Article ID: CBB001023790

Great Pyramid Metrology and the Material Politics of Basalt (2010)

unapi

Barany, Michael J. (Author)


Spontaneous Generations
Volume: 4
Pages: 45--60


Publication Date: 2010
Edition Details: Part of a special issue, “Scientific Instruments: Knowledge, Practice, and Culture”
Language: English

Astronomer Charles Piazzi Smyth's 1864--65 expedition to measure the Great Pyramid of Giza was planned around a system of linear measures designed to guarantee the validity of his measurements and settle ongoing uncertainties as to the Pyramid's true size. When the intended system failed to come together, Piazzi Smyth was forced to improvise a replacement that presented a fundamental challenge to the metrological enterprise upon which his system had been based. The astronomer's new system centered around a small lump of basalt, now held at Cambridge's Whipple Museum of the History of Science, which nucleated a wide array of material and scientific considerations. Through a bipartite analysis of the physical and narrative dimensions of Piazzi Smyth's basalt Standard, I develop the implications of its use and construction for understanding the material constitution of scientific instruments. In particular, I illustrate how instruments are locally constituted through co-accountable systems and how their material features become integrally implicated in both their uses and meanings.

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Article Record, Isaac (2010) Scientific Instruments: Knowledge, Practice, and Culture. Spontaneous Generations (p. 1). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001023790/

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Authors & Contributors
Sheppard, Kathleen L.
Sartori, Sergio
Dorothy U. Seyler
Miguel Ohnesorge
Gasparetto, Michele
Gold, Meira
Concepts
Archaeology
Egyptology
Measurement
Metrology
Metric system
Science and religion
Time Periods
19th century
20th century, early
20th century
18th century
21st century
Modern
Places
Egypt
Great Britain
Latvia
England
United States
Russia
Institutions
University College, London
Latvian Academy of Sciences
Convention du mètre (1875)
British Museum
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