Astronomers mark time: discipline and the personal equation
@article{Schaffer1988AstronomersMT, title={Astronomers mark time: discipline and the personal equation}, author={Simon Schaffer}, journal={Science in Context}, year={1988}, volume={2}, pages={115-145} }
It is often assumed that all sciences travel the path of increasing precision and quantification. It is also assumed that such processes transcend the boundaries of rival scientific disciplines. The history of the personal equation has been cited as an example: the "personal equation" was the name given by astronomers after Bessel to the differences in measured transit times recorded by observers in the same situation. Later in the nineteenth century Wilhelm Wundt used this phenomenon as a type…
208 Citations
The calculating eye: Baily, Herschel, Babbage and the business of astronomy
- PhysicsThe British Journal for the History of Science
- 1994
Astronomy does not often appear in the socio-political and economic history of nineteenthcentury Britain. Whereas contemporary literature, poetry and the visual arts made significant reference to the…
Constant differences: Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel, the concept of the observer in early nineteenth-century practical astronomy and the history of the personal equation
- PhysicsThe British Journal for the History of Science
- 2007
Abstract In 1823 the astronomer Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel gave notice of an observational error which is now known as the personal equation. Bessel, however, never used this phrase to characterize the…
Observatory mathematics in the nineteenth century
- Physics
- 2008
T value of the service of an Assistant to the Observatory’, the Astronomer Royal George Biddell Airy wrote in 1861, ‘depends very materially on his acquaintance with Observatory Mathematics’.1 3 ere…
The Córdoba Observatory and the History of the ‘Personal Equation’ (1871–1886)
- Physics
- 2013
1. IntroductionThe Cordoba Observatory in Argentina, founded in 1871 with state funds, was directed until 1886 by Benjamin Gould, an American trained by German astronomers.' His work there began at…
On the boredom of science: positional astronomy in the nineteenth century
- PhysicsThe British Journal for the History of Science
- 2013
Abstract To those not engaged in the practice of scientific research, or telling the story of this enterprise, the image of empirical observation may conjure up images of boredom more than anything…
astronomers at the o bservatory: p lace, Visual p ractice, t races
- Physics
- 2012
Focusing ethnographically on astronomers engaged in “look back studies” of cosmic evolution, this essay considers how they make telescopic observations at an optical observatory in the context of…
In Pursuit of Precision: The Calibration of Minds and Machines in Late Nineteenth-century Psychology
- PsychologyAnnals of science
- 2000
This work will analyse how psychologists set out to produce precision in 'mental chronometry', the measurement of the duration of psychological processes, and describe the intricate material, literary, and social technologies involved in the manufacture of precision.
A National Observatory Transformed: Greenwich in the Nineteenth Century
- Physics
- 1991
The Royal Observatory at Greenwich was one of the leading institutions of nineteenth-century astronomy. It was certainly a national observatory, but for much of that period the high regard with which…
Conflicting Cosmologies and the Classification of Planets
- Physics, Geology
- 2010
In 2006, for the first time in its history, the International Astronomical Union defined the characteristics of a 'planet' in our Solar System and consequently demoted Pluto from 'planet' to 'dwarf…
References
SHOWING 1-10 OF 78 REFERENCES
Amateurs versus Professionals: The Controversy over Telescope Size in Late Victorian Science
- PhysicsIsis
- 1981
S TUDENTS OF THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE have long held professionalization to be a theme worthy of systematic investigation. Their conception of the dynamics involved, however, is frequently too narrow.…
The Function of Measurement in Modern Physical Science
- EducationIsis
- 1961
AT the University of Chicago, the facade of the Social Science Research Building bears Lord Kelvin's famous dictum: "If you cannot measure, your knowledge is meager and unsatisfactory."' Would that…
Science and Controversy: A Biography of Sir Norman Lockyer
- Physics
- 1972
One of the most important astronomers of his day and the inaugurator and first editor of the journal "Nature, " Sir Norman Lockyer was one of the key figures of the late Victorian period. The author…
The Magnetic Crusade: Science and Politics in Early Victorian Britain
- HistoryIsis
- 1979
D URING ONE OF THE MOST TURBULENT PERIODS in the history of British science-the 1830s-Edward Sabine, Humphrey Lloyd, John Herschel, and a small group of supporters campaigned for and eventually…
Beyond the planets: early nineteenth-century studies of double stars
- PhysicsThe British Journal for the History of Science
- 1984
In 1837 the German-born astronomer F. G. W. Struve published his famous catalogue of double stars. For Struve this was the culmination of 12 years' detailed observation of a class of celestial…
From Celestial Mechanics to Social Physics: Discontinuity in the Development of the Sciences in the Early Nineteenth Century
- Education
- 1981
Statistics textbooks for social scientists describe sound mathematical practices as having the power to reveal and then neutralize distortions resulting from biased research strategies, biased…
Changing Order: Replication and Induction in Scientific Practice
- Education
- 1985
H M Collins is co-author of the widely acclaimed "Frames of Meaning "and Director of the Science Studies Centre at Bath University. He continues his work in the sociology of science with this book, a…
The Mathematics of Society: Variation and Error in Quetelet's Statistics
- PhysicsThe British Journal for the History of Science
- 1985
“Let us apply to the political and moral sciences the method founded upon observation and upon calculus, the method which has served us so well in the natural sciences.” The social sciences have…
Amateurs and Astrophysics: A Neglected Aspect in the Development of a Scientific Specialty
- Physics
- 1981
This paper examines seven key amateurs and their relationship to the growth of astrophysics over a sixty-year period and sees five Britons and two Americans seen as the risk-takers of the new specialty.