History of Science and Technology

Promoting a better understanding of the phenomenon of colonization and its connection with environmental knowledge and technology, this article proposes a reframing of research agendas to take into account the municipal character of colonization in the Hispanic realm and to ask new questions. Questions should address what human– ecosystem relations, and the ways of knowing and techniques for transforming the physical realm, can tell us about colonization itself; who the historical agents involved were, and what these actors knew, learned, and did in their environments. Using the Basin of Mexico's drainage and the agency of commoners, this article proposes that colonization depends on the massive deployment and generation of tacit knowledge about how to harness matter, energy, and time for the reproduction of human societies; the quotidian appropriation and reworking of autochthonous knowledge, techniques, and technology by the colonizing groups; the collaboration of the local populations in whom these are vested; and the agency of commoners with practical skills, environmental knowledge, and technological savvy derived from and honed in the realm of material production. In the Ibero-American realm, these agents were primarily commoners with skills in agropastoral production and the building trades; race, ethnicity, language, and gender were secondary conditions.

This article analyses how nineteenth-century medical science
apprehended the eye and its functions. It disputes Jonathan
Crary’s claim of the alleged mistrust towards human vision as
a source of reliable information from the 1830s onwards. It is
based on the analysis of scholarly and popular scientific publications
from the early 1850s to the first decades of the twentieth
century, a typology of sources overlooked by Crary as well as by
most of the works in the field of Visual Studies. It focuses on French
documents because of the progress undertaken by medical
research on the eyesight in the country at the time and the number
and scope of both scientific and popular publications. In the first
part, I analyse the new set of knowledge about the anatomy and
physiology of the eye that physicians developed at the time –
notably through the use of newly introduced instruments such as
the ophthalmoscope and the ophthalmometer. In the second part,
I describe how contemporary medical research led to the acknowledgment
of the subjectivity of visual perceptions and the fragile
nature of human visual capacities. In the last section, I show how,
through a process of classification and rationalisation of the newly
acquired knowledge, physicians managed to reinstate the objective
character of visual perceptions on the basis of their research.

MODERA Niccolò Guicciardini (Università degli Studi di Milano) LIBRI PRESENTATI Marta Cavazza, Laura Bassi: Donne, genere e scienza nell'Italia del Settecento, Editrice Bibliografica, Milano 2020 Massimo Mazzotti, Maria Gaetana Agnesi e il suo mondo. Una vita tra scienza e carità, Carocci, Roma 2020 DESCRIZIONE Durante la prima metà del Settecento emergono in Italia alcune tra le più famose "filosofesse" d'Europa. Tra loro spiccano Maria Gaetana Agnesi (1718-1799), enfant prodige e poi giovane colta e brillante, e Laura Bassi (1711-1778), prima cattedratica di fisica in Europa. Nel 1748 Maria Gaetana Agnesi è la prima donna a pubblicare un libro sul calcolo differenziale e integrale. Il testo gode di un significativo successo, e viene tradotto in francese e inglese. Ma perché una donna agiata mostra tanto interesse per questa materia, di cui a Milano si sa ancora poco o nulla? E come è possibile che una donna come Laura Bassi venga ritenuta credibile e rispettata come autorità nel campo della nuova fisica dell'elettricità, in un'epoca in cui non avrebbe potuto neanche mettere piede in un'università? Massimo Mazzotti e Marta Cavazza ricostruiscono i momenti salienti della vita di queste due straordinarie protagoniste della scienza del Settecento. I loro studi e la loro passione per la scienza delineano un mondo ancora poco conosciuto. È il mondo dell'Illuminismo cattolico di stampo muratoriano che trova nello Stato e nella Chiesa milanesi di metà Settecento e nel papato di Lambertini a Roma e a Bologna le condizioni per lo sviluppo di una cultura scientifica aperta a nuovi temi e a nuovi referenti sociali. Evento digitale in diretta streaming, per accedere è necessaria la prenotazione su

Focusing on experts in technology and science, ‘Building Europe on Expertise’ delivers a new reading of European history. The authors show that modern European history was defined by experts using their new knowledge to shape societies, set political agendas and establish research institutions and agendas which proved decisive in integrating the continent.

