scholarly journals James Gregory, the University observatory and the early acquisition of scientific instruments at the University of St Andrews

2015 ◽  
Vol 69 (2) ◽  
pp. 109-133 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen C. Rawson
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
British Isles ◽  
Scientific Instruments ◽  
University Library ◽  
Early Acquisition ◽  
And Mathematics ◽  
The University ◽  
Regius Professor

James Gregory, inventor of the reflecting telescope and Fellow of the Royal Society, was the first Regius Professor of Mathematics of the University of St Andrews, 1668–74. He attempted to establish in St Andrews what would, if completed, have been the first purpose-built observatory in the British Isles. He travelled to London in 1673 to purchase instruments for equipping the observatory and improving the teaching and study of natural philosophy and mathematics in the university, seeking the advice of John Flamsteed, later the first Astronomer Royal. This paper considers the observatory initiative and the early acquisition of instruments at the University of St Andrews, with reference to Gregory's correspondence, inventories made ca. 1699– ca. 1718 and extant instruments themselves, some of which predate Gregory's time. It examines the structure and fate of the university observatory, the legacy of Gregory's teaching and endeavours, and the meridian line laid down in 1748 in the University Library.

A descriptive catalogue of the manuscripts of Nicolaus Mercator, F. R. S. (1620-87), in Sheffield University Library

1986 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-37 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Alma Mater ◽  
University Library ◽  
Oliver Cromwell ◽  
The University ◽  
Scientific Achievements

The scientific achievements of Nicolaus Mercator have in recent years A begun to achieve a just measure of attention (1). Little beyond the bare details, however, is known about the life and career of this early Fellow of the Royal Society. Born Nicolaus Kauffman in Holstein, he was known throughout most of his life by the Latinized version of his name. He attended the University of Rostock and seems to have taught for a time at both his alma mater and at the University of Copenhagen. In 1654 he moved to England after his proposal for a revision of the calendar (2) caught the notice of Oliver Cromwell. He left England for France about 1683, having been engaged by Colbert to design the waterworks at Versailles.

John James Rickard Macleod, 1876-1935

1935 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 584-589
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Early Death ◽  
Early Age ◽  
Grammar School ◽  
University Of Toronto ◽  
Medical College ◽  
Mcgill University ◽  
The University ◽  
University Of Leipzig ◽  
Regius Professor

John James Rickard Macleod, the son of the Rev. Robert Macleod, was born at Cluny, near Dunkeld, Perthshire, on September 6, 1876. He received his preliminary education at Aberdeen Grammar School and in 1893 entered Marischal College, University of Aberdeen, as a medical student. After a distinguished student career he graduated M.B., Ch.B. with Honours in 1898 and was awarded the Anderson Travelling Fellowship. He proceeded to Germany and worked for a year in the Physiological Institute of the University of Leipzig. He returned to London on his appointment as a Demonstrator of Physiology at the London Hospital Medical College under Professor Leonard Hill. Two years later he was appointed to the Lectureship on Biochemistry in the same college. In 1901 he was awarded the McKinnon Research Studentship of the Royal Society. At the early age of 27 (in 1902) he was appointed Professor of Physiology at the Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, a post he occupied until 1918, when he was elected Professor of Physiology at the University of Toronto. Previous to this transfer he had, during his last two years at Cleveland, been engaged in various war duties and incidentally had acted for part of the winter session of 1916 as Professor of Physiology at McGill University, Montreal. He remained at Toronto for ten years until, in 1928, he was appointed Regius Professor of Physiology in the University of Aberdeen, a post he held, in spite of steadily increasing disability, until his lamentably early death on March 16, 1935, at the age of 58.

scholarly journals John Graham Kerr, 1869-1957

1958 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 155-166 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Thomas Carlyle ◽  
University Of Edinburgh ◽  
And Mathematics ◽  
The University ◽  
Short Time ◽  
Three Sisters ◽  
Broad Interest ◽  
Special Time ◽  
Selection Of

