Cavendish: The Experimental Life

Two gifted eighteenth-century Londoners, Charles Cavendish and his painfully preeminent son Henry were descendants of paired revolutions, one political and one scientific. Scions of a powerful revolutionary family, they gave an original turn to the duty of public service that attached to their social rank. The English aristocracy knew one of its finest hours when Henry Cavendish gently laid his delicate weights in the scales of the first great precision balance of the century. For this action to happen, it took two generations and two kinds of invention, one in social forms and the other in scientific methods. This joint biography of father and son tells how it came to pass. Henry Cavendish is best known for his researches in chemistry, electricity, and heat, but in truth he worked in every part of physical science, bringing to it his unique combination of experimental precision and mathematical penetration. His accomplishment is likened to the highest example: since the death of Newton, Humphry Davy wrote, England has suffered "no scientific loss so great as that of Cavendish." Through inheritance he became immensely rich. Regarding intellect and fortune, he is called "the wisest of the rich and the richest of the wise." In his exclusive devotion to science, he is compared with "the most austere anchorites," who were "not more faithful to their vows." With reference to his legendary shyness, he is described as a man of "most reserved disposition," of a "degree bordering on disease." He was, to be sure, all of these things: one of the best scientists of his time, one of the richest men in the kingdom, a member of one of the politically most influential aristocratic families, a scientific fanatic, and a person of extraordinary peculiarities. This biography, a major revision of the original published in 1999, offers an enlarged understanding of the eighteenth century world of science and a reevaluation both of the scientific genius and of the remarkable personality of Henry Cavendish. It is a comprehensive study of science, family, and society in the eighteenth century

Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution, showing the operations, expenditures, and condition of the institution for the year 1880.

Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution. [1944] Research relevant to the American Indian; census of Indians

Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution, showing the operations, expenditures, and condition of the institution for the year 1880.

46-3Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution. [1944] Research relevant to the American Indian; census of Indians.1881-1

A love of light : Herschel, Talbot & photography

William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877), the inventor of photography on paper, was given crucial support by his colleague Sir John Herschel (1792- 1871). Fellows of The Royal Society, the two men made fundamental contributions to optics, chemistry, light, and mathematics. Both were humanists of diverse interests and had strong role models in women. For Talbot, it was his mother, Lady Elisabeth Feilding. Herschel learned some of his earliest science from his Aunt, Caroline Herschel; his wife, Margaret, was an active participant in his work. During the pre-history of photography, Mrs. Fulhame, Thomas Wedgwood, Sir Humphry Davy, and Nicephore Niepce demonstrated its potential. The question is why, rather than how, was photography invented and announced in 1839? The camera and the chemistry necessary for the art's invention co-existed for many decades. Frustrated in trying to sketch with Wollaston's camera lucida, Talbot conceived of photography; Herschel avoided making photographs because he was an expert draughtsman adept with the camera lucida. Herschel, following inductive reasoning, made seminal contributions to the field of photochemistry; he invented the cyanotype process and was the first to apply hypo to fix photographs. Talbot learned from his own photographs and grew into being the first photographic artist. Talbot and his rival, Louis Daguerre, mirrored the competitive economic race and differences in support of science and art between France and Great Britain. By the Great Exhibition in 1851, Herschel and Talbot had been forcefully removed from work in photography. Herschel's health was broken in service as Master of the Mint. He remained an important influence on other photographers, including Anna Atkins, Charles Piazzi Smyth, and Julia Margaret Cameron. Talbot learned from experience in photographic book publishing that silver photographs could never be made permanent. He applied his efforts to perfecting photoglyphic engraving, a forerunner of photogravure; he also invented the photographic halftone

The Papers of Thomas A. Edison

This newest volume in the acclaimed Papers of Thomas A. Edison covers one year in the life of America's greatest inventor—1878. That year Edison, whom a New York newspaper in the spring first called "the Wizard of Menlo Park," developed the phonograph, one of his most famous inventions; made a breakthrough in the development of telephone transmitters, which made the instrument commercially viable; and announced the advent of domestic electric lighting, with only a few weeks' worth of tinkering necessary to complete its design (the announcement sent gas-company stocks plummeting; the research and development went on for four years).These inventions brought Edison financial support for his work and attention from the public. In January investors in the Edison Speaking Phonograph Company agreed to fund development work on the phonograph. The invention made Edison internationally famous and in May he traveled to Washington, D.C., to show the phonograph at the National Academy of Sciences, to Congress, and to President Rutherford B. Hayes at the White House. That same month Western Union agreed to pay Edison an annual salary of $6,000 for his telephone inventions, although other support from the company declined following the death of its president, William Orton. The stress of unceasing public attention, including a trans-Atlantic dispute over the question of who invented the microphone, led an exhausted Edison to travel west during the summer to witness a solar eclipse but also to seek rest. His six-week trip took him to San Francisco and the Yosemite region of California. Edison began working on electric lighting after his return and in October the Edison Electric Light Company was formed to support his research