Community detection is a major issue in network analysis. This paper combines a socio-historical approach with an experimental reconstruction of programs to investigate the early automation of clique detection algorithms, which remains one of the unsolved NP-complete problems today. The research led by the archaeologist Jean-Claude Gardin from the 1950s on non-numerical information and graph analysis is retraced to demonstrate the early contributions of social sciences and humanities. The limited recognition and reception of Gardin’s innovative computer application to the humanities are addressed through two factors, in addition to the effects of historiography and bibliographies on the recording, discoverability, and reuse of scientific productions: 1) funding policies, evidenced by the transfer of research effort on graph applications from temporary interdisciplinary spaces to disciplinary organizations related to the then-emerging field of computer science; and 2) the erratic careers of algorithms, in which efficiency, flaws, corrections, and authors’ status, were determining factors.

A remarkable set of myths and art about biotechne, creating "life through craft," shows that the ancient Greeks imagined how one might fabricate automatons and self-moving devices more than 2,500 years ago. These myths were not simply tales of inert matter enlivened by magic or a god's command. They are some of the earliest-ever science fictions, envisioning what awesome results of artificial life could be achieved if only one possessed divine craftsmanship. One of the most striking examples of an ancient biotechne myth is the story of Prometheus making the first humans. Early Christian art in the Roman era conflated this story with god's creation of Adam. But the earliest known illustrations of this intriguing Promethean myth tell a surprisingly technological tale. A little-known group of exquisitely carved gems depicts Prometheus using various tools to assemble the proto-man. Skeletons were exceedingly rare in ancient Greek art, but these artists showed Prometheus beginning with the internal framework, the human skeleton. I show how this myth inspired Mary Shelley's Frankenstein tale, raising philosophical questions about human autonomy.

A common ground is emerging for social and cultural studies of design. Design history is exploring the socially constructed and networked nature of our material surroundings; at the same time, STS is investigating design as the interface between humans and technology. This common ground is particularly interesting where it intersects with the rapidly growing fields of environmental history and environmental humanities. Today, environmental concerns, especially issues of sustainability, are essential parameters in all design practices. However, this ‘green revolution’ is a glaringly white spot on the design historical map, still awaiting its scholarly historicization. Historical understanding of, and critical reflection on, the rise of sustainability as the primordial trope in design discourse is essential to building a solid knowledge base and to underpin present and future decision-making. This article will argue for the urgency of charting this terrain, and call for design history, design studies, STS and environmental history to join forces in the pioneering efforts at studying histories of sustainable design.

Occasionally the archaeological ship reconstructor is fortunate enough to encounter the remains of a vessel on which shipwrights' design marks have been preserved. La Belle (1684) has the most extensive and complete set of such marks documented to date. The distinguishing features of the distribution, number, and placement of La Belle's surmarks associate it with a graphic design system of "geometric fairing with diagonals," which was in use in French shipbuilding in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Section I of this essay presents the archaeological and documentary evidence that supports the conclusion that a graphic design system of "geometric fairing with diagonals" was used in La Belle's construction. It also discusses how and which specific measurements were applied to the reconstructed design procedures to regenerate La Belle's archaeologically documented hull shape.

Section II examines whether La Belle's design system was a completely new invention or whether it was developed from existing concepts of ship design. It will be argued that this system actually expanded on the basic concepts of Mediterranean moulding—a non-graphic design system of geometric fairing that was in use in European shipbuilding for centuries prior to La Belle's construction—in the process of adapting them to the methods of orthographic drawing.

The National Maritime Museum at Greenwich holds in its collections a Renaissance clock with astronomical complications made in Augsburg at the end of the sixteenth century. Beside the clock, the museum library holds its anonymous instruction booklet printed in Geneva in 1704. The clock is signed by Buschman, a prominent Augsburg maker, and is said to have belonged to John Casimir Vasa, king of Poland in the seventeenth century. This article discusses the authorship of the clock by comparing it with a twin clock from the same period signed by another maker. Whether it did indeed once belong to the Polish king is queried, with reference to his post mortem goods sale. This article uses written sources as well as the evidence from the clock itself, which was taken apart recently to study its history.

