During the long history of the development of the thermometer, one of these instruments stands out from the rest for its artistic beauty, skilful construction and curiosity. The Florentine Spiral Thermometer was a remarkable achievement in the construction of glass scientific instruments that demonstrated the highest levels of skills by its maker. An attempt has been made to compare this instrument against the function of other thermometers used in scientific measurement with a view of assessing and comparing its accuracy, sensitivity and usefulness as a scientific instrument.

The construction of this instrument is also analyzed by exploring the possible methods used to form its delicate shape.

The latest results of research on the history of Spanish seismology points at the Madrid Astronomical Observatory as the first place where regular seismological observations were performed in Spain.

Recently, a small notebook with regular observations performed since 1887 with a ‘seismic microphone’ at the Madrid Astronomical Observatory has been found. This is the oldest document in Spain accounting for regular seismological observations. Also, it is the only instrument of such a type known up to now in Spain, showing anew the influence of Italian seismologist on Spanish Seismology.

A short discussion showing up the scientific and cultural context of the early Spanish observational seismology is presented. Also, the contents of the discovered notebook has been analyzed and compared with other contemporary sources to elucidate the location, type and special features of the instrument. Finally, an approach to the possible observational procedure and data analysis is attempted.

The collection of the Optical Museum in Jena encompasses more than 600 microscopes through four centuries. Among these instruments there are numerous specimens of many reputable European workshops. British instrument makers play a very important role in the development of the microscope, especially in the 18th and 19th centuries. This poster presentation will describe some very rare instruments made in the workshops of John Marshall, George Dollond, Hugh Powell, as well as Smith, Beck & Beck, all in London.

The aim of this paper is to keep the scientific instrument community informed about the progress of the project, and as a follow-up of the 1998 Leiden Symposium.

The project aims to locate the scientific instruments owned or sold by A.W.M. Mensing (1866-1936), the director and proprietor of the Frederik Muller Auction House in Amsterdam. The collection will be catalogued and the authenticity of the instruments will be investigated.

The following museums participate in the project:

Nederlands Scheepvaart Museum, Amsterdam

Museum Boerhaave, Leiden

University Museum, Utrecht

Adler Planetarium, Chicago

The poster will give an overview of the various imitations and restorations found in museums all over the world, which in some way originate from instruments sold by the Frederik Muller Auction House in the period from c. 1910-1930.

Leo Baekeland (1863-1944) is known, among other things, as the inventor of Bakelite, i.e. the very first ‘plastic’. He studied chemistry at the University of Ghent in Belgium and left for the USA in 1889. There he became a captain of industry, producing first photographic paper (‘Velox’ paper, the first that could be treated with artificial light), later Bakelite.

The Bakelite process was patented in 1907 and the material was presented to the American Chemical Society (ACS) on 5 February 1909. In a newspaper article in The New York Herald of 6 February 1909 it is mentioned that Baekeland presented ‘his new chemical substance’ (i.e. Bakelite), ‘suitable to make billiard balls, pipe stems, knife handles, etc…’ He ‘exhibited to the chemists several specimens of the new substance’.

Shortly afterwards he sent to his brother-in-law, Frederic Swarts, professor of chemistry at the University of Ghent, three objects, i.e. a pipette, a burette and a small measuring cylinder. The successor of professor Swarts donated these to the museum as being ‘…made in pure Bakelite by Leo Baekeland for prof. F. Swarts, about 1910’.

It is therefore probable that these small objects, now displayed at the Museum for the History of Sciences at Ghent, were among the ‘specimens’ exhibited at the ACS and therefore are among the very first objects ever made in Bakelite.

Joseph Plateau (1801-1883) is known as the inventor of the phenakistiscope disc (1833). It came as an application of his research on the persistence of the visual image formed by the eye. He divided a circle into 16 sections, separated by small slits. Sixteen slightly different images are placed in sections. The disc is then rotated around its central point, the image side turned towards a mirror. Looking through the slits the eye will receive a succession of short bursts of images. When the disc is spinning at sufficient speed the images will no longer be received as separate, but they will dissolve into an impression of movement.

