Spheres of Influence: Illustration,Notation, and John Dalton's Conceptual Toolbox, 1803–1835

In the early years of the nineteenth century, the English chemist John Dalton (1766–1844) developed his atomic theory, a set of theoretical commitments describing the nature of atoms and the rules guiding their interactions and combinations. In this paper, I examine a set of conceptual and illustrative tools used by Dalton in developing his theory as well as in presenting it to the public in printed form as well as in his many public lectures. These tools—the concept of ‘atmosphere’, the pile of shot analogy, and Dalton's system of chemical notation—served not just to guide Dalton's own thinking and to make his theories clear to his various audiences, but also to bind these theories together into a coherent system, presented in its definitive form in the three volumes of A New System of Chemical Philosophy (1808, 1810, and 1827). Despite these links, Dalton's contemporaries tended to pick and choose which of his theories to accept; his system of notation failed to be adopted in part because it embodied the whole of his system indivisibly.     

Hugo de Vries and the rediscovery of Mendel's laws

Hugo de Vries claimed that he had discovered Mendel's laws before he found Mendel's paper. De Vries's first ratios, published in 1897, for the second generation of hybrids (F₂) were 2/3:1/3 and 80%:20%. By 1900, both of these ratios had become 3:1. These changing ratios suggest that as late as 1897 de Vries had not discovered the laws, although he asserted, from 1900 on, that he had found the laws in 1896. An Appendix details de Vries's Mendelian experiments as described in the original edition (1903) of volume two of Die Mutationstheorie, but omitted entirely from the English translation (1910).     

A. M. Mayer's experiments with floating magnets and their use in the atomic theories of matter

In the years 1878 and 1879 the American physicist Alfred Marshall Mayer (1836–1897) published his experiments with floating magnets as a didactic illustration of molecular actions and forms. A number of physicists made use of this analogy of molecular structure. For William Thomson they were a mechanical illustration of the kinetic equilibrium of groups of columnar vortices revolving in circles round their common centre of gravity (1878). A number of modifications of Mayer's experiments were described, which gave configurations which were more or less analogous to Mayer's arrangements. It was Joseph John Thomson who, in publications between 1897 and 1907, used Mayer's results to obtain a good deal of insight into the general laws which govern the configuration of the electrons in his atomic model. This article is mainly concerned with Mayer's experiments with floating magnets and their use by a number of physicists. Through his experiments Mayer made a significant, although small, contribution to the theory of atomic structure.     

The Remarkable Fecundity of Leibniz's Work on Infinite Series

The publication in 1906 of Alexander Smith's Introduction to general inorganic chemistry inaugurated a decisive change in chemical pedagogy in the US, the effects of which are still evident. The nature and extent of Smith's innovations are described through a comparison of his text to its source material and contemporaries. His authoritative command of and whole-hearted commitment to the intellectual framework of Ionist physical chemistry set his text apart from its American competitors, while his efforts to make the tools of physical chemistry immediately useful to his readers distinguished it from its most immediate source material, Wilhelm Ostwald's Grundlinien der anorganischen Chemie. Smith's curricular innovations in chemistry were a practical expression of his radically restrictive view of the social role of collegiate education, which he conceived as solely of use for its ability to prepare students for professional life. During the fifteen years prior to the publication of his groundbreaking textbook, Smith underwent two critical, formative experiences. First, he retreated intellectually from the structural organic chemistry in which he was trained, ultimately adopting a professional identity as a physical inorganic chemist. His involvement in the controversy regarding the structure of 1,3-diketones reveals much about his reasons for eventually abandoning organic chemistry. Second, he served the National Education Association as chairman of the Sub-committee on College Entrance Requirements in Chemistry, in the process making a close study of the ends and methods of secondary and collegiate education. These experiences made him unique among proponents of physical chemistry in the US, and help account for the unique nature of his contributions to the development of the chemical professions.     

John Dalton’s puzzles: from meteorology to chemistry

Historical research on John Dalton has been dominated by an attempt to reconstruct the origins of his so-called “chemical atomic theory”. I show that Dalton’s theory is difficult to define in any concise manner, and that there has been no consensus as to its unique content among his contemporaries, later chemists, and modern historians. I propose an approach which, instead of attempting to work backward from Dalton’s theory, works forward, by identifying the research questions that Dalton posed to himself and attempting to understand how his hypotheses served as answers to these questions. I describe Dalton’s scientific work as an evolving set of puzzles about natural phenomena. I show how an early interest in meteorology led Dalton to see the constitution of the atmosphere as a puzzle. In working on this great puzzle, he gradually turned his interest to specifically chemical questions. In the end, the web of puzzles that he worked on required him to create his own novel philosophy of chemistry for which he is known today.     

