Astronomy Through the Ages 1 Early History and Greek Astronomy
Instruments in the history of astronomy
2
Instruments in the historv of astronomv J J One morning of the Fourth Biennial History of Astronomy Workshop, held at the Ur& versity of Notre Dame at the beginning of July 1999, was devoted to a special session on the history of instruments. The growing importance of instrument studies in the his- tory of science is reflected by the decision of the organizers to allocate the largest single session to instruments. Increasingly historians are recognizing that, however convenient it may be to spend time in li- braries and archives reading books, journals and manuscripts, only a partial picture can result. While our understanding of the past will always be incomplete, we can do better than to limit our investigation of the former practice of science to the surviving texts that were generated by a process that had a much wider range of activity than writing and publishing, The presentations were roughly chrono- logical, but they were also differentiated in terms of approach, that is by the questions that were being asked of the material. The first two took ‘concept’ as the major issue: what were instruments for in intellectual terms? - perhaps the most traditional ques- tion posed by instrument historians. Astrolabes and sundials My own contribution challenged the fre- quent references in the modem literature to the astrolabe as a ‘model’ of the heavens, pointing out that such an easy and facile characterization does not apply to the atti- tude common to most of the 16th century, when the instrument was seen rather as a tool for performing calculations. I argued that it was important to be careful over such characterizations if we are to be sensitive to one of the most significant shifts in attitudes to the natural world in the period of the Scientific Revoiution, namely the admis- sion of mathematics to an explanatory func- tion in natural philosophy. Sara Schechner of the American Institute of Physics posed what might seem a trivial question - ‘Why have a sundial?’ - but showed us that the answer was not simply ‘to tell the time’. Having traced the origins of timekeeping in the Christian world to the requirements of monastic prayer, we were shown many examples of dials whose de- votional significance was evident from their decoration and iconography. The edges of the cruciform dial, for example, cast the shadow on hour lines on its faces, and in some cases bidden compartments were used to house tiny religious relics. These dials could be kept on a chain or chord around a pilgrim’s neck. Other instruments told the pilgrim the times of prayer and might have a map to guide his journey, while still others had tables and moving scales for finding the date of Easter. As evidence of quite a different 98 Endeavour Vol. 23(3) 1999 connection between faith and time-telling, some cathedrals have been used as giant sundials, through the provision of a merid- ian line on the floor and an aperture in the roof, and could be used for finding the exact dates of solstices and equinoxes - a mission appropriate to the church’s regulation of the calendar. Commerce and instrumentation Albert Van Helden of Rice University told the fascinating story of contests or ‘paragoni’ staged between telescope makers in 17th- century Italy, notably to compare the per- formances of instruments by Eustachio Divini and Giuseppe Campani. Telescope battles became, in Van Helden’s words, ‘spectator sports’ as the rival makers went ‘head-to-head’ in their attempts to decipher the distant printed targets, These printed sheets, in the manner of the much more re- cent eye-charts of the dispensing optician, became increasingly sophisticated in their design, while the makers gained impressive control over the specification of their lenses. The workshop audience was clearly intrigued to learn of such ruthless competition in an area where we usually restrict our stories to astronomers seeking the true constitution and configuration of the planets. Commerce also intruded on astronomy in the account presented by Tracy Spaight of Cornell University. He challenged the customary attitude to the fact that one of the heroes of astronomical history, William Herschel, made and sold telescopes, all fol- lowing his very individual designs, as he continued his own observations and devel- oped his cosmological theories. Herschel’s biographers follow his sister Caroline in taking a very negative view of this activity, seeing it as a distraction, confined to a short period and undertaken only on account of financial necessity. Spaight showed that the accepted chronology is wrong, as it does not match Herschel’s polishing records, and that his commitment to this commercial enterprise was much stronger than has been imagined. Spaight interprets this as a strat- egy on Herschel’s part to counter the wide- spread scepticism regarding the perfor- mance he claimed for his telescopes. He hoped that others would be able to confirm his observations. Collecting instruments Steve Turner of