From King's Instrument Repository to National Physical Laboratory: Kew Observatory, physics and the Victorian world, 1840-1900

This thesis attempts to fill a notable gap in the literature on nineteenth-century science, by writing the history of Kew Observatory between 1840 and 1900 as an institution. I frame this institutional history within three overall questions:- 1) What can the history of Kew Observatory tell us about how the physical sciences were organised in the Victorian era? 2) How did the ‘observatory sciences’ (defined by historian David Aubin as sciences practised within the observatory, of which astronomy is just one) at Kew develop over the course of the nineteenth century? 3) How did standardisation develop at Kew in the context of the culture of the physical sciences between 1840 and 1900? I demonstrate that throughout the period 1840-1900, the organisation of science at Kew was thoroughly a part of Victorian laissez-faire ideology. Indeed, laissez-faire dictated the emphasis of the work at Kew later in the century, as the observatory was forced to concentrate on lucrative standardisation services. I show that until the 1871 transfer of Kew from the British Association for the Advancement of Science to the Royal Society, the work at Kew expanded to include several observatory sciences, but that after 1871 Kew became a specialist organisation that concentrated principally on just one of these: standardisation. I show that Kew did not simply reflect contemporary trends in the observatory sciences but that it actually helped to set these trends. Finally, I show that as early as the 1850s, the standardisation work at Kew was an essential service to the London instrument trade, private individuals and government departments. I use this, plus archival evidence, to argue that the National Physical Laboratory evolved as an extension of Kew Observatory. I thus argue that the origins of the NPL in Kew Observatory represent one of the last triumphs of laissez-faire

The chemical and pharmaceutical trading activities of the Society of Apothecaries, 1822 to 1922

EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

WATS - WEBB

OnLine Card Catalogue drawer 0423 (WATS - WEBB). 1338 cards

Philosophers and artisans : the relationship between men of science and instrument makers in London 1820-1860

This thesis examines the changed status of the instrument maker in the London-based scientific community of the nineteenth century, compared with the eighteenth century, and seeks to account for the difference. Chapter 1 establishes that the eighteenth-century maker could aspire to full membership of the scientific community. The following chapters show that this became impossible by the period 1820-1860. Among reasons suggested for the change are that the instrument maker's educational context to some extent precluded him from contributing to scientific innovation, and also the changed market for his products in an industrial Britain required that he devote more time to his business, thus decreasing the time available to pursue new developments. However, the decline is attributed mainly to the tendency of the scientific community to refine its own criteria of membership, in an era in which its self-consciousness as a distinct group increased, and its members articulated claims to status in terms of their value to the State. This ideology and its consequences are analysed in a number of studies. Chapter 2 deals with the burgeoning of collective identity in the context of the Royal Society, while the next four chapters study individual members of the scientific elite - Wheatstone, Babbage, Airy and Faraday, and their relationships with instrument makers. The studies demonstrate that the philosopher recognised the artisan's work as important, but not as vital as his own, and not classifiable as scientific work. As an institutional manifestation of the motives of the leading philosophers, the B.A.A.S. is the focus of Chapter 7. The final case study centres on the maker's tactics of self-promotion in business terms, thus linking more fully the factors at work in ensuring the rise of the philosopher and the decline in status of the artisan in the scientific community

Lodestone and earth: the study of magnetism and terrestrial magnetism in Great Britain, c 1750-1830

This dissertation investigates a neglected area in the history of the physical sciences--the history of the study of magnetism. Examining the study of magnetism and terrestrial magnetism in Great Britain from the 1750s to the 1830s allows for discussing the changing motives, methods, and results of magnetic and geomagnetic studies. The changes in magnetic studies are comparable to dramatic transformations in other areas of experimental physics, including the studies of heat, light, and electricity;With the publication of De Magnete, William Gilbert intimately linked the earth\u27s magnetism to magnetism by arguing the earth was a giant magnet. Though subsequent Cartesian theories assumed the circulation of a material magnetic fluid, they retained the Gilbertian notion that the earth and ordinary magnets had the same causes. Because the analogy persisted into the nineteenth century, theories of magnetism and terrestrial magnetism were frequently discussed together;The impetus for collecting geomagnetic data changed between 1750 and 1835. Around 1800, the discovery of ship magnetism lent important practical reasons for understanding magnetism. As well, magnetic collecting took on new importance with renewed Arctic exploration in 1818. Tracing the changing motives behind and methods of collecting magnetic data reveals its shifting practical, scientific, and symbolic importance;Mystery and confusion surrounded the study of magnetism from 1750 to 1790. While important, the study of magnetism was much less studied than electricity. Though most endorsed circulating fluid theories, there was little consensus regarding the causes of terrestrial magnetism. In the meantime, many speculated that unifying principles, such as Newton\u27s ether, linked all phenomena together;From 1780 to 1820, mathematical and quantitative imponderable fluid theories of Aepinus and Coulomb displaced the qualitative circulating fluid theories. In Britain, John Robison and several others made known Aepinian theory. Scottish methodology and Laplacian science played vital roles in changing the face of British experimental physics;Between 1820 and 1840, magnetic theories changed with the discovery of electromagnetism and subsequent flood of experimentation. Challenges to Laplacian orthodoxy supposed that magnetism, electricity, heat, light, chemical action, and rotation were intimately connected. Meanwhile, the Humboldtian-cosmical approach altered the understanding of geomagnetism as well

A Combined Equaliser and Decoder for Maximum Likelihood Decoding of Convolutional Codes in the presence of ISI. Incorporation into GSM 3GPP Standard

The dissertation describes a new approach in combining the equalising and decoding operations in wireless telecommunications, namely MS decoder. It provides performance results (SNR) and carries out simulations based on GSM 3GPP standard

Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution, showing the operations, expenditures, and condition of the institution for the year 1878

45-3Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution. [1835] Research related to the American Indian.1879-3

Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution, showing the operations, expenditures, and condition of the institution for the year 1878

Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution. [1835] Research related to the American Indian

Girdling the Globe, Networking the World - A Discourse Analysis of the Media Representation of Nineteenth-Century Transport and Communication Technologies in Victorian Britain, 1838 - 1871

The nineteenth century witnessed the emergence of an unprecedented global transport and communication infrastructure in shape of steamships, railways, telegraph landlines and submarine cables and related engineering works, such as canals and railway tunnels. For various reasons, Great Britain could position itself at the centre of these new networks. Their ramifications on various spheres, such as global trade and the conduct of imperial policy, have received sustained scholarly attention. An in-depth analysis of the general public’s reactions to the burgeoning infrastructure and the technologies involved, however, has not been carried out. Providing a discourse analysis of the various technologies’ representation in Victorian print publications, this dissertation closes this gap. Focusing specifically on the newly established connections between Britain and India, on the one hand, and Britain and the United States, on the other, it investigates contemporaries’ attitudes, perceptions and expectations and shows that in many ways, Victorian approaches anticipated postmodern analyses. For this, specific events have been selected and were monitored in a variety of British newspapers, magazines and other relevant printed material of the time. In so doing, this dissertation reveals that Victorian approaches towards technology reached beyond simplistic technological determinist beliefs and that their understanding of changing spatiotemporal arrangements was more sophisticated than the oft-quoted phrase of the ‘annihilation of time and space’ suggests. Further, it reveals the social and cultural frameworks into which these transport and communication technologies were embedded and illustrates the role they were given in the context of the formation of collective identities and interstate rivalries