Öz
Eski çağlardan beri bütün medeniyetlerin ihtiyaç duyduğu zamanı belirleme ve
ölçme aleti olarak saatler, en çok dikkat çeken ve araştırılan düzeneklerdir. Saatlerin çeşitli
türleri ilk çağlardan itibaren geliştirilmeye başlanmış olmakla birlikte, bunlarla dakik
zaman ölçümü mümkün olmuyordu. Orta Çağ’da mekanik saatlerin icadıyla birlikte
hassas zaman ölçümleri de başladı. Osmanlılarda saatler üzerine ilk eserleri yazan kişi
bilindiği kadarıyla Takiyüddin (16. yy) idi. Takiyüddin mekanik saati astronomik araç
olarak da geliştirmişti. Osmanlılara Batı’nın modern bilimlerini ilk defa gerektiği biçimde
aktaran, Mühendishane baş hocalarından İshak Hoca, Mecmûa-i Ulûm-i Rîyâziye adlı
anıtsal dört ciltlik eserinin üçüncü cildinde bu konuya yer vermiştir. Bu yazıda, söz konusu
bölümün sadeleştirilmiş metni yer almış ve değerlendirmesi yapılmıştır.

One of the most important tasks of the modern history of science and technologies is the study of the activities of leading scientists and practitioners of the past, the influence of their ideas on the development of world science and the process of training specialists in the relevant sectors of the national economy. In the opinion of the authors of the article, one of such figures of the early twentieth century is Academician I. H. Aleksandrov. Historical and scientific analysis of life and activity of I. H. Aleksandrov as a scientist, engineer, organizer of science is of high topicality due to the scale and versatility of his scientific contribution. In the context of the development of hydro-engineering and hydropower, the development of transport communications, I. H. Aleksandrov had world-class achievements that glorified national science. Scientific creative work of I. H. Aleksandrov can be divided into five main directions of development of science and technologies: hydro-en...

In this article, I counter persistent claims of big data revolutionising managerial decision-making, by tracing the technological and cultural origins of data-based management in the United States back to the 1970s and 1980s using historical source materials from the trade magazine Datamation. I argue that innovations in database technology within this period – database management systems and the relational database model – shaped and reinforced a data-based mindset. This mindset, I demonstrate, is manifested in four interlinked concepts of data: data as asset, data as raw, data as reality, and data as relatable. These concepts, I argue, provide a basis for current associations of big data with ideological values of objectivity and truthfulness. The article contributes to a growing body of work in media and communication studies that deconstructs the ideological discourses facilitating big data's unquestioned integration in the business world.

Korean science is closely related to traditional Chinese technology, but Sang-woon Jeon's A History of Korean Science and Technology shows that Korean scientists, engineers and technicians adapted Chinese practice to suit the natural elements, seasons and climate of the Korean peninsula. Jeon develops his thesis by considering the creative legacy of Korean practitioners in a number of different areas, including astronomy and meterology ("the sciences of heavens"), metal, glass and gunpowder ("the sciences of earth and fire"), printing, geography and cartography. He concludes with a comparison of science and technology in Korea and Japan, and with a discussion of important scientists active during the Choson Period.

The book is filled with new information and fresh arguments. His conclusions will be useful for professional scholars in the history of science and technology and also for general historians, as it provides topics for academic debate and fruitful indications for research. The lavish illustrations support the writer's thesis and are themselves part of Korea's rich artistic heritage.

Immersed within a broader investigation and framed within a quantitative approach, this
paper aims to approach profile of Latin American teachers, using the History and Philosophy
in Science Teaching al. From the implementation of a questionnaire as an instrument
of inquiry and making use of Google Drive application. In order to explore some issues
that could contribute to understanding the development of the History and Philosophy of
Science in education in the context of Latin America. The status of its actors and analyze
the feasibility of strengthening and / or establish a social link between researchers who
are currently working in this field.
The thirty responses made it possible to know who some of the people who are part of that
community. Contribute to the understanding of certain features that may form part of the
reality of the teachers working in this area. In addition, coming to perceive a professional
maturity characterized whose activities generally operate between research and teaching
in higher education institutions, being partakers of research groups, with a lifelong interest
in participating in events where the History and Philosophy of Science, Teaching and
Teacher Education addressed.
The results showed a production of records, books and sequences, targeting mainly university
students and teachers. Still rare within these findings, the production of material
aimed at schoolchildren and material involving the manipulation of ICTs. The instrument
allowed the lifting of some concerns and interesting questions for future research concerning
the scenario that relates the school environment teachers and researchers who
work in the History and Philosophy of Science in Science Teaching. Emerging particular
concern to explore this environment further and the reasons for which there is possibly
an apparent disconnect between the two scenarios and why not became noticeable within
the mapping of people that develop in this area, participation more young researchers
and school teachers.
Furthermore, it was possible to perceive the demand for professionals by establishing a
channel that would allow them to partake of the constant flow of information within their
area of interest, where its connections with other professionals to expand and allowing the
exchange of ideas, concerns, successes and failures. Leaving open the invitation to future
research, the thought of proposals potentializing collective work, facilitate the formation of
new social connections and flow of knowledge among teachers. In search of the strengthening
of Latin American, profile in the area of History and Philosophy of Science in Teaching.

