek roots. The Greeks called it θείον (thion), which gave rise to our prefix, thio-. Sulfur had been written as sulphur in Old Latin, with the h indi­cating the puff of air after the p, but when the f sound was introduced this gave the mistaken impression that sulphur was originally a Greek word. At the end of classical times (around 27 BCE) the spelling was altered to sulfur, which is the spelling that usually appears in Latin dictionaries. In the last millennium, the element has traditionally been spelled sulphur in the United Kingdom and countries where UK rule held sway. By contrast, US English has continually used the correct sulfur spelling. The fountainhead of all chemical definitions worldwide, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, adopted the spelling sulfur in 1990. Finally, the UK authorities admitted their error and the UK Royal Society of Chemistry Nomenclature Committee recommended the correct spelling in 1992. In 2000 the authority determining quality and standards in UK schools decreed UK children should be taught the sulfur spelling. The sulphur spelling still occurs, but at best this is a literary affectation. Less

The Periodic System and Its Influence on Research and Education in Germany between 1870 and 1910

Gisela Boeck

in Early Responses to the Periodic System

In 1895 Karl Seubert (1851–1942) published some of the most important papers by Lothar Meyer (1830–1895) and Dmitrii I. Mendeleev (1834–1907) on the ... More

In 1895 Karl Seubert (1851–1942) published some of the most important papers by Lothar Meyer (1830–1895) and Dmitrii I. Mendeleev (1834–1907) on the so-called natural system of elements. He wrote: . . . At first it seems incomprehensible to today’s reader of these essays that the general reception of the system was delayed for many years even though it was presented in a final form and its benefit for theoretical, practical and pedagogical purposes had been explained in detail. . . . Seubert discovered a lack of interest in the field of inorganic chemistry, but also an inadequate description of the system. He remarked that Meyer’s explanations were too short, and Mendeleev’s too circuitous. The system became a resounding success when the deductions which were drawn from it were confirmed by experiments in rapid succession: the selection of the atomic weight with respect to the known number of equivalents, as in the case of indium and uranium; the change in the order, regardless of the valid atomic weights, such as the platinum group; and, last but not least, the prediction of new elements and their chemical properties which were proved true with the discoveries of scandium, gallium and germanium quickly one after the other. The brilliant vision and the boldness of Mendelejeff led the system to its unquestioned victory. Seubert was Meyer’s colleague for many years. From 1878 to 1895, they worked together on the redetermination of atomic weights and published several papers on this topic. Seubert was the first biographer to write about Meyer and was responsible for publishing his most important papers. Nevertheless, Seubert regarded Mendeleev’s role in the discovery of the periodic system to be of greater importance. This is shown by the last sentence of the previously quoted passage. Seubert’s remark elicits two questions: First, why did Seubert consider Meyer’s role in the discovery of the periodic system as less important? Second, was its reception in Germany truly delayed? These questions are connected to several different factors: politics within German chemistry; didactic approaches to teaching chemistry in schools and universities; and the role of the periodic system in the public sphere. Less

Chemical Classification and the Response to the Periodic Law of Elements in Japan in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries

Masanori Kaji

in Early Responses to the Periodic System

The year 1868 is usually considered to be the beginning of modern Japan. In that year the Tokugawa government, a feudal samurai government in Edo (today’s ... More

The year 1868 is usually considered to be the beginning of modern Japan. In that year the Tokugawa government, a feudal samurai government in Edo (today’s Tokyo), was replaced by a modern imperial government (initially based in Kyoto, the old imperial capital) at a time of internal crisis and the fear of colonization by European imperial powers. This revolutionary political change is named the Meiji Restoration because the ancient imperial system was nominally restored under Emperor Meiji. The new government began as a mixture of ancient Japanese and modern Western imperial systems, but it soon became a completely Westernized government, which adopted a policy of full-fledged modernization. However, the introduction of Western science had already started long before the Meiji Restoration. During the Edo Period, the Tokugawa Shogunate (1603–1867) strictly controlled overseas trade and the Netherlands was the only European country with which Japan had diplomatic relationship from the middle of the seventeenth century until 1853. In the second half of the eighteenth century some books in Dutch on science, technology, and medicine were imported into Japan. For the introduction of Western medicine, physicians played an important role. During the Edo Period there was a class system: the samurai class (warrior) controlled the common people in villages and towns. All the professions were considered to be hereditary. However, physicians could move rather freely along the social ladder (hierarchy). If physicians were employed by feudal lords, they became accepted as members of the samurai. There was a reform movement among physicians during the eighteenth century. In 1754 Yamawaki Toyo (1706–62), a physician in Kyoto, received official permission to inspect the anatomy of a human body, using a cadaver of a condemned criminal, after he had inspected otters (a small animal with four webbed feet), the structure of which was quite different from Chinese medicine’s teaching. After him physicians were allowed to inspect condemned criminals’ bodies. Less

The Early Response to Mendeleev’s Periodic System in Russia

Masanori Kaji and Nathan Brooks

in Early Responses to the Periodic System

Mendeleev’s first table of elements, entitled “An Attempt at a System of the Elements Based on Their Atomic Weight and Chemical Analogies,” was dated ... More

