XLIII Scientific Instrument Symposium - SIC 2024

Session Chair: Zhao Ke (University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu)

Place and Precision: Electromagnetic Geophysics and Computing at the University of Toronto
Author: Erich Weidenhammer
Beginning around the middle of the 20th century, the University of Toronto Department of Physics emerged as a centre of research and training in electromagnetic (EM) geophysical methods. The reasons for this point to the nature of applied scientific research in Canada, as well as to the geographical situation of the University. Canada, a vast and thinly populated nation, has relied on resource extraction for its prosperity. The search for minerals and petroleum has been a major driver of geophysical research. The University of Toronto, Canada’s largest research university, is located within the Canadian Shield, a large expanse of Precambrian rock in which the seismic prospecting methods, typically used in sedimentary basins, are less effective. EM geophysics therefore exists within a network of economic, technological, and colonial interests that make it a valuable perspective from which to explore applied physics in Canada.

This paper approaches this topic through a growing collection of artifacts, gathered by the University of Toronto Scientific Instrument Collection, which relate to diverse facets of EM research. These include bench-top teaching experiments simulating the operation of field instruments in the lab, as well as instruments used in both terrestrial and marine applications. Of particular importance is the ever-growing demand for computer processing power, and the concurrent development of complex algorithms, needed to interpret data produced by such instruments. There is a notable challenge in representing this computing dimension through artifacts.

Making Space: Situating Precision Makers in Canadian Communities
Author: Victoria JL Fisher
In 1858, the Provincial Exhibition of Canada West included a small display of Toronto-made mathematical instruments. Visitors, the exhibition guide declared, “were hardly prepared to see such a splendid assortment of instruments enrolled as Canadian productions.” This early interaction of delight and surprise points to both the significance of local precision and scientific instrument makers to Canadian society and the fact that it was—and is—relatively little known.

This paper reports on the findings of an Ingenium project aiming to gather and catalogue information about such makers and manufacturers to build a picture of the Canadian high technology industry in the 19th and 20th centuries. Focusing on the manufacturing and technical centre of Toronto, this paper will situate a range of types of Canadian-based precision makers and companies in their scientific and industrial communities. I will explore how they emerged through partnerships and diverse offerings, found commercial niches amid international competition from more established markets, and show how—through contact with academic and public settings—played important scientific and technological roles to local communities.

From Classroom Demonstrations to Laboratory Practices: The Province of Québec’s Network of Catholic Schools and the Foundation of the Modern University (1800-1930)
Author: Jean-François Gauvin
Several years ago, Graeme Gooday demonstrated that the rapid expansion of physical laboratories in Britain between 1865 and 1885 was not due to an advancement of research per se, but instead as an imperative for teaching of physics (except for Glasgow and Cambridge, which were established as genuine research laboratories). In the same period at Harvard, laboratory training was being implanted on campus; the Harvard faculty even encouraged high-school teachers around the country to prepare incoming students in laboratory work so they would better perform once in college. Precision measurement and laboratory work became a pedagogical virtue by the late 19th century. In Lower Canada and later in the Province of Québec (after 1867) cabinets of physics were being (nearly systematically) erected in collèges classiques, the elite catholic schools often leading to priesthood. Although several of these cabinets were very well furnished they remained, as Paolo Brenni illustrated with most European cabinets, merely prestigious ornement used to attract more students. This pattern didn’t change much when the first French-speaking university in North America was founded in 1852: Université Laval in Québec city. The goal of this paper is to briefly brush the trajectory of these cabinets over a century and, using the Université Laval as a case study, explain how their slow transformation into genuine physical laboratory took place in the 1920s.

Scientific Instruments as Dr. Dolittle’s Pushmi-Pullyu, in Early Contributions to Innovation Studies.
Author: Ryan T. MacNeil
Key figures in the early years of innovation studies – Freeman, Kline, Rosenberg, and von Hippel – all featured scientific instruments as empirical material in their theorizing. But when the resulting concepts and models are cited and discussed today, those scientific instruments are forgotten. These foundational innovation scholars had approached scientific instruments like Dr. Doolittle’s “pushmi-pullyu” (a unicorn- gazelle hybrid, with a head on each end of its body). Over a decade of debate ensued over which end of innovation was the front: science/research or technology/development. The study of scientific instruments yielded both answers—and others. However, processes of neoliberalization soon started to position scientific research as a support function for technological development in private business. Scientific instruments started to be written off as ‘unusual’ innovations because they do not always fit that mold. And by the 1990s, innovation research had completely turned toward ‘normal’ market-based technologies. The discipline is often now described as having evolved from debates about scientific ‘push’ vs. market ‘pull’ in the 1960s and 1970s, toward more complex ideas about ‘chain-links’ and ‘systems’ in the 1980s and 1990s. However, these perspectives all emerged from relatively concurrent studies of scientific instrument innovation at the beginning of that timeline. And so, it is not that better innovation models emerged through the sequential development of more exacting social science methods. Rather, the preferred ways of observing, measuring, and thinking about innovation shifted over time in response to changing political ideas about the most appropriate roles for science, government, and industry

