"...we try to illustrate in a concise way the two main “wonders” of Faraday’s life: that the son of a poor blacksmith in the Victorian age was able to become the director the Royal Institution and member of the Royal Society, still keeping a honest and “virtuous” moral conduct, and that Faraday’s approach to many topics, but mainly to electrochemistry and electrodynamics, has paved the way to the modern (atomistic and field-based) view of physics, only relying on experiments and intuition."
"Finally, basing our discussion in part on an examination of the reading marks that Newton left in the surviving copies of Hebrew grammars and lexicons that he owned, we will argue that his interest in Hebrew was not intended to achieve linguistic proficiency but remained limited to particular theological queries of singular concern."
"The Amsterdam-based merchant and mathematics enthusiast Adriaen Verwer (1654/5–1717) was one of the few in the Dutch Republic to respond to the first edition of Newton's Principia (1687). Based on a close study of his published work, his correspondence with the Scottish mathematician and astronomer David Gregory (1659–1708), and his annotations in his own copy of the first edition of the Principia, I shall scrutinize the impact of Newton's ideas on Verwer's thinking."
"Abraham de Moivre (born May 26, 1667, Vitry, Fr.—died Nov. 27, 1754, London) French mathematician who was a pioneer in the development of analytic trigonometry and in the theory of probability"
This is the only Black Friday deal I look forward to each year. Simply the best stay-at-home research resource. I've found many sexological gems over the years . . .
In June 2019 I acted as contributing editor to a queer-themed edition of Viewpoint: The Magazine of the British Society for the History of Science. I thought I would share it here today as it's #lgbtqstemday!
Gynandromorph Gouldian finch possessing female plumage on the left side and male on the right. Described and pictured in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 1939. 🏳️🌈 🐦 :transgender:
Isidor Isaac Rabi's review of two books, by non-scientists (the horror!), on the role of scientists in policy-making is grumpy and hilarious: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2147002
'Every man & woman is hermaphrodite' (Charles Darwin, c.1838)
My 2021 article 'Darwin's Closet: The Queer Sides of The Descent of Man (1871)' in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society has now been viewed over 25K times! Please keep sharing: https://academic.oup.com/zoolinnean/article/191/2/323/6075648 🏳️🌈 🐒
Lovely image from 1800 depicting female deer with male-typical characteristics. It's titled 'Mannweiber unter dem Wilde' ('manwoman among the wild game', with thanks to @natureculture for help with the trans!). The title reflects the rampant anthropomorphism of the accompanying article. :transgender: 🦌 🏳️🌈
"Al-Biruni (973-1048) was one of the greatest scientists of all times. He was an astronomer, mathematician and philosopher, and studied physics and natural sciences. In this paper, we will discuss some of his experimental methods and some instruments he used."
"Traces of Ink. Experiences of Philology and Replication is a collection of original papers exploring the textual and material aspects of inks and ink-making in a number of premodern cultures (Babylonia, the Graeco-Roman world, the Syriac milieu and the Arabo-Islamic tradition)."
"Traces of Ink. Experiences of Philology and Replication is a collection of original papers exploring the textual and material aspects of inks and ink-making in a number of premodern cultures (Babylonia, the Graeco-Roman world, the Syriac milieu and the Arabo-Islamic tradition)."
"A Cultural History of Chemistry in Antiquity covers the period from 3000 BCE to 600 CE, ranging across the civilizations of the Mediterranean and Near East. Over this long period, chemical artisans, recipes, and ideas were exchanged between Mesopotamia, Egypt, Phoenicia, Greece, Rome, and Byzantium."
"This book provides the first full history of phrenitis. In doing so, it surveys ancient ideas about the interactions between body and soul, both in health and in disease. It also addresses ancient ideas about bodily health, mental soundness and moral 'goodness', and their heritage in contemporary psychiatric ideas."