Figures
0.1 Conducting SIC business in the Gellért Bath, Budapest, 31 July 1990 1
0.2 SIC delegates examine and discuss rare scientific instruments in the Bernadotte Library in the Royal Palace, Gamla Stan, Stockholm in October 2001 3
1.1 The British National Inventory of Historical Scientific Instruments was published as Science Preserved in 1992 12
1.2 Abstracts of the International Congress of the History of Science, Symposia, Bucharest 1981, includes the Scientific Instrument Commission’s contribution 14
1.3 A Romanian translation of the tenth to eleventh century Anglo-Saxon (Old English) epic poem, Beowulf, purchased during Symposium I in Bucharest 17
1.4 Delegates attending Scientific Instrument Commission Symposium II at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, 1982 18
1.5 Delegates at Symposium IV, held at the Scheepvaart Museum, Amsterdam, 1984 20
1.6 Robert Anderson delivering the Symposium IV presidential address at the Scheepvaart Museum, Amsterdam, 1984 21
1.7 Notice for Symposium VI, at the Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza held in Florence in 1986 22
1.8 Notice for Symposium VII, held at the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie (la Villette) and at CNAM (Musée des Techniques), Paris, in 1987 23
1.9 Abstracts of the XVIIIth International Congress of History of Science held in Hamburg and Munich in 1989, which incorporated Symposium IX 26
1.10 Gerard Turner (left) and Robert Anderson come across the Collection of Hysterical Scientific Instruments in the basement of the Science Center at Harvard University, Symposium X, 1990 27
1.11 Cooper’s Oxford Marmalade, without which Gerard Turner would never travel abroad 29
1.12 Robert Anderson (left) anatomising Gerard Turner in the reconstructed anatomy theatre (originally 1594) built into the Boerhaave Museum in Leiden, in 1991 30
1.13 An Equinoctial Club dinner held in the Oxford and Cambridge Club, London, at the Vernal Equinox, March 1984 31
1.14 Three early Presidents of the Scientific Instrument Commission together at MIT (from left): Robert Anderson (1982–1997), Paolo Brenni (2003–2013) and Jim Bennett (1997–2003) 32
2.1 All dressed up for a visit to the medieval silver mines of Kuntná Hora, an excursion during Scientific Instrument Symposium XIV in Prague, 1995 45
2.2 SIC group photo in Red Square. Scientific Instrument Symposium XVIII held in Moscow and St Petersburg, 1999 48
2.3 Intrepid SIC members ventured out onto scaffolding surrounding the old observatory atop the Kunstkamera – the original home of the Russian Academy of Sciences – in St Petersburg, 1999 50
2.4 Earliest websites: (a) Museum of the History of Science, Oxford, 1996. (b) Scientific Instrument Commission, 1998 57
3.1 SIC navigators measuring angles with the Jacob’s staff on the roof of the Escola Politécnica in Lisbon, September 2008 70
3.2 SIC logo created by Valentino Szemere and Paolo Brenni, circa 2007 72
3.3 Publications on “instruments” (excluding medical and musical) as a percentage of all records in the Isis Cumulative Bibliography database, 1970–2024 76
4.1 Tweet of a Rand McNally globe in storage at the Canada Science and Technology Museum, from the curator David Pantalony to astronaut Chris Hadfield, then in orbit on the International Space Station 82
4.2 Telescope attributed to Eustachio Divini, Rome, circa 1665, on loan from the Museo Galileo, Florence to the Canada Science and Technology Museum 88
5.1 Maxwell’s electromagnetic induction demonstration apparatus, made by Elliott Brothers, London, 1876 112
5.2 Johann Stabius, Astrolabium imperatorium (Nuremberg: Johann Stuchs, 1512) 117
5.3 Elias Allen (d. 1653), etching by Wenceslaus Hollar after Hendrik van der Borcht II, 1666 120
8.1 (a) Scientific instruments in the upper storey of the south-western pavilion of the Zwinger in Dresden after a renovation in the 1920s. (b) The current display in the same upper hall following the latest renovation, completed in 2013 177
8.2 The late Jim Bennett in the top gallery of the History of Science Museum in Oxford 180
8.3 Museo Galileo, Florence: (a) Partial view of the room “Microscopes,” before 2009. (b) Partial view of the room “Measuring Natural Phenomena,” January 2010 183
8.4 A curious small triangular showcase with mirror and interlocking opening glass with screws. From the exhibition, Copernicus and his World, The Royal Castle, Warsaw, 2023 186
