The Making of the Spectroscope
1-2 September, 2001
"The Making of the Spectroscope", a workshop on the history and sociology of spectroscopy, was held at the Deutsches Museum in Munich, Germany, on 1-2 September, 2001.
The workshop analyzed technical innovations and competing traditions in the manufacture and uses of spectroscopes, and aimed to understand the making of communities in which spectroscopes were designed and used. It explored the creation and changing social roles of the spectroscope. Speakers focused on instruments, practices, and specific individuals and groups associated with the spectroscope, as well as the factors influencing them, such as representations, economies etc.
The workshop brought together various people working on the history and sociology of spectroscopes and spectroscopic practice and provided them with a platform to exchange their ideas and approaches. The workshop took place on the basis of pre-circulated papers, with the aim of publishing a collective volume. The organisers also invited poster presentations to this workshop.
The meeting was organised in collaboration with the International Scientific Instrument Commission (SIC) and with the support of the Hans R. Jenemann Foundation. Organizers: Klaus Staubermann, Humboldt Foundation (Stb@AvH.de), and Charlotte Bigg, University of Cambridge (bigg@mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de).
Group photograph from the Making of the Spectoscope Workshop
Schedule of Events:
Friday 31 August:
- Arrival
- 15:00h-19:00h Registration Desk open (late comers should collect keys from the Night Porter)
- 17:00h Visit to the Suedfriedhof (graves of Fraunhofer, Reichenbach, Steinheil, Ohm)
- 19:00h Dinner
Saturday 1 September:
- 10:00h Welcome from the organisers
- Welcoming address by Prof. Dr. Helmuth Trischler
(Director of the Deutsches Museum’s Research Institute)
- ‘The Resources of the Deutsches Museum’ by Dr. Eva A. Mayring
(Keeper of Special Collections and Documentations of the Deutsches Museum)
- Session 1: Broad Issues in the History of Spectroscopy
- Klaus Hentschel (Inst. f. History of Science, Univ. of Goettingen)
‘Spectroscopy or Spectroscopies?’(abstract)
- Charlotte Bigg (Max Planck Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Berlin)
‘Spectroscopic Metrologies’(abstract)
- Discussion
- 12:30h Lunch
- 14:30h Session 2: Spectroscopes and Disciplines
- Frank James (The Royal Institution)
‘How Comte was proved wrong: The development of spectro-chemistry
and its early application to the study of the stars’(abstract)
- David Aubin (Max-Planck Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Berlin)
‘"Le beau climat d’Italie”: Jules Janssen, the Spectroscope, and Travel ‘ (abstract)
- Dana A. Freiburger (History of Science Department, University of Wisconsin-Madison)
‘Hantaro Nagaoka and the Spectroscope’ (abstract)
- Discussion
- 20:00h Dinner
Sunday 2 September:
- 15:30h Session 4: Makers and Users
- Jochen Hennig (Deutsches Museum, Formerly University of Oldenburg), "The prism and the telescopes are manufactured by Steinheil in Munich" - A replication of Kirchhoff and Bunsen's early spectroscopical experiments (abstract)
- Klaus Staubermann (Alexander von Humboldt-Foundation)
'Investigating Vision and The Reversion Spectroscope' (abstract)
- Jim Bennett (Museum of the History of Science, Oxford)
'Decem anni mirabiles: 1860-1870' (abstract)
- Discussion
- 12:30h Lunch
- 14:30h Tour of the Deutsches Museum’s astronomy and Fraunhofer collections, led by Dr. Oskar Blumtritt
- 10:00h Session 3: The Impact of New Technologies
- Susan Gamble (Cambridge University)
‘1891, A Tale of Two Spectra on Display: photographic data by Gabriel Lippmann and Charles Piazzi Smyth ’(abstract)
- Anna M. Lombardi (CIRSFIS, Università degli Studi di Padova )
‘The Bolometer and the Spectro-Bolometer, as Steps towards the Black-Body Spectrum’(abstract)
- Sean F. Johnston (University of Glasgow)
‘An unconvincing transformation? Michelson’s interferential spectroscopy’(abstract)
- Discussion
- Departure
- 19:30h Dinner for those staying in Munich Sunday night
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