John Graham Kerr was born on 18 September 1869, at Arkley, Herts, the son of James Kerr, M.A., a former Principal of Hoogly and Hindu College, Calcutta, and of Sybella Graham, of Hollows, Dumfriesshire. He was third in a family of four with three sisters. His father was a well-known educationalist and the author of various works dealing with a number of topics including Indian educational problems, English orthography and aspects of human nature, and Thomas Carlyle. Graham Kerr, as he was known throughout the greater part of his life, lost his mother in early childhood and grew up under the influence of his father who although his tastes were mainly literary had a broad interest in general science, especially in natural history and evolution, in which he was widely read. His father superintended the early stages of his education, including latin and mathematics, and encouraged the reading of such books as Darwin’s The voyage of the Beagle , Waterton’s Wanderings , Wallace’s Amazon and Malay Archipelago , etc. In addition, his library contained a large selection of classical works, especially poetry and history, and Graham Kerr was brought up in a general atmosphere of literary culture. His schooling began at the parish school of Dalkeith, Midlothian, under William Young, a good example of the old-fashioned type of parish schoolmaster who did not hesitate to give special time and attention to any boy who in his opinion possessed the natural capacity to benefit by his teaching. After a short time at the Collegiate School, Edinburgh, he passed on to the Royal High School, where he was specially influenced by Munn, the mathematics master under whose tuition he became Dux of the Fifth Form. He subsequently enrolled in the University of Edinburgh and first concentrated on higher mathematics and natural philosophy. He then studied geology, botany and zoology and finally decided to follow out the curriculum in medicine. This was interrupted when on a wintry afternoon in February 1889, this young medical student of nineteen, returning home from his classes picked up a copy of Nature at the book-stall in Waverley Station, and read an announcement which in his own words ‘determined the whole future of my life’.

British geography 1500–1900

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
David N. Livingstone
Keyword(s):  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Religious History ◽  
British Isles ◽  
Local Identity ◽  
The Social ◽  
Learned Societies ◽  
Royal Courts ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Mathematics

This chapter presents an impressionistic, and thus imprecise, sketch of the history of British geography from 1500 to 1900. Over these 400 years, British geography has assumed many different forms in many different arenas. Whether as a species of natural philosophy and mathematics, as a form of regional portraiture, as overseas lore, or expeditionary travel; whether in universities curricula or at royal courts, in school texts or learned societies; whether as a vehicle of national and local identity or as a channel of imperial desire: geography has been inextricably intertwined with the social, intellectual, political and religious history of the British Isles.

The Marginalization of Astrology in Seventeenth-Century Scotland

2017 ◽  
Vol 22 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 464-486 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane Ridder-Patrick
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Observational Methods ◽  
Core Component ◽  
University Library ◽  
University Curriculum ◽  
The University ◽  
Influential Individuals

As evidenced by student notebooks, astrology was a core component of the university curriculum in Scotland until the late seventeenth century. Edinburgh University Library catalogues document that purchases of astrology books peaked in the 1670s. By 1700, however, astrology’s place in academia had been irrevocably lost. The reasons for this abrupt elimination include changes in natural philosophy as scholastic ideas and texts were shed and Cartesianism, Copernicanism, Newtonianism and the experimental and observational methods were adopted. The changing identity of astrological practitioners also played a major role, as did the personal animosity of influential individuals like the mathematician and astronomer David Gregory.


Mathematical subtleties and scientific knowledge: Francis Bacon and mathematics, at the crossing of two traditions

2016 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
GIULIANO MORI
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Inductive Method ◽  
Francis Bacon ◽  
And Mathematics ◽  
The Many ◽  
Royal Society Of London

AbstractThis article engages the much-debated role of mathematics in Bacon's philosophy and inductive method at large. The many references to mathematics in Bacon's works are considered in the context of the humanist reform of the curriculum studiorum and, in particular, through a comparison with the kinds of natural and intellectual subtlety as they are defined by many sixteenth-century authors, including Cardano, Scaliger and Montaigne. Additionally, this article gives a nuanced background to the ‘subtlety’ commonly thought to have been eschewed by Bacon and by Bacon's self-proclaimed followers in the Royal Society of London. The aim of this article is ultimately to demonstrate that Bacon did not reject the use of mathematics in natural philosophy altogether. Instead, he hoped that following the Great Instauration a kind of non-abstract mathematics could be founded: a kind of mathematics which was to serve natural philosophy by enabling men to grasp the intrinsic subtlety of nature. Rather than mathematizing nature, it was mathematics that needed to be ‘naturalized’.

scholarly journals On Swan's Prism Photometer, commonly called Lummer and Brodhun's Photometer

1902 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 12-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. G. Knott
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Modern Literature ◽  
High Interest ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The University

