IsisCB Explore

Article ID: CBB055349020

The instruments of expeditionary science and the reworking of nineteenth-century magnetic experiment (2022)

Gillin, Edward J. (Author)

Notes and Records: The Royal Society Journal of the History of Science
Volume: 76
Issue: 3
Pages: 565-592

DOI: 10.1098/rsnr.2022.0002

URI: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsnr.2022.0002

Outside Links

WorldCat

Google Scholar

JSTOR

Academia.edu

Government sponsored science Historical reconstruction Experiments and experimentation Scientific apparatus and instruments Scientific expeditions Magnetism 19th century Great Britain

During the mid-nineteenth century, British naval expeditions navigated the world as part of the most extensive scientific undertaking of the age. Between 1839 and the early 1850s, the British government orchestrated a global surveying of the Earth's magnetic phenomena: this was a philosophical enterprise of unprecedented state support and geographical extent. But to conduct this investigation relied on the use of immensely delicate instruments, known as ‘dipping needles’. The most celebrated of these were those of Robert Were Fox, designed and built in Cornwall. Yet these devices were difficult to physically maintain and ensuring accuracy throughout a magnetic experiment was challenging. In 2020, Crosbie Smith and I took an original Fox dipping needle on a voyage from Falmouth to Cape Town, retracing the routes of survey expeditions, including James Clark Ross's 1839–43 Antarctic venture. The article offers an account of our experiences, combined with historical reports of the instrument's past performances. It explores the instrumental challenges involved in nineteenth-century global experimental investigation. The great problem for the British magnetic survey was of coordinating standardized experimental measurements over vast expanses of space and time. As this article argues, this was very much a question of instrumental management, both of dipping needles and of human performers.

...More

Citation URI

https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB055349020/

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Article Larson, Edward J.; (2011)
Public Science for a Global Empire: The British Quest for the South Magnetic Pole (/isis/citation/CBB001022860/)

Chapter Lucia De Frenza; (2017)
The “Poles” of Healing: Mineral Magnetism vs. Animal Magnetism (/isis/citation/CBB352886342/)

Article Roberts, G. W.; (2009)
Magnetism and Chronometers: The Research of the Reverend George Fisher (/isis/citation/CBB000931909/)

Article David Evan Pence; (2022)
Closing the Loop: Ewald von Kleist and the Origins of the Leyden Jar (/isis/citation/CBB256458041/)

Book Staubermann, Klaus; (2011)
Reconstructions: Recreating Science and Technology of the Past (/isis/citation/CBB001250463/)

Article Cecon, Kleber; (2011)
Chemical Translation: The Case of Robert Boyle's Experiments on Sensible Qualities (/isis/citation/CBB001033822/)

Article Sybil G. de Clark; (2016)
The Dimensions of the Magnetic Pole: A Controversy at the Heart of Early Dimensional Analysis (/isis/citation/CBB030741728/)

Article Enebakk, Vidar; (2014)
Hansteen's Magnetometer and the Origin of the Magnetic Crusade (/isis/citation/CBB001202237/)

Chapter Cavicchi, Elizabeth; (2011)
The Spiral Conductor of Charles Grafton Page: Reconstructing Experience with the Body, More Options, and Ambiguity (/isis/citation/CBB001250772/)

Article Hemmen, George E.; (2010)
Royal Society Expeditions in the Second Half of the Twentieth Century (/isis/citation/CBB001022756/)

Article Cavicchi, Elizabeth; (2008)
Charles Grafton Page's Experiment with a Spiral Conductor (/isis/citation/CBB000950525/)

Chapter Staubermann, Klaus; (2011)
Aim at the Stars, Reach the Nicol: The Zöllner Photometer (/isis/citation/CBB001250775/)

Article R.C. Kapoor; Wayne Orchiston; (2023)
Colonial astronomy as an element of Empire in British India (/isis/citation/CBB770458313/)

Article Nick Lomb; (2016)
Australian solar eclipse expeditions: the voyage to Cape York in 1871 (/isis/citation/CBB786393264/)

Chapter Bailey, Michael R.; (2011)
Learning through Replications: The Planet Locomotive Project (/isis/citation/CBB001250770/)

Article Büntgen, Ulf; Hellmann, Lena; (2014)
The Little Ice Age in Scientific Perspective: Cold Spells and Caveats (/isis/citation/CBB001201286/)

Article Baudot, Laura; (2012)
An Air of History: Joseph Wright's and Robert Boyle's Air Pump Narratives (/isis/citation/CBB001320004/)

Chapter Langman, Pete; (2011)
The Audience Is Listening: Reading Writing about Learning by Doing (/isis/citation/CBB001024414/)

Article Jane Wess; (2021)
New light on the role of instruments in exploration during the 1830s (/isis/citation/CBB822844822/)

Article Luedecke, Cornelia; (2004)
The First International Polar Year (1882--83): A Big Science Experiment with Small Science Equipment (/isis/citation/CBB000931763/)

Comments

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}