the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution has a Dobsonian reflector in his care and he presented this instrument in the context of the varied and colourful career of its de- signer John Dobson. After being obliged to abandon his monastic vocation because he spent too much time on telescopic astron- omy, he established the ‘San Francisco Side- walk Astronomers’, who gave lectures and demonstrations to passers-by in public parks. The ‘sidewalk telescopes’ he used, reflec- tors on basic altazimuth mounts, were tbe beginning of his designs for amateur ob- servers. The Dobsonian was intended to be a straightforward, low-cost, large-aperture, simply mounted instrument that would bring astronomical observing within the reach of everyone. These instruments had an enormous influence among the amateur community, whereas Dobson’s cosmologi- cal theories were not so successful. If this was the ‘Dobsonian revolution’, Turner has detected a counter-revolution, where de- velopments of the basic idea are producing more complex, glossy, commercial and ex- pensive telescopes that are scarcely con- sistent with the original ethos. David DeVorkin of the National Air and Space Museum (Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, USA) reminded the au- dience of the importance of official col- lecting policies for the future resources of the history of astronomy and space science. What will survive is determined by what we collect. He ran through several significant acquisitions made during his career and posed the question - ‘Is it the right history?’ Perhaps the assembled historians were taken aback by this measure of openness and engagement, perhaps there was simply in- sufficient time for questions, but there was no coherent response from his listeners, who are also his potential users. This insight into the decisions and policies of those who collect and preserve on all our behalves was certainly revelatory; too often we generally think that the museum statf knows best and we leave them to get on with it, when cura- tors are only too pleased to engage with their informed constituency, whether scien- tific or historical. DeVorkin’s initiative in opening up the questions that are part of his everyday responsibilities was very refresh- ing and illuminating, but it was my impres- sion that the historians needed more time to formulate a useful response. New dimensions So, instruments were given an appropriate prominence in this year’s workshop, to the general approval of the participants. What was interesting about the response was that many of the questions emerging in instrument studies were familiar from traditional text- based research. The position of the astrolabe between geometry and cosmology, for example, echoed similar tensions in plan- etaty theory from the same period, while the cultural and religious significance of sun dials was not dissimilar to the case of as- tronomy in general. It is clear that when instrument historians are prepared to move beyond questions of technical development 0160-9327/99/$ - see front matter 0 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: SOi60-9327(99)01226-O
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Transcript of Instruments in the history of astronomy
Instruments in the historv of astronomv J J
One morning of the Fourth Biennial History of Astronomy Workshop, held at the Ur& versity of Notre Dame at the beginning of July 1999, was devoted to a special session on the history of instruments. The growing importance of instrument studies in the his- tory of science is reflected by the decision of the organizers to allocate the largest single session to instruments. Increasingly historians are recognizing that, however convenient it may be to spend time in li- braries and archives reading books, journals and manuscripts, only a partial picture can result. While our understanding of the past will always be incomplete, we can do better than to limit our investigation of the former practice of science to the surviving texts that were generated by a process that had a much wider range of activity than writing and publishing,
The presentations were roughly chrono- logical, but they were also differentiated in terms of approach, that is by the questions that were being asked of the material. The first two took ‘concept’ as the major issue: what were instruments for in intellectual terms? - perhaps the most traditional ques- tion posed by instrument historians.
Astrolabes and sundials My own contribution challenged the fre- quent references in the modem literature to the astrolabe as a ‘model’ of the heavens, pointing out that such an easy and facile characterization does not apply to the atti- tude common to most of the 16th century, when the instrument was seen rather as a tool for performing calculations. I argued that it was important to be careful over such characterizations if we are to be sensitive to one of the most significant shifts in attitudes to the natural world in the period of the Scientific Revoiution, namely the admis- sion of mathematics to an explanatory func- tion in natural philosophy.
