Acoustics in the early Royal Society 1660-1680

1982 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-175 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
Music Theory ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Scientific Discipline ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
Collective Interest ◽  
The Subject

The early Royal Society has been the focus of much attention by historians of science over many years, (1) but strangely enough there is no really detailed account to be found of the activities and discussions which took place in the weekly meetings, although there is ample information available on the subject. This study of the Royal Society’s collective interest in acoustics aims to provide a detailed analysis of an important subject that has not been dealt with elsewhere, at the same time as providing a case study of the way in which experiments were suggested and sometimes undertaken in meetings during the first twenty years of the Society’s existence. Apart from the article published forty years ago in this journal by Lloyd, in which the author is concerned only with articles in the Philosophical Transactions relating to music theory and acoustics in the years 1677—1698 (2), the contribution of members of the Royal Society to the topic of acoustics has been treated as subsidiary to that of more famous individuals in the seventeenth century; namely Galileo Galilei, Marin Mersenne, Isaac Newton and Joseph Sauveur. The comparative neglect of the activities of the Royal Society has arisen because writers have been concerned with tracing the ‘progress’ of acoustics as a scientific discipline, in which events in the seventeenth century merely set the scene for the triumphs of John and Daniel Bernoulli and Euler in the eighteenth century.

The Nonconformist Inheritance

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabel Rivers
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
John Bunyan ◽  
John Wesley ◽  
Religious Attitudes ◽  
Pilgrim's Progress ◽  
The Many ◽  
John Owen

This chapter analyses the editions, abridgements, and recommendations of texts by seventeenth-century nonconformists that were made by eighteenth-century dissenters, Methodists, and Church of England evangelicals. The nonconformist writers they chose include Joseph Alleine, Richard Baxter, John Flavel, John Owen, and John Bunyan. The editors and recommenders include Philip Doddridge, John Wesley, Edward Williams, Benjamin Fawcett, George Burder, John Newton, William Mason, and Thomas Scott. Detailed accounts are provided of the large number of Baxter’s works that were edited, notably A Call to the Unconverted and The Saints Everlasting Rest, and a case study is devoted to the many annotated editions of Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress and the ways in which they were used. The editors took into account length, intelligibility, religious attitudes, and cost, and sometimes criticized their rivals’ versions on theological grounds.

The Curious Eye

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erin Webster
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Human Vision ◽  
Francis Bacon ◽  
Robert Hooke ◽  
Robert Boyle ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
Johannes Kepler ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Historical Moment

The Curious Eye explores early modern debates over two related questions: what are the limits of human vision, and to what extent can these limits be overcome by technological enhancement? Today, in our everyday lives we rely on optical technology to provide us with information about visually remote spaces even as we question the efficacy and ethics of such pursuits. But the debates surrounding the subject of technologically mediated vision have their roots in a much older literary tradition in which the ability to see beyond the limits of natural human vision is associated with philosophical and spiritual insight as well as social and political control. The Curious Eye provides insight into the subject of optically mediated vision by returning to the literature of the seventeenth century, the historical moment in which human visual capacity in the West was first extended through the application of optical technologies to the eye. Bringing imaginative literary works by Francis Bacon, John Milton, Margaret Cavendish, and Aphra Behn together with optical and philosophical treatises by Johannes Kepler, René Descartes, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, and Isaac Newton, The Curious Eye explores the social and intellectual impact of the new optical technologies of the seventeenth century on its literature. At the same time, it demonstrates that social, political, and literary concerns are not peripheral to the optical science of the period but rather an integral part of it, the legacy of which we continue to experience.

Conclusion

2020 ◽  
pp. 239-258
Author(s):  
Meredith McNeill Hale
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
First Century ◽  
Political Satire ◽  
South Sea ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Battle Scenes ◽  
Intensive Investigation

This concluding chapter focuses on the question of circulation and impact: to what extent did De Hooghe’s satires travel beyond The Netherlands in the seventeenth century and what influence did they have on English political satire of the eighteenth century? The appearance of motifs from De Hooghe’s satires in mezzotints of c.1690 and prints on the subject of the South Sea Bubble of 1720 will be discussed as will instances in which De Hooghe’s satires were reissued in the eighteenth century. However, a comparison of this handful of examples with the liberal use of De Hooghe’s triumphal allegories and battle scenes in such distant locations as Latin America and Russia reveals one of the qualities that epitomizes political satire—its dramatic circumscription by temporal and geographical boundaries. Satire’s embeddedness in a specific political, historical, and cultural moment and its dependence upon text that often channels the idiosyncrasies of spoken language, render it difficult—often impossible without intensive investigation—to understand beyond its immediate context. This is as true for twenty-first-century satires as it was for those produced in the late seventeenth century.

