Did the Condemnation of 1277 Create Modern Science?
“The purpose of the Condemnation of 1277 was to stomp out any thought not strictly in accord with Church doctrine, including its various miracles such as the transformation in the Eucharist. To the extent that this condemnation was actually followed, it would have led to complete intellectual stagnation.”
Now I’m adding sinusoids! Sometimes people ask me to make portraits of scientists that I have long considered portraying. So when asked to make mathematician and physicist Joseph Fourier’s portrait I already had an idea about trying to show how Fourier analysis taught us we can make any shape- even his own outline- by summing sinusoids. I hadn’t completely worked out how to tell this story in a print, … 🧵1/n
Happy birthday #physicist Chien-shiung Wu (1912-1997), who came up with a truly beautiful experiment to test whether the weak force conserves parity (whether beta decay would be the same if reflected in the mirror)! In my print on the left I show Wu in her lab & a schematic diagram of her experiment. On the right I show her reflection, as in the mirror, & the mirror reflection of the experimental set-up & the shocking result, that 🧵1/n #linocut#sciart#womenInSTEM#histsci#MastoArt#quantum
I mustn't let May go by without a nod to my 2009 article on the discovery, during the 19th century, of same-sex copulation among Maybugs (also known as Maybeetles, cockchafers, doodlebugs). Do look out for them at it in your garden! 🌈🌳
“The first known calculation of the Earth’s circumference was made 2300 years ago by a man called Eratosthenes. I remember in school, how impressed I was by how accurately the Earth’s circumference was measured such long time ago. Today we’re going to take a closer look on how his calculation was made.”
Thomas Willis (1621-1675) : Neurologist, Chemist, Physician
“Willis is not only credited to be the founder of neurology, but he is also seen as the father of comparative neuroanatomy, as his work, in particular Cerebri anatome and De anima brutorum, compare the human brain with that of other species in ‘search for specific human abilities in cognitive functions’ (Molnár, p. 334).”
"Space has fascinated authors, scientists, storytellers, and children alike. From a brief history of the moon to a collection of diverse stories connected to the stars, our Space Day reading list will deepen your love and appreciation of the cosmos."
"The term “eugenics” (from the Greek for ‘well born’) was birthed here in Cambridge by Trinity’s own Francis Galton in 1883. Galton was inspired by his cousin Charles Darwin and adapted the idea of natural selection to presuppose that the survival of the fittest had been distorted by social welfare policies."
April 25 is #NationalDNADay so I’m sharing my portrait of Rosalind Franklin (1920 – 1958), #chemist & x-ray #crystallographer whose x-ray diffraction images were instrumental to discovering double-helix structure of #DNA, made important contributions to #carbon & #virus research, was 1 of the great scientists of the 20th century.
There’s a joke amongst scientists that goes, “What did Watson & Crick discover?”
“Rosalind Franklin’s notes” 🧵 #linocut#printmaking#WomenInSTEM#histsci#sciart
Gloria Childress Townsend, eds. Rendering History: Women of ACM-W was just published this past week and is available on the ACM Digital Library. #histsci
No cute bunnies or lambs in my files, I'm afraid. I do, however, have a lot of queer chickens. This is a painting of a hen-cock (c. 1900), a prize fighter, by English artist Herbert Atkinson. 🥚🐥🐔
Lovely colour plate depicting gynandromorph specimens in the collections of the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin. Produced by German entomologist Friedrich Klug in 1829. 🦋 🐞
Here's a podcast on New Books Network where I talk about (surprise surprise) my new book, 'Visions of a Digital Nation', and why Margaret Thatcher's 1984 #privatisation of British Telecom was a pivotal moment for both #neoliberalism and #digitalisation.
Just a reminder that, following the Royal Society event in Jan, my article 'Mendel's Closet: Genetics, Eugenics and the Exceptions of Sex in Edwardian Britain' has been made freely available until the end of Feb/LGBTQ+ History Month.
My first sole-authored book just came out! Visions of a Digital Nation: Market and Monopoly in British Telecommunications is about the privatisation and digitalisation of the UK's telecom infrastructure, and why that was such a pivotal moment for the rise of neoliberalism.
Today I'm writing about how sex selection emerged as one of the leading promises of 20th-c. biologists/eugenicists as they got to grips with sexological genetics. 😬
Ad for The Science of Life (by Julian Huxley, G. P. Wells, & H. G. Wells) in Popular Science Monthly (March 1931).
Gynandromorph bordered white moth from Charles Barrett's Lepidoptera of the British Isles (1901). 🦋
At 11am (GMT) next Wednesday (31 Jan) I will be discussing my article 'Mendel's Closet' as part of the Royal Society history of science seminar series. 🏳️🌈 🧬
Science of Naples: Making knowledge in Italy’s Pre-Eminent City, 1500–1800
“Individual chapters demonstrate the extent to which Neapolitan scholars and academies contributed to debates within the Republic of Letters that continued until deep into the nineteenth century. They also show how studies of Neapolitan natural disasters yielded unique insights that contributed to the development of fields such as medicine and earth sciences.”