Charles Wheatstone (1802-1875) is considered to be the inventor of the stereoscope in 1832, presented at the Royal Society of London in 1838. With his mirror stereoscope one can observe geometrical drawings in three dimensions. In 1844 David Brewster (1781-1868) devised a stereoscope with prisms, an idea already mentioned by Wheatstone, using (stereographic) photographs as images. In 1850 Brewster had a meeting with Duboscq in Paris. Duboscq presented his first stereoscope at the 1851 International Exhibition in London.

In 1852 Duboscq applied for a patent in which he stated to apply the principle of the stereoscope to the phenakistiscope of Plateau, in order to show the movement of objects seen in three dimensions. It is called ‘bioscope’. He said that it was sufficient:

According to L. Mannoni, Duboscq planned three different types of Bioscopes, but only one was produced: one with 12 slits, manually operated and having on the reverse side 12 stereoscopic images, The catalogue of Duboscq mentions photographs of ‘une machine en relief en pleine action’. Up till now such a disc was unknown to be extant.

We are happy to announce that the archives of the Plateau Collection in the Museum for the History of Sciences we found a Duboscq Bioscope disc depicting a steam engine. Unfortunately, a Bioscope instrument had not yet been found.

The poster is aimed to present the conditions that paved the way to the construction of the first Newcomen engine in the year 1770. Among these factors, special attention will be paid to the prevailing cultural values, particularly those related to the promotion of practical science.

Additional information will be given in order to respond to some questions regarding the use and diffusion of the steam engine, for instance, the relative delay in the introduction of the engine and its actual impact in the Spanish pre-industrial production.

A complete Czech translation, revised English translation (Raeder et al. 1946), supplemented with numerous explanatory notes, and facsimile of the coloured old print Tychonis Brahe astronomiae instauratae mechanica, Wandesburgi in arce Ranzoviana prope Hamburgum, propria authoris typographia 1598, has been prepared by the authors in cooperation with J.R. Shackelford and D. Svobodova (Czech translation of the poetry) and published by KLP - Koniasch Latin Press, Prague 1996 (ISBN 80-85917-26-2). Cf. http://sunkl.asu.cas.cz/~had/tycho.html

This small exhibit shows three examples of seventeenth-century church monuments commemorating lesser-known figures in the history of science. As might be expected the monuments incorporate various instruments much in the manner of ‘attributes’ in the iconography of saints. Instruments such as squares, levelling instruments, etc., are also likely to appear in monuments to architects and surveyors. Does anyone know of such other monuments: there must be more!

A map of the known places to which the instruments of the optical workshop of Johann Wiesel (1583-1662) and his son-in-law Daniel Depiere (+1682) were sold to will be presented, and also how the information about these instruments was diffused. The persons in these places involved with this process will be briefly described.

Richard Thoma, from Heidelberg University, held the Chair of Pathological Anatomy at Tartu (Dorpat) University in 1884-1894. These ten years were the most active of his scientific career during which he strongly supported the medical sciences at the university. According to the plans of prof. Thoma, the so-named ‘New Anatomical Theatre’ was erected in 1886-1887. The new premises of the Institute of Pathological Anatomy were housed in it. Prof. Thoma’s main goal was to obtain new scientific instruments for the institution. For example, 18 microscopes by Carl Zeiss, Jena, served the students for almost a century, until finally passed on to the Tartu University History Museum in 1998. Under the supervision of prof. Thoma 22 dissertations were written in Tartu in the field of arteriosclerosis. He was also the first to start teaching bacteriology (1890-1892). The results of Thoma’s academic and scientific work at Tartu University are gathered together in his Lehrbuch der pathologischen Anatomie (1894 - Part I). This textbook is also translated into English. There was also a Part II, but it remains unprinted. Richard Thoma improved two instruments to the Institute. These are the Thoma-Zeiss counting-chamber for blood particles and a new microtome. They are now kept at the University History Museum. The counting chamber, from the 1920s, was made by Ernst Leitz, Wetzlar, and is only signed by Thoma (‘Blutkörperzahlapparat nach Thoma’). Of the two microtomes in the possession of the Museum, one was made by Wilhelm Walb of Heidelberg at the end of the 19th century.

Richard Thoma has a firm place in the history of medicine both for his textbook and for the improvements to medical instruments; different instrument makers up until the Second World War manufactured the latter.

