Science and Invention

Institutions and Achievements

16th-17th Century Institutions

• Anatomy theater– Bologna (late 15th century); Leiden (1593) – London (1557), Oxford (1623)

• Botanical garden– Padua (1545); Leiden (1577, 1601)– Oxford (1621); Edinburgh (1670s); Chelsea (1673)

• Public natural history museum– Aldrovani, Bologna (1601)– Ashmolean, Oxford (1683)

Anatomical Theater, Leiden 1609

Inigo Jones Barber Surgeons Theatre 1636

Gustavium, Uppsala, 1662

Hooke – Royal College of Physicians (1673-77)

Cutlerian Anatomical Theatre, Warwick Lane, LondonRobert Hooke ~1679

Experimental Medicine

Blood Circulation Harvey (1578-1657) De Motu Cordis showed roles of arteries and veins (but did not observe capillaries)Materialist view of human physiology

PharmacologyNew medicines from new worlds. Ability to use alchemical tools such as distillation to extract components.

Transfusion

1628 Giovanni Colle (1558-1631), Professor of Medicine at Padua, suggested use to prolong life1654 Francesco Folli (1624-1685), a physician of Florence claimed to perform an experiment using transfusion1656 Christopher Wren injected wine and beer into the veins of a dog

Maluf, Noble Suydam R. "History of Blood Transfusion The Use of Blood from Antiquity Through the Eighteenth Century." Journal of the history of medicine and allied sciences 9.1 (1954): 59-107.

Transfusion

1663 Timothy Clarke, physician to Charles II transfused blood between two dogs; 1665 Repeated by Dr. Wilkins1665 Richard Lower reported direct transfer between dogs using silver tubes to connect the carotid artery of an animal with the jugular vein of another.

Transfusion−HumansQuestions about inter-species transfer“ “ “ Effects on behaviorUse of sheep blood to make a man more docileReaction to such a transfusion in France led to prohibition in France and discrediting in England

Oxford Botanical Garden

• Medicinal garden• Planted for “the glorification

of God” and “for the furtherance of learning.”

• New discoveries – impetus for natural history studies

• Jacob Bobart, first curator– Unpaid and earned income by

selling produce 1645 English Yew

Chelsea Physic Garden

InstitutionsExperimentation and Communication

• 1579 Gresham College• 1660 Royal Society• 1673 Christ's Hospital Mathematical School• 1675 Royal Observatory, Greenwich

Gresham College

• Money left to City of London• Free public lectures• Professorships of Astronomy, Divinity,

Geometry, Law, Music, Physic and Rhetoric.

Gresham – Original Grounds

Observatory

Physic Professor Laboratory

Natural History Collections

• Individuals • Royal Society collection• Tradescant collection– Collected in Virginia– Keeper of his Majesty's

Gardens, Vines, and Silkworms

– Opened to public for a fee

Tradescant Collection

• Garden of foreign plants• Birds, reptiles, mammals, stones, shells, a

mummy’s hand• A small piece of wood from the cross of Christ• Pictures from the church of S. Sophia in

Constantinople copied by a Jew into a book• The passion of Christ carved on a plumstone

Retaining the Collection

Catalog produced with help from Elias Ashmole1659 Bequeathed to Ashmole with his wife to benefit during her lifetimeChancery prevents sale1678 Ashmole gives to Oxford w. a building

Hawking glove of Henry VIII

Russian Bead Calculator

Rhinohorncup

Science Societies

1603 Accademia dei Lincei (Academy of Lynxes), Rome, founded by Duke Frederico Cesi was the first that appears to have published any proceedings.1660 The Royal Society, London

Invisible College for the promoting of Physico-Mathematical Experimental Learning

1666 Académie des Sciences, Paris

Samuel Hartlib (1600-62) Intelligencer

• An agent for the agent for the dissemination of Science news, books, and manuscripts

• Advocate for an ideal institution of learning (Bacon New Atlantis; Hartlib Macaria)

• The “Hartlib circle,” a group of enthusiasts whose ideas were circulated through copies of letters and manuscripts

DNB

Royal Society for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge

1645 Discussion groups begin; split into Oxford and London groups1660 Formal meetings at Gresham College

No profitable thing shall seem too mean for consideration, seeing that they have some amongst them, whose life is employ’d about little things, as well as great.By this they have broken down the partition wall…for all conditions of men to engage in these Studies

1662 Royal charter

Contributions

• Experiments tried at home or laboratories• Experiments performed at meetings– In principle, all levels of society – In practice, merchants excluded because of issues of

trade secrets and disdain of profit motives– Skilled technicians employed but only acknowledged

when mistakes occurred • Publication of results– Transactions– Works published by the Society’s printers

Members

Include foreign and colonial members who were exempted from dues and attendanceColonial members from 13 colonies in the 17th C.– John Winthrop (1662)– William Penn (1681)– William Byrd (1696)

In addition there were correspondents from the colonies in the eighteenth century

William Brouncker, first president

• An Irish mathematician who worked on continued fractions and calculated logarithms by infinite series.

Publication1/1665 Journal des sçavans (later Journal des savants), Paris, est. by Denis de Sallo3/1665 TransactionsProcedures worked out in letters from the first editor, Oldenburg• Submission date for precedence• Open dissemination of research

Henry Oldenburg (1609-1697)

• Born in Bremen• Educated in Bremen,

Utrecht and Oxford• Secretary of the Royal

Society with fluency in English, Dutch, French, German, Italian and Latin

• Published on spec.