Mendeleev’s first table of elements, entitled “An Attempt at a System of the Elements Based on Their Atomic Weight and Chemical Analogies,” was dated February 17, 1869. His first paper on the discovery, “The Correlation of the Properties and Atomic Weights of the Elements” (hereafter referred to as Paper I), was read in the meeting of the newly established Russian Chemical Society (RCS) on March 6 by Nikolai Aleksandrovich Menshutkin (1842–1907), the secretary of the Society for Dmitrii Ivanovich Mendeleev (1834–1907), who was not able to attend the meeting since he was visiting various cheese-making factories outside the city. The members of the Society who attended this meeting decided not to discuss Mendeleev’s paper, and it was tabled until the next meeting. The paper was published in the second/third combined issue of the first volume of the Society’s journal in May (Paper I). Paper I was the first public announcement of one of the most important dis­coveries in nineteenth-century chemistry: what would soon be called Mendeleev’s “periodic law.” However, the paper did not draw immediate attention from the chemists at the meeting. While this muted response was similar to the initial recep­tion of the periodic system in other countries, the reception of the periodic system in Russia was distinctive for various reasons. This paper will examine some of these factors first. The most obvious difference between the reception of the periodic system in Russia as compared to other countries is simply due to the fact that Mendeleev was Russian. Thus, the reception of the periodic system in Russia needs to be considered in the context of Mendeleev’s place in the Russian chemical community, as well as in intellectual terms. In 1869, at the time of Mendeleev’s first announcement about the periodic system, the Russian chemical community was in the process of formation. Less

Introduction

Wolfgang Banzhaf and Lidia Yamamoto

in Artificial Chemistries

The introduction to Artificial Chemistries discusses its root in Artificial Life research before explaining with a simple example from the mathematical area of Arithmetic what we can imagine under an ... More

The introduction to Artificial Chemistries discusses its root in Artificial Life research before explaining with a simple example from the mathematical area of Arithmetic what we can imagine under an artificial chemistry. It explains how some fundamental questions of Artificial Life are connected to questions of Artificial Chemistry and shows a few of the general features we’d expect to be exhibited by an AC.Less

Meselson and Stahl

Frederic Lawrence Holmes

in Meselson, Stahl, and the Replication of DNA: A History of "The Most Beautiful Experiment in Biology"

This chapter focuses on Matthew Meselson, and how he subsequently came to make the acquaintance of Frank Stahl. Meselson, a first-year graduate student in the Chemistry Division at Caltech in 1953, ... More

This chapter focuses on Matthew Meselson, and how he subsequently came to make the acquaintance of Frank Stahl. Meselson, a first-year graduate student in the Chemistry Division at Caltech in 1953, first came face to face with the two papers Crick and Watson had recently published in Nature through an appointment with Max Delbruck. Delbruck was known to be friendly but characteristically abrupt, and the first thing he asked Meselson when they met was what Meselson thought about the two papers. When Meselson confessed that he knew nothing about them, Delbruck tossed reprints of the papers at Meselson and remarked, “Go and read these papers, and don't come back until you have.” Meselson took these remarks not as a sign of rejection but as an invitation to return when he was prepared to talk, and thus began his journey to become an electrochemist who might find some way to create life.Less

Optical Devices and Social Networks: 1804–1809

Melvyn C. Usselman

in Pure Intelligence: The Life of William Hyde Wollaston

This chapter describes how W. H. Wollaston’s expertise in linear optics led him to design and patent in 1804 meniscus lenses for improved eye glasses which he called periscopic spectacles. He also ... More

This chapter describes how W. H. Wollaston’s expertise in linear optics led him to design and patent in 1804 meniscus lenses for improved eye glasses which he called periscopic spectacles. He also suggested improvements to the camera lucida and microscopes that took advantage of curved lenses. He designed and patented in 1806 a novel and compact drawing aid he named a camera lucida, which was used by the sculptor Francis Chantrey to make preliminary drawings of his subjects. The device remained in wide use for sketching until well into the 20th century. The chapter also discusses Wollaston’s1805 paper on the forces of moving bodies in which he placed emphasis on the work potential of a body supplying energy to another over a finite distance. Wollaston’s move into new social and scientific networks in London, such as the Chemistry Club and the Geological Society, is described.Less

Small deformation theory of species diffusion coupled to elasticity

Lallit Anand and Sanjay Govindjee

in Continuum Mechanics of Solids

This chapter presents a coupled theory for transport of a single atomic (or molecular) chemical species through a solid that deforms elastically. Consideration is limited to isothermal conditions and ... More

This chapter presents a coupled theory for transport of a single atomic (or molecular) chemical species through a solid that deforms elastically. Consideration is limited to isothermal conditions and circumstances in which the deformations are small and elastic, and the changes in species concentration from a reference concentration are small --- a framework known as the theory of linear chemoelasticity. Underlying the presented approach is the notion that the solid can deform elastically but it retains its connectivity and does not itself diffuse. To account for the energy flow due to species transport, the notion of chemical potential of the species is introduced. First the basic equations of the fully-coupled linear theory of anisotropic linear chemoelasticity are derived, and then these equations are specialized for the case of isotropic materials.Less

The Great War: mobilising colonial knowledge and connections

Tamson Pietsch

in Empire of scholars: Universities, networks and the British academic world, 1850-1939

This chapter examines the role played by settler universities and scholars in the First World War. It argues that the war solidified the previously more porous borders of the British academic world, ... More

This chapter examines the role played by settler universities and scholars in the First World War. It argues that the war solidified the previously more porous borders of the British academic world, curtailing relations with Germany, and intensifying those with the settler empire. Focusing on mobilization and recruitment, war related research and schemes for soldier education, this chapter shows that – although missing from current accounts – colonial knowledge and connections were inscribed deep within British wartime science. Indeed, by drawing settler scholars into Britain and fostering their connections, the conflict helped extend into the interwar period the intimate scholarly networks that, since the end of the nineteenth century, had tied the British and settler universities to each other.Less