Forthcoming. 4 volume set.

This collection pieces together a wealth of material in order to get inside the experience of scientific practice in the long nineteenth century. It aims to reach, or perhaps to facilitate, an understanding of the ways in which the value of scientific knowledge was produced, lived and challenged. The new turn to the history of experience suggests a logic to the compilation of material that is completely original: the sources are not selected according to the historical success of an idea or experiment, but for the ways in which scientific endeavour loaded knowledge claims with political or moral value, coupled with attendant practical justifications. Thus, ‘bad ideas’ sit alongside ‘good’; now discountenanced practices take their place among the revered. In sum, they reveal an experimental culture that was not merely orientated toward cold knowledge or intellectual output, but defined by shifting sets of affective practices and procedures and the making of expertise out of the lived experience of doing science.
The collection hinges on an etymological overlap, between experiment, expertise and experience, which all emphasise the practical component of scientific discovery: ex – out of, periri – to go through. Expertise is the product of experiment: it comes out of having undergone something. Experience captures the whole process, tying knowledge to activity. This overlap is essentially definitive of the culture of scientific knowledge production in this period, which nevertheless underwent extraordinary changes along ethical, professional, theoretical, practical, intellectual, social and technological lines. The sources presented here aim to capture those shifts and to emphasise the extent to which the experimental impetus necessitated innovation not only from the point of view of technique, but also in the ways knowledge bearers defined their value, and with it the value of knowledge itself.
The first three volumes are divided according to moral themes within medicine and science. They represent three dominant notes within the culture of knowledge production that capture the moral/emotional/social justification for the making of expertise through experiment. The first volume focuses on curiosity, given as the scientist’s chief motivating factor for the finding of new facts, and as an essential character trait for anyone entering the scientific life. It is also the source of controversy and criticism, since curiosity alone increasingly looked amoral at best and immoral at worst, as the nineteenth century wore on. The second volume foregrounds humanity (in the sense of compassion or sympathy), which often supplied the motivation for medical experiment and scientific innovation. Though the results of experiments could not be known in advance, often the stated goal was the reduction of suffering, the cure of disease, or the easement of life. Increasingly, critics accused practitioners of hiding hubris behind their purported humanity and questioned whether an increasingly professional scientific community could retain its grip on the meaning of compassion. Volume three presents a set of responses to this criticism and others, showing the extent to which the lived-experience of scientific practice became a justification in and of itself for the expression of social, political and cultural authority. Bare knowledge, as it was presented, came with an enormous social valuation. These sources show how that authority changed and grew over time.
If the first three volumes highlight notes of dissent to the self-justification of scientific lives, the fourth volume showcases doubt from within the scientific community itself. These sources dwell upon the moments at which ideas became challenged, when facts were revealed to be fiction, and when knowns reverted to unknowns. But the focus is not the ideas and facts themselves, but on the ways in which scientists adjusted themselves to new landscapes of uncertainty in their particular cultural and professional practices.
The scientific and medical cultures included here are diverse, beginning with Jenner’s vaccination experiments in the 1790s and ending with the vast uncontrolled medical experiment afforded by the First World War. In between, there are anatomists, physiologists, toxicologists, neurologists, surgeons, biometrists, eugenicists, Darwinists (including Darwin himself), psychologists and physicians, among others. They are, in some sense, all connected by the moral economies in which they operated. The sources compiled here should make clear the extent to which they shared the experience of becoming and being experts