Sara Schechner of the American Institute of Physics posed what might seem a trivial question - ‘Why have a sundial?’ - but showed us that the answer was not simply ‘to tell the time’. Having traced the origins of timekeeping in the Christian world to the requirements of monastic prayer, we were shown many examples of dials whose de- votional significance was evident from their decoration and iconography. The edges of the cruciform dial, for example, cast the shadow on hour lines on its faces, and in some cases bidden compartments were used to house tiny religious relics. These dials could be kept on a chain or chord around a pilgrim’s neck. Other instruments told the pilgrim the times of prayer and might have a map to guide his journey, while still others had tables and moving scales for finding the date of Easter. As evidence of quite a different
98 Endeavour Vol. 23(3) 1999
connection between faith and time-telling, some cathedrals have been used as giant sundials, through the provision of a merid- ian line on the floor and an aperture in the roof, and could be used for finding the exact dates of solstices and equinoxes - a mission appropriate to the church’s regulation of the calendar.
Commerce and instrumentation Albert Van Helden of Rice University told the fascinating story of contests or ‘paragoni’ staged between telescope makers in 17th- century Italy, notably to compare the per- formances of instruments by Eustachio Divini and Giuseppe Campani. Telescope battles became, in Van Helden’s words, ‘spectator sports’ as the rival makers went ‘head-to-head’ in their attempts to decipher the distant printed targets, These printed sheets, in the manner of the much more re- cent eye-charts of the dispensing optician, became increasingly sophisticated in their design, while the makers gained impressive control over the specification of their lenses. The workshop audience was clearly intrigued to learn of such ruthless competition in an area where we usually restrict our stories to astronomers seeking the true constitution and configuration of the planets.
Commerce also intruded on astronomy in the account presented by Tracy Spaight of Cornell University. He challenged the customary attitude to the fact that one of the heroes of astronomical history, William Herschel, made and sold telescopes, all fol- lowing his very individual designs, as he continued his own observations and devel- oped his cosmological theories. Herschel’s biographers follow his sister Caroline in taking a very negative view of this activity, seeing it as a distraction, confined to a short period and undertaken only on account of financial necessity. Spaight showed that the accepted chronology is wrong, as it does not match Herschel’s polishing records, and that his commitment to this commercial enterprise was much stronger than has been imagined. Spaight interprets this as a strat- egy on Herschel’s part to counter the wide- spread scepticism regarding the perfor- mance he claimed for his telescopes. He hoped that others would be able to confirm his observations.
Collecting instruments Steve Turner of the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution has a Dobsonian reflector in his care and he presented this instrument in the context of the varied and colourful career of its de- signer John Dobson. After being obliged to abandon his monastic vocation because he spent too much time on telescopic astron- omy, he established the ‘San Francisco Side-
walk Astronomers’, who gave lectures and demonstrations to passers-by in public parks. The ‘sidewalk telescopes’ he used, reflec- tors on basic altazimuth mounts, were tbe beginning of his designs for amateur ob- servers. The Dobsonian was intended to be a straightforward, low-cost, large-aperture, simply mounted instrument that would bring astronomical observing within the reach of everyone. These instruments had an enormous influence among the amateur community, whereas Dobson’s cosmologi- cal theories were not so successful. If this was the ‘Dobsonian revolution’, Turner has detected a counter-revolution, where de- velopments of the basic idea are producing more complex, glossy, commercial and ex- pensive telescopes that are scarcely con- sistent with the original ethos.
David DeVorkin of the National Air and Space Museum (Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, USA) reminded the au- dience of the importance of official col- lecting policies for the future resources of the history of astronomy and space science. What will survive is determined by what we collect. He ran through several significant acquisitions made during his career and posed the question - ‘Is it the right history?’ Perhaps the assembled historians were taken aback by this measure of openness and engagement, perhaps there was simply in- sufficient time for questions, but there was no coherent response from his listeners, who are also his potential users. This insight into the decisions and policies of those who collect and preserve on all our behalves was certainly revelatory; too often we generally think that the museum statf knows best and we leave them to get on with it, when cura- tors are only too pleased to engage with their informed constituency, whether scien- tific or historical. DeVorkin’s initiative in opening up the questions that are part of his everyday responsibilities was very refresh- ing and illuminating, but it was my impres- sion that the historians needed more time to formulate a useful response.