Huygens at work: Annotations in his rediscovered personal copy of Hooke's Micrographia

It is well known that Hooke's wave theory of light, set forth in his Micrographia of 1665, is viewed as a step towards Huygens's famous theory of light. This view depends mostly on some short remarks given by Huygens in his Traité de la Lumi`ere (1690) and the earlier Projet du Contenu de la Dioptrique (1673). Huygens's personal copy of Micrographia was believed to be lost until found at Braunschweig (Brunswick) University Library by the author three years ago. It is annotated at Observ. IX (pp. 47–67) only, where Hooke deals with his wave theory of light and colours. This article provides a short review of Hooke's theory, and an interpretation of Huygens's annotations, which show clearly the first steps towards the opinions he was to express in his Traité de la lumi`ere, particularly methodological ones. Furthermore, a short comparison is here drawn with Huygens's annotations in his copy of Ango's L'optique divisée en trois livres, which show similar patterns of reasoning.     

Outward bound: women translators and scientific travel writing, 1780–1800

SUMMARY

As the Enlightenment drew to a close, translation had gradually acquired an increasingly important role in the international circulation and transmission of scientific knowledge. Yet comparatively little attention has been paid to the translators responsible for making such accounts accessible in other languages, some of whom were women. In this article I explore how European women cast themselves as intellectually enquiring, knowledgeable and authoritative figures in their translations. Focusing specifically on the genre of scientific travel writing, I investigate the narrative strategies deployed by women translators to mark their involvement in the process of scientific knowledge-making. These strategies ranged from rhetorical near-invisibility, driven by women's modest marginalization of their own public engagement in science, to the active advertisement of themselves as intellectually curious consumers of scientific knowledge. A detailed study of Elizabeth Helme's translation of the French ornithologist François le Vaillant's Voyage dans l'intérieur de l'Afrique [Voyage into the Interior of Africa] (1790) allows me to explore how her reworking of the original text for an Anglophone reading public enabled her to engage cautiously – or sometimes more openly – with questions regarding how scientific knowledge was constructed, for whom and with which aims in mind.     

The Rise and Fall of the Glassmaker Paul Bosc d'Antic (1753–1784)

Abstract

Thanks to the efforts made in the first decade of the 18th century by Réaumur and, to a lesser extent, by Buffon, glassmaking attracted the attention of Academic French scientists. In the early 1750s, in order to bridge the gap between the protected system of French glass manufactories and the academic thirst for innovation and technological improvement, technical experts with solid scientific backgrounds were charged by the Académie des sciences to supervise the organisation of several royal manufactories. Paul Bosc d'Antic was chosen in 1755 to solve the problems at the mirror manufactory in Saint-Gobain. Bosc d'Antic's career, in its tension between his ambition as an academic author and drive as a technical inventor, and the economic interest of a free entrepreneur, provides an interesting example of the complex and contradictory evolution of the French chemical arts and manufactories during the second half of the 18th century.

“Les arts ont entr'eux des rapports plus ou

moins marqués, […] mais celui de la verrerie

est le fondement de presque tous les autres”.

Bosc d'Antic     

A Revolution that never happened

If we define scientific revolutions as changes of scientists' ontologies, types of causal explanation, and paradigmatic types of methods and instruments, Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier's contribution to chemistry did not amount to a scientific revolution. Contrary to the received view that Lavoisier initiated a “chemical revolution,” which is accepted by Chang and Kusch, I argue that Lavoisier shared with the phlogistonists their “flat ontology” of chemical substance, established decades before the 1770s, their types of explaining chemical transformation, and their quantitative methods. Based on my historical reconstruction, I criticize Chang's argument that the late eighteenth-century phlogistic systems and Lavoisier's system belonged to two different theoretical traditions. As a consequence, I also question Chang's argument that the acceptance of Lavoisier's system can be explained in terms of dominance of “compositionism” over “principlism.”     

Lavoisier and his Last Printed Work: The Mémoires de physique et de chimie (1805)

On the basis of a significant number of unpublished documents, here published for the first time, the article reconstructs the historical and scientific origins of Lavoisier's Mémoires de physique et de chimie. Because of the paucity of primary sources available so far, this work has previously received little attention and its 'publication' is commonly attributed to Madame Lavoisier's effort to revive the memory of her husband. In contrast with this image, this article suggests that Madame Lavoisier had only a subsidiary role and that Armand Séguin's contribution to both the editing and the scientific organization of the Mémoires needs a historical reassessment. Lavoisier's collaboration with Séguin, dating from 1792, resulted in a work the aim of which was far more ambitious than that of collecting already published memoirs. Furthermore, it is argued that the contents of the first volume of the Mémoires indicate an important evolution in Lavoisier's chemical theory.     

The importance of regional geology in the geological theories of Abraham Gottlob Werner: a contrary opinion

It has been and still is commonly believed by geologists and historians of geology alike that geological theory is an extrapolation from the empirical knowledge of the geology of a region. Abraham Gottlob Werner (1749–1817), whose theory concerning the origin of basalt and the minor role of volcanoes and the major role of water in the history of the earth's crust was eventually proven wrong in some respects, is usually cited as the prime example of a geologist who had not ventured beyond the confines of his native region, Saxony, and had developed a universal geological theory based almost entirely on his observations of that region. In this essay I show that the geology of Saxony played a relatively unimportant role in the development of Werner's universal geological theory; that he became a neptunist before he had closely examined the geology of Saxony; and that his explanation of the history of the earth's crust was as reasonable, if not more reasonable, than the explanations brought forth by those of his contemporaries who opposed his views.     