Analysis, philosophical issues in

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
I. Grattan-Guinness
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Set Theory ◽  
Integral Calculus ◽  
Analytic Proof ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
The Status ◽  
Point Set ◽  
Convergence And Divergence ◽  
Major Branch

The term ‘mathematical analysis’ refers to the major branch of mathematics which is concerned with the theory of functions and includes the differential and integral calculus. Analysis and the calculus began as the study of curves, calculus being concerned with tangents to and areas under curves. The focus was shifted to functions following the insight, due to Leibniz and Isaac Newton in the second half of the seventeenth century, that a curve is the graph of a function. Algebraic foundations were proposed by Lagrange in the late eighteenth century; assuming that any function always took an expansion in a power series, he defined the derivatives from the coefficients of the terms. In the 1820s his assumption was refuted by Cauchy, who had already launched a fourth approach, like Newton’s based on limits, but formulated much more carefully. It was refined further by Weierstrass, by means which helped to create set theory. Analysis also encompasses the theory of limits and of the convergence and divergence of infinite series; modern versions also use point set topology. It has taken various forms over the centuries, of which the older ones are still represented in some notations and terms. Philosophical issues include the status of infinitesimals, the place of logic in the articulation of proofs, types of definition, and the (non-) relationship to analytic proof methods.

HERMENEUTICS AND THE NEW FORMENLEHRE: AN INTERPRETATION OF HAYDN'S ‘OXFORD’ SYMPHONY, FIRST MOVEMENT

2010 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 199-219 ◽  
Author(s):  
MATTHEW RILEY
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Music Theory ◽  
Human Action ◽  
First Century ◽  
Sonata Form ◽  
Primary Mode ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
Twenty First Century

This article establishes a dialogue between twenty-first-century music theory and historical modes of enquiry, adapting the new Formenlehre (Caplin, Hepokoski/Darcy) to serve a historically oriented hermeneutics. An analytical case study of the first movement of Haydn's Symphony No. 92 (1789) traces the changing functional meanings of the opening ‘caesura prolongation phrase’. The substance of the exposition consists largely of things functionally ‘before-the-beginning’ and ‘after-the-end’, while the recapitulation follows a logic of suspense and surprise, keeping the listener continually guessing. The analysis calls into question Hepokoski and Darcy's restriction of the mode of signification of sonata-form movements to the narration of human action. The primary mode of signification of the recapitulation is indexical: it stands as the effect of a human cause. This account matches late eighteenth-century concepts of ‘genius’.

scholarly journals At the Anniversary Meeting, November 30, 1844

1851 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 519-538
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Sir Isaac Newton ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
Legal Proceedings ◽  
The Public ◽  
Foreign Countries ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Antarctic

Gentlemen, The time has again come round for my addressing you, and for ex­pressing my own gratitude, as well as yours, to your Council for their constant and zealous attention to the interests of the Royal Society. We have been compelled during several late years to have recourse to legal proceedings on the subject of the great tithes of Mablethorp, a portion of the Society’s property, and I rejoice to say with success. In my last address, I was required to give our thanks to Mr. Watt and to Mr. Dollond for the valuable busts which they had kindly presented to us. That of Mr. Dollond is placed at the commence­ment of the staircase leading to our apartments, and serves to indi­cate that his valuable improvements in the construction of our tele­scopes have been so many steps to the acquisition of higher and higher knowledge of the great universe of which this globe forms so insignificant a part. By the liberality of Mr. Watt we shall soon be furnished with handsome pedestals for the busts of his father and of Sir Isaac Newton, the two great lights of British mechanical genius and British philosophical science. Mr. Gilbert has kindly undertaken to furnish a similar pedestal for the bust of his father, and we have thought it right to provide one for that of Sir Joseph Banks. These will shortly form a conspicuous ornament of our place of meeting. The magnetical observatories are still carrying on their observa­tions, both in Her Majesty’s dominions and in foreign countries, and another naval officer, Lieut. Moore, has proceeded to the Antarctic Seas to complete a portion of the survey of Captain Sir James Ross, which was interrupted by stress of weather. That gallant and enter­ prising officer will, I hope, ere long give to us and to the public his own narrative of his important discoveries. Detailed accounts of the botany and zoology of the regions visited by him are preparing under the patronage of the Government, while Colonel Sabine is proceeding with the raagnetical observations, which were the more immediate objects of this, one of the most important voyages of discovery ever undertaken.

Brighter than how many suns? Sir Isaac Newton’s burning mirror

1989 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-51 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Scientific Literature ◽  
Radiant Heat ◽  
The Other ◽  
Sir Isaac Newton ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The Press ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Hearsay Evidence