New dimensions So, instruments were given an appropriate prominence in this year’s workshop, to the general approval of the participants. What was interesting about the response was that many of the questions emerging in instrument studies were familiar from traditional text- based research. The position of the astrolabe between geometry and cosmology, for example, echoed similar tensions in plan- etaty theory from the same period, while the cultural and religious significance of sun dials was not dissimilar to the case of as- tronomy in general. It is clear that when instrument historians are prepared to move beyond questions of technical development
0160-9327/99/$ - see front matter 0 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: SOi60-9327(99)01226-O
and connoisseurship, they find a ready their dependence on the collecting policies sophistication they employ when con- audience among historians of astronomy. It adopted by their colleagues in museums. textualizing written records, and perhaps by is also evident that instruments can add new Museum collections will always present a talking more often to their colleagues in dimensions to our appreciation of the prac- tice of astronomy in the past, in particular in the commercial and professional realms, which include teaching and popularization as well as instrument making and selling. Finally, it is clear that while engaging with instruments helps historians to achieve a less partial picture, they must be aware of
biased, contingent and flawed picture of museums. past hardware; for example, size and con- venience of handling are real, everyday Jim Bennett considerations for collectors, but are usually Museum of the History of Science. not major determinants of historical im- University of Oxford, portance. Historians can help by being more Broad St, aware of these contingencies, by treating Oxford, UK OX1 3AZ. collections with the same measure of e-mail: [email protected]
The BRITISH SOCIETY FOR THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE announces the shortlist for its 1999 Dingle Prize, awarded for the best recent book in history of science, which is accessible to a wide audience.
The British Society for the History of Science offers the 1999 Dingle Prize to the best book in history of science (broadly construed) published in English between January 1996 and December 1998, which is accessible to a wide audience of non-specialists.
The short list for the 1999 BSHS Dingle Prize is:
Laurence Brockliss & Colin Jones, The Medical World of Early Modern France, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997
George Dyson, Darwin Among the Machines, London: Allen Lane, the Penguin Press, 1997
Stephen Gaukroger, Descartes: An Intellectual Biography, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995 (paperback edition, 1997)
Adrian Johns, The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making, Chicago and London: the University of Chicago Press, 1998
Roy Porter, The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: a Medical History of Humanity from Antiquity to the Present, London: Fontana, 1997
Steven Shapin, The Scientific Revolution, Chicago and London: the University of Chicago Press, 1996
Robert B. Silvers (ed.), The Hidden Histories of Science, London: Granta, 1997
Roger Smith. The Fontana History of the.Human Sciences, London: Fontana, 1997
Alison Winter, Mesmerized: Powers of Mind in Victorian Britain. Chicago and London: the University of Chicago Press, 1998
The judges will choose one winner from this short list by 1 October 1999. The prize will be awarded at a meeting on history of science and science communication in July 2000.
The judges for the 1999 Dingle Prize are:
Dr Jon Agar, Lecturer at the Centre for History of Science, Technology and Medicine, Manchester University
Dr Stephen Pumfrey, Lecturer at the Department of History, Lancaster University
Dr Gail Vines, Science Writer and Life Sciences Consultant to New Scientist, Cambridge
The winners of the 1997 Dingle Prize were Adrian Desmond and James Moore for Darwin, London: Penguin, 1992
The BSHS website is at: http://www.man.ac.uk/Science_Engineering/CHSTM/bshs/
For more information about the Dingle Prize contact Dr Jeff Hughes, BSHS Secretary, CHSTM, Mathematics Tower, Manchester University, Oxford Road, Manchester, UK Ml3 9PL. Email: hughesQfs4.ma.man.ac.uk
Endeavour Vol. 23(3) 1999 99