Book Reviews

José María Albareda (1902–1966) was an applied chemist and a prominent member of the Roman Catholic organization, Opus Dei, who played a crucial role in organizing the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), the new scientific institution created by the Franco regime in 1939. The paper analyses first the formative years in Albareda's scientific biography and the political and social context in which he became an Opus Dei fellow. Then it discusses the CSIC's innovative features compared with the Junta para Ampliación de Estudios (JAE), the institution in charge of scientific research and science policy in Spain from 1907 up to the Civil War (1936–1939). Next it goes into Albareda's ideas about science and science policy. Finally, it shows how they shaped the organization of the CSIC, of which Albareda was the General Secretary from 1939 to his untimely death in 1966.     

Substantial confusion

In this paper I defend, against Eric Scerri’s objections, the following theses: (i) that Lavoisier and Mendeleev shared a ‘core conception’ of chemical element, and (ii) that this core conception underwrites referential continuity in the names of particular elements.     

Heuristics versus norms: On the relativistic responses to the Kaufmann experiments

The aim of this article is to provide a historical response to Michel Janssen’s (2009) claim that the special theory of relativity establishes that relativistic phenomena are purely kinematical in nature, and that the relativistic study of such phenomena is completely independent of dynamical considerations regarding the systems displaying such behavior. This response will be formulated through a historical discussion of one of Janssen's cases, the experiments carried out by Walter Kaufmann on the velocity-dependence of the electron's mass. Through a discussion of the different responses formulated by early adherents of the principle of relativity (Albert Einstein, Max Planck, Hermann Minkowski and Max von Laue) to these experiments, it will be argued that the historical development of the special theory of relativity argues against Janssen's historical presentation of the case, and that this raises questions about his general philosophical claim. It will be shown, more specifically, that Planck and Einstein developed a relativistic response to the Kaufmann experiments on the basis of their study of the dynamics of radiation phenomena, and that this response differed significantly from the response formulated by Minkowski and Laue. In this way, it will be argued that there were, at the time, two different approaches to the theory of relativity, which differed with respect to its relation to theory, experiment, and history: Einstein's and Planck's heuristic approach, and Minkowski's and Laue's normative approach. This indicates that it is difficult to say, historically speaking, that the special theory of relativity establishes the kinematical nature of particular phenomena. Instead, it will be argued that the theory of relativity should not be seen as a theory but rather as outlining an approach, and that the nature of particular scientific phenomena is something that is open to scientific debate and dispute.     

Trust in expert testimony: Eddington's 1919 eclipse expedition and the British response to general relativity

The 1919 British astronomical expedition led by Arthur Stanley Eddington to observe the deflection of starlight by the sun, as predicted by Einstein's relativistic theory of gravitation, is a fascinating example of the importance of expert testimony in the social transmission of scientific knowledge. While Popper lauded the expedition as science at its best, accounts by Earman and Glymour, Collins and Pinch, and Waller are more critical of Eddington's work. Here I revisit the eclipse expedition to dispute the characterization of the British response to general relativity as the blind acceptance of a partisan's pro-relativity claims by colleagues incapable of criticism. Many factors served to make Eddington the trusted British expert on relativity in 1919, and his experimental results rested on debatable choices of data analysis, choices criticized widely since but apparently not widely by his British contemporaries. By attending to how and to whom Eddington presented his testimony and how and by whom this testimony was received, I suggest, we may recognize as evidentially significant corroborating testimony from those who were expert not in relativity but in observational astronomy. We are reminded that even extraordinary expert testimony is neither offered nor accepted entirely in an epistemic vacuum.     

Chemist,entomologist, Darwinian,and man of affairs: Raphael Meldola and the making of a scientific career

In 1925 a debate erupted in the correspondence columns of the British Medical Journal concerning the effectiveness of eating raw pancreas as a treatment for diabetes. Enthusiasts were predominantly general practitioners (GPs), who claimed success for the therapy on the basis of their clinical impressions. Their detractors were laboratory‐oriented ‘biochemist‐physicians,’ who considered that their own experiments demonstrated that raw pancreas therapy was ineffective. The biochemist‐physicians consistently dismissed the GPs' observations as inadequately ‘controlled’. They did not define the meaning of ‘control’ in this context, although it clearly did not have the term's present‐day meaning of a trial employing an untreated comparison group of patients. Rather, the physician‐biochemists' ‘properly controlled’ experiments involved careful regulation of their patients' diet and other environmental factors, and evaluation of the therapy's success through biochemical, rather than just clinical, criteria. However, my analysis suggests that these factors alone are inadequate to account for the biochemist‐physicians' dismissal of the GPs' work as ‘uncontrolled’. I suggest that the biochemist‐physicians were deliberately exploiting the powerful rhetorical connotations of the term ‘control’. Ultimately, they implied that only a trial which they themselves had conducted could be deemed ‘adequately controlled’.