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Article ID: CBB696854016

“A many-sided crystal”: Understanding the manifold legacy of Silvanus Phillips Thompson (1851–1916) (2021)

Centaurus: International Magazine of the History of Mathematics, Science, and Technology
Volume: 63
Issue: 3
Pages: 459-474

URI: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1600-0498.12399

DOI: 10.1111/1600-0498.12399

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Public understanding of science Teaching; pedagogy Technoscience; science and technology studies Engineering Quakers and Quakerism 20th century, early 19th century England Thompson, Silvanus Phillips

Was Silvanus Phillips Thompson primarily a physicist, electrical engineer, biographer, or teacher? His obituarists could not agree. I argue Thompson was in fact a polymathic generalist who, as a philanthropic Quaker, worked not to promote his own expertise but rather to ensure the public was swiftly informed of the most important techno-scientific research and applications of his contemporaries. I illustrate this in a comparison of Thompson and his longer-lived friend Oliver Lodge: working in closely-related areas, they had contrasting profiles and commitments. After inspecting Thompson's work as textbook author and bibliophile, I resolve his apparently paradoxical status as both radical critic and figurehead of multiple institutions. Finally, to flesh out his friends' representation of him as a “many-sided crystal,” I analyse Thompson's multi-facetted posthumous reputation, especially in reviews of the Life and Letters written by his widow Jane and daughter Helen exactly 100 years ago.

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