This course examines the dynamic relationship among environment, technology and society in Asia. During the first seven weeks the students would be exposed to the major theoretical, conceptual and analytical frameworks for the study ofinteractions between society and technology. Themes covered during this period will include: what is technology? How our understanding of technology evolved over the years? How society’s influence on environment was/is mediated through use of various technologies? In the last seven weeks, the course will focus on case studies from Asian regions/countries to develop a nuanced understanding of major environmental challenges/issues in Asia. The course will draw upon theoretical and empirical literature from multiple disciplines, such as, science and technology studies, environmental studies, economic sociology, and development studies.

Entre el descubrimiento de la radiactividad en 1896 en Francia, por Henri Becquerel y el control y reglamentación del uso de sustancias radiactivas transcurrieron décadas.
El fenómeno, que había acompañado a la humanidad desde siempre, llegó a las sociedades de un modo errático y plagado de errores, muchos fatales.
Este trabajo resume la historia en torno a dicho fenómeno y su incorporación a las diversas actividades humanas, comentando lo sucedido en Europa y Norteamérica para después analizar cómo fue la recepción del descubrimiento y difusión de la radiactividad en la Argentina.
El relato muestra los diversos aspectos en torno a la identificación de las fuentes naturales de radiactividad, la comercialización de los compuestos radiactivos y cómo se fueron integrando a la sociedad, pasando por una etapa que el autor gusta calificar como de “mito tecnológico”.
La historia se detiene antes de la institucionalización en la Argentina, con la creación de la Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica en 1950.

Das Buch „400 Jahre Chemie in Hamburg - Handwerk, Wissenschaft und Industrie“ thematisiert die Entwicklung der Chemie in Hamburg vom 17. bis zum 21. Jahrhundert.
Die Einleitung diskutiert Aspekte der Alchemie im Mittelalter (Tycho Brahe, Münzwesen, Phosphor-Entdeckung und Goldrubinglas). Das Handwerk ist verbunden mit vielen historischen chemischen Techniken, z.B. Färben oder Gerben. Hamburg - das "Brauhaus der Hanse" zeichnet die Entwicklung vom Mittelalter bis zur Industrialisierung. Ferner wird Hamburg als Zentrum der Zuckersiederei geschildert, fortgesetzt mit der modernen Zuckerforschung im 20. Jahrhundert.
Im Zeitalter der Reformation wurde 1613 das Akademische Gymnasium gegründet - Joachim Jungius (1587-1657), Rektor und Professor ab 1629, beschäftigte sich mit der Atomistik und begründete die Chemie als Naturwissenschaft. Ein Highlight in der 1919 gegründeten Universität war die Wirkungszeit von Otto Stern (1888-1969), seit 1923 Direktor des Instituts für Physikalische Chemie und Nobelpreis-Träger (1943).
Hamburg hat eine lange Tradition in Kolonialwaren, hier sollen nicht nur Kaffee, Tee, Kakao, Zucker, Palmöl, usw. erwähnt werden, sondern auch die Metallverarbeitung. Die Teerforschung (Farbenherstellung) und die New-York Hamburger Gummi-Waaren Compagnie beleuchten die Anfänge der Industrialisierung und Globalisierung. Außerdem ist Hamburg für Drogerieprodukte bekannt, z.B. Beiersdorf AG (Nivea, Tesa, Hansa-, Leukoplast), Unilever, Douglas).
Die Chemie hat über mehr als vier Jahrhunderte eine bedeutende Rolle in Hamburgs Geschichte gespielt, aber Licht und Schatten liegen eng beieinander, z.B. die erste Sprengstoff-Fabrik von Alfred Bernhard Nobel (1833-1896) in Geesthacht, die Skandale bei der Firma Stoltzenberg oder Tesch & Stabenow als Händler von Zyklon B. "Begann in Hamburg das Nuklearzeitalter?" – hier wird schließlich der Beitrag Paul Hartecks (1902-1985) zum Uranprojekt analysiert.