• Translated and published letters from continent

• Sought comments

Some leading contributors

Isaac Newton, Robert Boyle, Christopher Wren, and Robert HookeAstronomers: Johannes Hevelius (lunar topography), Giovanni Domenico Cassini (moons of Saturn, distance to Mars) and Adrien Auzout,Microscopy: Antony van Leeuwenhoek,Mathematicians: Christiaan Huygens (wave theory of light) and Gottfried Leibnitz (calculus, relativity of space and time)

Issue 1

Royal Mathematical School at Christ's Hospital School

• Fostered by Samuel Pepys• Inadequate navigational skills of naval officers• Mathematical basis of navigation

Royal Observatory, Flamsteed House, 1676

Octagon Room at the Royal Observatory, c.1676

Observational Astronomy

• William Gascoigne, minor gentry• Jeremiah Horrocks, teacher• William Crabtree, cloth dealer

William Gascoigne (1612-44) • Education, unknown• Add eyepiece micrometer to

telescope to make precise measurements

• Worked with Horrocks and Crabtree• Ideas later used by Towneley and

Flamsteed• Killed at Marston Moor

Drawn by Robert Hooke –” A Description of an Instrument for Dividing a Foot into Many Thousand Parts, and Thereby Measuring the Diameters of Planets to a Great Exactness, &c. as It Was Promised,” Numb. 25. In: Philosophical Transactions, 11. November 1667, S. 541–556.

Findings using projected images

• 1637 Horrocks and Crabtree watch the dark edge of the Moon obscure the individual stars of the Pleiades and conclude that the stars were points of light and not disks

• 1638 Horrocks concluded lunar orbit is elliptical

• 1639 Observe transit of Venus– Calculate distance of sun – 59,600,000 miles

Chapman, Allan. "Jeremiah Horrocks, William Crabtree, and the Lancashire observations of the transit of Venus of 1639." Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union 2004.IAUC196 (2004): 3-26.

Reflecting Telescope

“An Accompt of a New Catadioptrical Telescope Invented by Mr. Newton, Fellow of the R. Society, and Professor of the Mathematiques in the University of Cambridge, 1672”

James GregoryOptica Promota 1663

Cassegrain

Great Comet of 1680

Great Comet (“Newton’s Comet”)

• Comets (?) observed by Flamsteed in 1680 and 1681– Predicted to be same comet; erroneously said to

be repulsed by the sun• Path explained by Newton; one comet in a

parabolic orbit (possibly elliptic)

Edmund Halley (1656-1742)

1675 Assistant to FlamsteedEncouraged and financed Newton’s publication of PrincipiaImproved diving bell and suitCalculated path of 1682 comet in 1705; predicted 1768 return2nd astronomer royal

Successes of Newton’s Gravitation

Philosophical Transactions, Vol. 19 (1695 - 1697), 445-457

To a Theory of Gravitation

• Ether pushing objects down• Flamsteed suggests magnetic attraction by sun• Inverse square law – who said what when?• Halley encourages Newton

NewtonPrincipia, 1st edition

Robert Boyle1660 New Experiments Physio-Mechanical, Touching the Spring of the Air and its Effects – 2nd edition has Boyle’s law

1661 The Sceptical Chymist . 1663 Some Considerations Touching the Usefulness of Experimental Natural Philosophy

“Luciferous and fructiferous” experiments

Uses - Mathematics

• Quadrants, Sectors, Astrolabes , Globes, Maps, • Lutes, Viols, Organs, and other musical

instruments • Applications in mechanical trades

Uses-Health

• Defense against diseases• Improvements in agriculture

Uses-Chemistry, Materials

• Refine gold and silver• Improve crops through inorganic supplements• Counterfeit marble• Writing without “blacking fingers” with ink

Papin Digester

Safety valve with pressure limited by weight, W

Papin Digester, version 2

Clocks

1656 Huygens, Pendulum clock~1670 William Clement– Anchor escapement– Tall case

Verge escapement

Tompion, 1675-78

Clockmakers

• 1631 Worshipful Company of Clockmakers given a royal charter on manufacture and sale

• Richard Towneley – deadbeat variation of anchor escapement

• Thomas Tompion – Pendulum clocks wound yearly

• Hooke – Balance springs

Use of Mortality Statistics to Calculate Annuities

• Improved on prior observations of William Petty

• Data from Breslau

Christopher Wren (1632–1723)

• Early work– Alphabet for the deaf– Pasteboard anatomical models for lectures– Device to make two copies of a document at one

time– Professor of astronomy, Oxford

Wren as Scientist

• First drawings made from microscope• Relief globe of the moon• Attempt to solve mathematical problems

posed by Pascal• 1661 Advised on repair of old St Paul's

Cathedral

1669 Surveyor of the King’s Works

Continued scientific work– Physiology of flies– Muscular action– Collisions of bodies– Machine to grind aspherical lenses– Rain gauge

Century of Inventions

Edward Somerset, 2nd Marquess of Worcester

Earliest Straight Slide Rule, 1654

Gunter’s scales, Described 1623

Aids to CalculationEverard, Excise officers’ slide rules, 1684

Oughtred, 1700

Marquess of WorcesterWater-Commanding Engine, Raglan CastleReported in 1663 to lift buckets of water 40’

Savery Engine(1827 drawing)

D boilerX condensing waterP condensing vesselVarious valves and connecting tubes• Uses vacuum and high pressure

steam to pump water• 1698 patent covers mines, mills,

drainage, water supply

Savery Engine

• DefectsLimited to a pumping height of ~20 feetWater mostly driven by atmospheric pressureInefficient as each stroke required recreating

steamSafety – strength of boilers