8.5 A view of the temporary exhibition, Galileo: Images of the Universe from Antiquity to the Telescope, Strozzi Palace, Florence, 2009 189
9.1 (a) Partial view of an exhibit, Syntax of an Astrolabe, in the foyer of the Department of the History of Science, Harvard University, 2017. (b) The Ṣafavid-dynasty astrolabe, circa 1620, that inspired Francesca Liuni’s project 199
9.2 Cabinet de physique of Université Laval, circa 1895 201
9.3 Double-beam axial electromagnetic reciprocating engine by Daniel Davis, Jr, Boston, circa 1848 203
9.4 AC-DC amplifier by Damon Engineering, Inc, Needham, Massachusetts, 1962–1972, designed for Harvard Project Physics 204
10.1 Ignazio Danti, instrument of the primum mobile, 1568, brass, 27.9 × 17.5 cm. Photographs, from top left to bottom right, taken in 2005, 1983, 1960, and 1929 228
10.2 YouTube video still of the “Speaking arc and singing arc.” On right, operator Paolo Brenni whistles into the microphone, while Roland Wittje, on left, regulates the length of the arc 233
10.3 First page of Apian, Instrumentum primi mobilis (Nuremberg, 1534) 237
10.4 Three images uploaded to ChatGPT. From left to right: Unknown maker, Potenzmaschine, 1770–1805; Gualterus Arsenius, astrolabe, 1572; Michel Coignet, simple theodolite and plane table rule, 1602 238
10.5 Jan Brueghel I, Air, 1611, oil on canvas, 46 × 83 cm, detail 241
A Multimeters, from left to right: M104, Soviet Union, 1959; C4, China, 1965; and C4-2, China, 1970 249
B It’s me, a torquetum! Attributed to Hans Dorn, Buda, circa 1487 252
C Brownrigg’s apparatus for capturing airs emitted by spa water. From Brownrigg, “An Experimental Enquiry,” Philosophical Transactions 55 (1765): 224 254
D The Hubble Space Telescope seen in orbit around the earth in 2009 at an altitude of about 320 miles 257
E Cockcroft-Walton particle generator and accelerator of the Centro Informazioni Studi ed Esperienze (CISE), Milan, circa 1952–1965, on display at the Museo Nazionale della Scienza e della Tecnologia, Milan 260
F Beckman Model G pH Meter, circa 1955 with open sample compartment 264
G On left: Astrolabe by Johannes Bos, 1597, as illustrated in the sales catalogue for the Anton Mensing collection [1924]. This instrument is now in the collection of the Adler Planetarium, Chicago, USA. On right: The Whipple Museum’s forged copy of the Bos astrolabe, likely made in Amsterdam around 1925 267
H Anatomical model of a woman, Maison Auzoux, Saint Aubin d’Ecrosville, 1928 270
I A frog inscribing traces on a blackened cylinder. E.J. Marey, La méthode graphique en sciences expérimentales (Paris, 1878) 273
J Gold nose spectacles, English, pre-1723, modified to wig style circa 1780 276
K Trade card, H.G. Blair & Co., Cardiff, about 1860 279
L Ottoman volvelle featured within a perpetual calendar attributed to Şeyh Vefâ, seventeenth century 282
M Silver, single-lens microscope by Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, with a magnification of 248 times, produced circa 1673–1723 285
N John Yarwell’s trade card of 1683 288
O The restored Secchi meteorograph on display at the entrance of the Rome Astronomical Observatory at Monte Porzio Catone, near Rome 291
P The air pump depicted in this plate from Robert Boyle’s New Experiments (1660) was reproduced in various ways on the front covers of different editions of Leviathan and the Air-Pump 294
Q Clockwise from upper left: The 1859 Microscopical Society standard; the improved RMS screw thread in 1896; an example of the RMS thread on a Leitz objective 1890; and profiles of RMS screw threads measured in 1911 298
R Rolf Riekher (1922–2018) and Michael Korey examining the pre-1617 telescope from the Pommerscher Kunstschrank in the conservation studio of the Kunstgewerbemuseum in Berlin on the occasion of Riekher’s 85th birthday (2007) 301
S Automatic water finder, built circa 1910 304
T The large globes made by Vincenzo Coronelli for Louis XIV, 1683 307
Tables
2.1 SIC Symposia and major meetings in the 1990s 35
2.2 National inventories completed in the 1990s 54
3.1 SIC Symposia from 2000–2009 65
3.2 Isis CB database, rank-ordered most prolific authors of publications on “instruments,” 1970–2024 77
10.1 ChatGPT’s transcription and translation of the header and first sentence of Figure 10.3 238