There are a number of references in the scientific literature to a burning mirror designed by Sir Isaac Newton (1). Together, they record that it was made from seven separate concave glasses, each about a foot in diameter, that Newton demonstrated its effects at several meetings of the Royal Society and that he presented it to the Society. Nonetheless, neither the earliest published list of instruments possessed by the Royal Society nor the most recent one mentions the burning mirror; the latest compiler does not even include it amongst those items, once owned, now lost. No reference to the instrument apparently survives in the Society’s main records. It is not listed by the author of the recent compendium on Newton’s life and work (2). There is, however, some contemporary information still extant (Appendix 1). Notes of the principles of its design and some of its effects are to be found in the Society’s Journal Book for 1704; some of the dimensions and the arrangement of the mirrors are given in a Lexicon published by John Harris which he donated to the Royal Society at the same meeting, 12 July 1704, at which Newton gave the Society the speculum. The last reference in the Journal Book is dated 15 November that year, when Mr Halley, the then secretary to the Society, was desired to draw up an account of the speculum and its effects (3). No such account appears to have been presented to the Royal Society. There is no reference in Newton’s published papers and letters of his chasing Halley to complete the task, nor is there any mention of it in the general references to Halley. The latter was, of course, quite accustomed to performing odd jobs for Newton; that same year he was to help the Opticks through the press. The only other contemporary reference to the burning mirror, though only hearsay evidence since Flamsteed was not present at the meeting, is in a letter the latter wrote to James Pound; this confirms that there were seven mirrors and that the aperture of each was near a foot in diameter (4). Because John Harris gave his Dictionary to the Royal Society in Newton’s presence, it is reasonable to assume that his description is accurate. As Newton would hardly have left an inaccurate one unchallenged, then, belatedly, the account desired of Mr Halley can be presented. In some respects, the delay is advantageous, since the subject of radiant heat and its effects, although already by Newton’s period an ancient one, is today rather better understood. On the other hand, some data has to be inferred, that could have been measured, and some assumptions made about Newton’s procedures and understanding that could have been checked (5).

scholarly journals Analysing Mozart's Fantasia K.475 through Intersections of Schematic and Schenkerian Thought

2020 ◽  
pp. 123-162
Author(s):  
Karishmeh Felfeli-Crawford
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Schema Theory ◽  
Theoretical Knowledge ◽  
Schenkerian Analysis ◽  
Theoretical Understanding ◽  
Case Study Analysis ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Potential Impact ◽  
Object Of Study

This article orientates an investigation of the late eighteenth-century fantasia around a case study of Mozart's Fantasia in C Minor K.475, relating its findings to an array of historical contexts generating new insights into a genre, which remains 'an inherently problematic object of study' compared to formally closed genres of sonata and rondo (Richards 2001:15). Musicological literature on the subject has focused mainly on keyboard fantasias by C.P.E. Bach (1714-1788) as well as on nineteenth-century fantasias by Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Liszt et al. The dearth of analytical engagement with the Mozartian model is perplexing, given its potential impact on the genre’s development; unlike the preceding free fantasias of C.P.E. Bach, K.475 combines structural logic and formal coherence with quasi-fantastical effects more typical of the Bachian fantasia.   To this end, the article first provides a brief overview of musicological, theoretical and analytical contexts, drawing out conceptual frameworks in the work of Annette Richards (2001) and Matthew Head (2014), which have not yet been employed in a study of the Mozartian fantasia. The case-study analysis of K.475 that follows, engages critically with two established methodologies: Robert Gjerdingen's schema theory (2007) and Schenkerian Analysis. Lastly, analytical discourse remains sensitive to the performance process, with a view to discovering if and how theoretical knowledge gained through analysis translates into a fantasia performance, and scrutinising ways in which performative introspection continues to influence a theoretical understanding of the piece.

Eighteenth-Century Opera and the Mimetic Affektenlehre

2020 ◽  
pp. 29-60
Author(s):  
Roger Mathew Grant
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Music Theory ◽  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
Technical Basis

This chapter opens in the late seventeenth century, describing the stabilization of musical conventions that took place in the opera theatre. It examines the aesthetics of early serious opera—an often-tragic spectacle that united poetry with stage action and music to create an integrated series of mimetic representations for its audiences. Music’s affective power was clearly felt in this medium, though theorists around the turn of the century could only approximate its method of operation. Their efforts formed the mimetic Affektenlehre: a set of taxonomic music theory documents that attempted to codify the technical basis of opera’s multimedia representations in musical terms. The chapter concludes by demonstrating how theorists quickly realized that their efforts could never fully capture this system, nor would their account of it ever completely agree.

Conclusion

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert G. Ingram
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Modern State ◽  
English Reformation ◽  
Wars Of Religion ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Church

The conclusion explains why the English Reformation ended in the late eighteenth century. It discounts a secular and secularizing Enlightenment as an explanation. Rather, it offers three other reasons for the Reformation’s ending. Firstly, by the last quarter of the eighteenth century enough time had passed to make the seventeenth-century wars of religion less threatening than they had seemed earlier in the century. Secondly, the Reformation issues with which the eighteenth-century English dealt got supplanted by other, more urgent ones, often having to do with England’s expanding empire. Finally, and importantly, the Reformation ended because the polemical divines who are the subject of this book failed fully in their tasks of defining truth and of defending the autonomy of the established Church of England. In the end, the modern state took on the role as truth’s arbiter and made the Church a subordinate, dependent institution.

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