The Transit of Venus Enterprise in Victorian Britain

The Transit of Venus Enterprise in Victorian Britain PDF Author: Jessica Ratcliff
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
ISBN: 0822981858
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
In the nineteenth century, the British Government spent money measuring the distance between the earth and the sun using observations of the transit of Venus. This book presents a narrative of the two Victorian transit programmes. It draws out their cultural significance and explores the nature of "big science" in late-Victorian Britain.

The Transit of Venus Enterprise in Victorian Britain

The Transit of Venus Enterprise in Victorian Britain PDF Author: Jessica Ratcliff
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
ISBN: 0822981858
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
In the nineteenth century, the British Government spent money measuring the distance between the earth and the sun using observations of the transit of Venus. This book presents a narrative of the two Victorian transit programmes. It draws out their cultural significance and explores the nature of "big science" in late-Victorian Britain.

Kew Observatory and the Evolution of Victorian Science, 1840–1910

Kew Observatory and the Evolution of Victorian Science, 1840–1910 PDF Author: Lee T. Macdonald
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
ISBN: 0822983494
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 302

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Book Description
Kew Observatory was originally built in 1769 for King George III, a keen amateur astronomer, so that he could observe the transit of Venus. By the mid-nineteenth century, it was a world-leading center for four major sciences: geomagnetism, meteorology, solar physics, and standardization. Long before government cutbacks forced its closure in 1980, the observatory was run by both major bodies responsible for the management of science in Britain: first the British Association for the Advancement of Science, and then, from 1871, the Royal Society. Kew Observatory influenced and was influenced by many of the larger developments in the physical sciences during the second half of the nineteenth century, while many of the major figures involved were in some way affiliated with Kew. Lee T. Macdonald explores the extraordinary story of this important scientific institution as it rose to prominence during the Victorian era. His book offers fresh new insights into key historical issues in nineteenth-century science: the patronage of science; relations between science and government; the evolution of the observatory sciences; and the origins and early years of the National Physical Laboratory, once an extension of Kew and now the largest applied physics organization in the United Kingdom.

Victorian Medicine and Popular Culture

Victorian Medicine and Popular Culture PDF Author: Louise Penner
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
ISBN: 0822981890
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
This collection of essays explores the rise of scientific medicine and its impact on Victorian popular culture. Chapters include an examination of Charles Dickens's involvement with hospital funding, concerns over milk purity and the theatrical portrayal of drug addiction, plus a whole section devoted to the representation of medicine in crime fiction. This is an interdisciplinary study involving public health, cultural studies, the history of medicine, literature and the theatre, providing new insights into Victorian culture and society.

Natural History Societies and Civic Culture in Victorian Scotland

Natural History Societies and Civic Culture in Victorian Scotland PDF Author: Diarmid A Finnegan
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317315731
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 267

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Book Description
The relationship between science and civil society is essential to our understanding of cultural change during the Victorian era. Finnegan's study looks at the shifting nature of this process during the nineteenth century, using Scotland as the focus for his argument.

The Age of Scientific Naturalism

The Age of Scientific Naturalism PDF Author: Bernard Lightman
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
ISBN: 0822981645
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 266

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Book Description
Physicist John Tyndall and his contemporaries were at the forefront of developing the cosmology of scientific naturalism during the Victorian period. They rejected all but physical laws as having any impact on the operations of human life and the universe. Contributors focus on the way Tyndall and his correspondents developed their ideas through letters, periodicals and scientific journals and challenge previously held assumptions about who gained authority, and how they attained and defended their position within the scientific community.

Uncommon Contexts: Encounters between Science and Literature, 1800-1914

Uncommon Contexts: Encounters between Science and Literature, 1800-1914 PDF Author: Ben Marsden
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
ISBN: 0822981874
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
Britain in the long nineteenth century developed an increasing interest in science of all kinds. Whilst poets and novelists took inspiration from technical and scientific innovations, those directly engaged in these new disciplines relied on literary techniques to communicate their discoveries to a wider audience. The essays in this collection uncover this symbiotic relationship between literature and science, at the same time bridging the disciplinary gulf between the history of science and literary studies. Specific case studies include the engineering language used by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the role of physiology in the development of the sensation novel and how mass communication made people lonely.

The Making of Modern Anthrax, 1875-1920

The Making of Modern Anthrax, 1875-1920 PDF Author: James F. Stark
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
ISBN: 0822981742
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 255

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Book Description
From the mid-nineteenth century onwards a number of previously unknown conditions were recorded in both animals and humans. Known by a variety of names, and found in diverse locations, by the end of the century these diseases were united under the banner of "anthrax." Stark offers a fresh perspective on the history of infectious disease. He examines anthrax in terms of local, national and global significance, and constructs a narrative that spans public, professional and geographic domains.

Brewing Science, Technology and Print, 1700–1880

Brewing Science, Technology and Print, 1700–1880 PDF Author: James Sumner
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317319303
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description
How did the brewing of beer become a scientific process? Sumner explores this question by charting the theory and practice of the trade in Britain and Ireland during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Vision, Science and Literature, 1870-1920

Vision, Science and Literature, 1870-1920 PDF Author: Martin Willis
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317321855
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description
This book explores the Victorian concept of vision across scientific and cultural forms. Willis charts the characterization of vision through four organizing principles – small, large, past and future – to arrive at a Victorian conception of what vision was. Willis then explores how this Victorian vision influenced twentieth-century ways of seeing.

Adolphe Quetelet, Social Physics and the Average Men of Science, 1796–1874

Adolphe Quetelet, Social Physics and the Average Men of Science, 1796–1874 PDF Author: Kevin Donnelly
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317316754
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
Adolphe Quetelet was an influential scientist whose controversial work was condemned by John Stuart Mill and Charles Dickens. He was in contact with many Victorian elite, including Babbage, Herschel and Faraday. This is the first scholarly biography of Quetelet, exploring his contribution to quantitative reasoning and place in intellectual history.