My most read paper -- fully illustrated. Our modern sense of time was radically changed with the invention of photography. The past could now be visualized and frozen in fine detail. Moreover the photograph was an objective accurate record of the past, one that might yield important research information for centuries. We might call the time before photography pre-photographic just as we call the time before written records, pre-historic. In addition our personal sense of time was changed with family albums and our ability to now record our own past with precision.

This article surveys American eye prosthetics during the World Wars beginning with the shortage of glass eyes during the First World War. It also looks at attempts to address prosthetic eye needs in the Second World War through the acrylic eye program, the use of contact lenses, and a group of Americans seeking to show their patriotism by donating their own eyeballs to blinded veterans.

This article addresses the charge that the introduction of the electric light in the late nineteenth century increased disruptions to the human body's biological processes and interfered with the oscillating sleeping-waking cycle. By considering the nineteenth century research into the factors that motivate and disrupt sleep in concert with contemporary discussions of the physiology of street lighting, this article exposes how social and political forces shaped the impact of artificial light on sleep and, more perniciously, on bodily autonomy. As a close reading of artificial light in three influential dystopian novels building on these historical contexts demonstrates, dystopian fiction challenges the commonplace assumption that the advent of the electric light, or of widespread street lighting in public urban spaces, posed an immediate or inherent threat to sleep. Beginning with H. G. Wells's The Sleeper Awakes (1899), in which the eponymous sleeper emerges from a cataleptic trance into a future in which electric light and power are used to control the populace, representations of artificial light in early dystopian fiction of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries depict a nightmare of total illumination in which the state exerted its control over the individual. In Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (1932), constant artificial illumination plays a vital role in the chemical and behavioural conditioning undergone by individuals in a post-Fordian world. George Orwell intensifies this relationship between light and individual autonomy in Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), where access to electric current (and thus light) is limited at certain times of the day, brownouts and electrical rationing occur intermittently, and total illumination is used to torture and reprogram individuals believed to have betrayed Big Brother.

This article examines a series of proposals for improving silver refining methods presented to the municipal council of Potosí (in current-day Bolivia) in the late sixteenth century as a means of nuancing current understandings of the Iberian state’s pursuit of “useful” knowledge. Historians have argued that the sixteenth century saw the fostering of an empirical culture, one based on experiential and collaborative practices, in the Iberian world. They have stressed that as artisanal experts and royal officials developed a mutually beneficial relationship, this empirical culture became institutionalized in administrative bodies for the pursuit of useful knowledge. This article focuses on the textual production that resulted from the relationship between artisanal experts and royal officials. It probes the motivations of local officials in generating a textual record of artisanal knowledge. Historians have tended to interpret and actors at the time often stated an interest in inscribing, artisanal knowledge as expertise and experience. However, this article demonstrates that what often motivated municipal officials’ inscription of such knowledge was an emphasis on administrative knowledge as rule-following, in particular, a desire to demonstrate one’s competency as an administrator. This conclusion suggests historians should expand their conception of “useful” to better reflect how early modern actors in the Iberian world viewed their pursuit of scientific and technical knowledge. It also indicates the importance of paying attention to the process of bureaucratic knowledge production when interpreting the written traces of the scientific and technical culture of the early modern Iberian world.

Der österreichische Photochemiker und -historiker Josef Maria Eder (1855-1944) verkörpert in mancher Hinsicht die Summe der photographischen Kultur des 19. Jahrhunderts. Er wird in "Photographie als Wissenschaft" mit eigenen programmatischen Texten sowie Beiträgen seiner Zeitgenossen vorgestellt, die seine Position als Schulgründer, sein Verhältnis zur Idee der Photographie als Kunst und sein Konzept der Geschichte der Photographie beleuchten. Im Zentrum steht dabei die nach Eders Entwurf 1888 eröffnete "K. k. Lehr- und Versuchsanstalt für Photographie und Reproductionsverfahren", die ein äußerst breit gefächertes Spektrum von Aus- und Weiterbildungsmöglichkeiten für Hochschulstudenten wie Lehrlinge, Amateure und Professoren ebenso wie für Angestellte photographischer und druckgraphischer Betriebe bieten sollte. Als weit über Österreich hinaus beachtete Institution von enzyklopädischer Perspektive war sie die Plattform, von der aus Eder Wien um 1900 als Zentrum der wissenschaftlichen Photographie und anderer moderner Bildtechnologien etablierte.