In 1849 William Swan, subsequently Professor of Natural Philosophy in the University of St Andrews, read a paper on the “Gradual Production of Luminous Impressions on the Eye and other Phenomena of Vision” before the Royal Society of Edinburgh (see Transactions, Vol. XVI.). This paper contains some results of high interest, but I have no recollection of ever having seen it referred to in modern literature on the subject.

scholarly journals William Wright Smith, 1875-1956

1957 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 192-202
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Royal Botanic Garden ◽  
Botanic Garden ◽  
Living Things ◽  
University Of Edinburgh ◽  
Second Year ◽  
The University ◽  
Regius Professor

Sir William Wright Smith, the eminent botanist, who was President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh from 1944 to 1949, died on 15 December 1956, in his eighty-second year. For thirty-four years he held the dual appointment of Regius Professor of Botany in the University of Edinburgh and Regius Keeper of the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh; he was also Queen’s Botanist in Scotland. Born at Parkend near Lochmaben on 2 February 1875, the son of a Dumfries-shire farmer, he early acquired the interest in living things and a love for the country, which (though he was to spend the greater part of his life in Edinburgh) remained predominantly with him all his days. His school was the Dumfries Academy where he went till the age of sixteen, when he left for Edinburgh as first University Bursar. Every day he had to travel to school by train, yet he found time to explore his native countryside, and his regard for natural history was by no means confined to plants. For example, he enjoyed watching birds and fishing, or, with one or two companions, guddling for trout or, again, in a leisure hour lying on some sunny bank by a convenient rabbit warren with book and gun. Though not robust he played conventional games, and he was fond of cycling, sometimes covering long distances, once at least more than a hundred miles in one day.

scholarly journals Francis Hauksbee and his air pump

2012 ◽  
Vol 66 (3) ◽  
pp. 253-272 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terje Brundtland
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
The State ◽  
Scientific Instruments ◽  
Vacuum Technology ◽  
Museums And Collections

Francis Hauksbee was active in London between 1699 and 1713. During those years he built scientific instruments, gave public lectures on natural philosophy and worked as a curator of experiments for the Royal Society. His most celebrated instrument is the double-barrelled air pump, which represents the ‘state of the art’ of eighteenth-century vacuum technology in Britain. Based on original texts and an examination of extant pumps of this design, this article offers a description of the air pump and an account of some of the experiments performed with it. In addition, notes on existing Hauksbee pumps to be found in modern museums and collections are provided.

scholarly journals IV. An account of the late eruption of Mount Vesuvius

1795 ◽  
Vol 85 ◽  
pp. 73-116 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Almost All ◽  
The University

Sir, Every day produces some new publication relative to the late tremendous eruption of mount Vesuvius, so that the various phaenomena that attended it will be found on record in either one or other of these publications, and are not in that danger of being passed over and forgotten, as they were formerly, when the study of natural history was either totally neglected, or treated of in a manner very unworthy of the great Author of nature. I am sorry to say, that even so late as in the accounts of the earthquakes in Calabria in 1783, printed at Naples, nature is taxed with being malevolent, and bent upon destruction. In a printed account of another great eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 1631, by Antonio Santorelli, doctor of medicine, and professor of natural philosophy in the university of Naples, and at the head of the fourth chapter of his book, are these words: Se questo incendio sia opera de' demonii? Whether this eruption be the work of devils? The account of an eruption of Vesuvius in 1737, published at Naples by Doctor Serao, is of a very different cast, and does great honour to his memory. All great eruptions of volcanoes must naturally produce nearly the same phenomena, and in Serao's book almost all the phenomena we have been witness to during the late eruption of Vesuvius, are there admirably described, and well accounted for. The classical accounts of the eruption of Vesuvius, which destroyed the towns of Herculaneum and Pompeii, and many of the existing printed accounts of its great eruption in 1631 (although the latter are mixed with puerilities) might pass for an account of the late eruption by only changing the date, and omitting that circumstance of the retreat of the sea from the coast, which happened in both those great eruptions, and not in this; and I might content myself by referring to those accounts, and assuring you at the same time, that the late eruption, after those two, appears to have been the most violent recorded by history, and infinitely more alarming than either the eruption of 1767, or that of 1779, of both of which I had the honour of giving a particular account to the Royal Society. However, I think it my duty rather to hazard being guilty of repetition than to neglect the giving you every satisfaction in my power, relative to the late formidable operation of nature.

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