The Swiss Pierre Louis Guinand is usually credited with the development of flint glass of high quality, fundamental for achromatic doublets. The history of his work and his life portrays him as the typical nineteenth century hero: from modest origins, he devoted himself completely to the manufacture of glasses in parallel with his commercial activity of metal working in a very quiet place near Brenets in Switzerland. While working for the Munich lawyer Utzschneider, who was financing a company making high-quality surveying instruments, he met and instructed the young Fraunhofer. However, due to personality contrasts between the two, Guinand returned to Switzerland in 1814 where, after a suspension of the works, demanded by Utzschneider, he and his wife continued working on glasses. Guinand also entered the English market, submitting his glasses to the Royal Society, which declared them of very high quality.

This story shows Guinand rising to well-deserved fame and fortune from a modest background, through hard work and dedication. It has been shown, however, that this heroic view is seriously distorted, and that a variety of factors influence the process of discovery and invention. Maybe also the figure of Guinand should be investigated further, analysing his relationship with Fraunhofer and the contribution that each of them gave to research in glass making, and the motivations that influenced Guinand in his choices.

The Museum of Astronomy and Related Sciences (MAST) is one of the research institutes sponsored by the Ministry of Science and Technology (MCT) of Brazil. It is based in Rio de Janeiro and was opened to the public in 1985. The MAST collections, preserved by the Brazilian National Historical and Artistic Patrimony, basically consist of scientific instruments, which belonged to the old National Observatory, documents, which describe the beginning of work in astronomy and astrophysics in Brazil, and archives from some important old Brazilian scientists.

This paper describes software developed at the Museum for cataloguing the scientific instruments. It consists of the first trial in Brazil to develop such software and it is going to be disseminated among other similar Brazilian institutions. Researchers in the technical storage site of the Museum are using it. This software was developed under the support of Fundação VITAE.

A small English galilean hand telescope, owned by the author, has a number of features that indicate a very early date of manufacture. Three people who have extensive experience of 17th-century telescopes have examined it and the consensus is that it dates from the period 1650-1665. The English instrument maker Richard Reeve who worked in that time period is known to have produced galilean telescopes of exactly the same size as this example. If the dating is correct, this is one of the earliest known English telescopes.

There are two historical astronomical observatories in Africa: one in the southern hemisphere (Cape Town) and the other in the northern hemisphere (Algiers). The British found the first one in 1820 and the French the second in 1856. Both played important international roles and both are still active. When reorganized in the 1880s, Algiers Observatory was installed in its present location, at the top of a 300 m high hill near the city. It received a beautiful library and modern astronomical instruments: a 50 cm Foucault telescope, a 32 cm coudé refractor by Loewy, a 32 cm photographic refractor and a 20 cm meridian circle. Because of its unique geographical situation Algiers Observatory soon took an active part in the world network of observatories. It participated in the international ‘Carte du Ciel’ project and also in worldwide longitude measurements. In 1957 a Danjon prismatic astrolabe was added to its equipment. The present director and his colleagues are conscious of the interest and importance of their astronomical and architectural heritage, and the institute - now called the Centre de Recherche d’Astronomie, d’Astrophysique et de Géophysique - has already started to take conservation measures. In order to ensure the best conditions for the future of the buildings, domes and instruments, the CRAAG now wishes to make recommendations based on the advice of specialists. From the encounter with historians of instruments and from discussions with colleagues confronted by the same problems, we hope for specialized and enlightened advice.

In 1928 the Indian physicist Sir C.V. Raman (1888-1970) laid the foundation of Raman spectroscopy. He demonstrated experimentally that when monochromatic radiation passes through a transparent medium, the scattered incident radiation is accompanied by light with new frequencies, which give information about the molecular structure of the scattering substance. For this experiment a source of monochromatic light and a detector are required. Due to the simplicity of apparatus and the application of Raman spectroscopy in the field of physics, chemistry and biology, this technique is still being extensively used. In this communication a short review of the development of the instrumentation of Raman spectroscopy is given.

In the light of historical studies by J. B. Hearnshaw, Christiaan Sterken, and Klaus Staubermann, this poster offers a brief review of nineteenth-century visual stellar photometers, in particular those of Herschel, Steinheil, Zoellner, and Pickering. Not only do these instruments represent creative solutions to problems of optical design, they portend the fundamental shift from subjective estimation to calibrated measurement of stellar magnitudes.