Session Chair: Edward Gillin (University College London, UK)

Chaîne opératoire : outil méthodologique d’étude du fonctionnement d’une institution scientifique
Auteur: Julien Gressot
L’étude du fonctionnement des institutions scientifiques s’est développée ces dernières années avec en particulier le croisement de l’analyse des sources manuscrites avec celle de la culture matérielle. Le concept de chaîne opératoire est une proposition méthodologique favorisant l’étude d’une institution scientifique dans sa globalité incluant les opérations techniques, matérielles, pratiques ou encore cognitives permettant, en bout de chaîne, d’obtenir des données précises. Il permet d’attirer l’attention sur l’intérêt d’étudier les instruments scientifiques en tant qu’ensemble opératoire permettant d’obtenir une donnée précise plutôt qu’en tant qu’entité isolée.

Utile pour comprendre les modalités de faire science, le concept attire également l’attention sur des opérations ou des instruments scientifiques généralement moins considérés car semblant d’une importance moindre. Ainsi cette proposition méthodologique entend faciliter à la fois la compréhension des phénomènes historiques mais permet aussi aux conservateurs-restaurateurs et aux muséologues un outil de médiation. Pouvant servir comme moyen heuristique ainsi que de synthèse permettant la comparaison entre différentes institutions ou différentes époques au sein d’un établissement, cette présentation entend aborder les apports et les limites du concept de chaîne opératoire en s’appuyant sur le cas de l’Observatoire cantonal de Neuchâtel.

Après une exploration de l’origines du concept, notamment par l’ethnologue préhistorien André Leroi-Gourhan et de son passage de l’archéologie à l’histoire des sciences, l’utilisation du concept sera exemplifiée à partir de l’Observatoire cantonal de Neuchâtel.

The Many Links in a Chain: Operating the Stockholm Observatory’s Ertel Meridian Circle, 1834-1931
Author: Johan Kärnfelt
In the 1820s, the Stockholm Observatory significantly upgraded its instrumentation. Among the new additions was a meridian circle, crafted by Traugott Ertel in Munich, which after considerable delay was installed at the observatory in 1834. This instrument featured a doublet lens manufactured by Merz, boasting an aperture of 11,4 cm and a focal length of 170 cm. Despite its capabilities, the instrument remained underutilized for the first forty years of its existence. This was largely due to the disinterest of the Observatory directors during that period, who did their main work in geodesy rather than in positional astronomy.

The instrument only realized its full potential when Hugo Gyldén assumed the role of Academy astronomer in 1871, effectively concluding the preceding geodetic era. Under Gyldén’s leadership, an ambitious zone project aiming at measuring the proper motions of 2000 northerly stars was conceived. The project would engage the observatory astronomers for over fifty years. The meridian circle eventually saw retirement when the Observatory relocated to a new, state-of-the-art facility in Saltsjöbaden in 1931. However, it found a new purpose as a training instrument and remained in use for many years to come.

In this paper, I will focus on the instrument's trajectory until its relocation to Saltsjöbaden, highlighting the many links that formed its chain of operation. Starting with technical links such as clocks and recording devices, I will move on to the human resources involved, including assistants and computers. Subsequently, I will delve into the scientific links, such as necessary star catalogues, before concluding with an examination of how the instrument was linked to society at large, particularly in the realms of geodetics and time signalling.

Creating Observatory Time at Dartmouth College in the 1860-70s.
Author: Richard Kremer
Part of the “observatory movement” in the United States, Dartmouth College’s Shattuck Observatory opened in 1853 with a 6.4-inch refractor by Merz & Mahler of Munich, a 4-inch transit telescope by Troughton & Simms of London, and an astronomical regulator by Utzschneider and Fraunhofer, also of Munich. But with only human (rather than mechanical) links between the clock and the transit telescope, the new observatory could correlate clock and sky time only to a precision of about a second. In this paper, I will examine how Charles A. Young, appointed professor of natural philosophy of astronomy at Dartmouth in 1866, sought to create observatory time by linking a seconds-beating clock electromagnetically to what he called a “printing chronograph” and to the finger of the astronomer “observing” transits. Surviving archival materials provide detailed views into Young’s efforts to build a reliable “operating chain” (Gressot) of pendula, clockworks, electromagnetic coils, mechanical governors, human sensory systems, observatory couches, and seeing conditions. Yet by 1877, when he departed Dartmouth for Princeton, Young had not reached his goal of timing celestial motions to hundredths of a second.

Time Services and Observatories: A Study Case of the Brazilian National Observatory.
Author: Sabina Luz
The time services at observatories were a daily activity that had to be continued for the purpose of keeping the time and, also, its precision. The instruments and methods employed were similar even in different contexts, countries, and cultures. However, the particularities of each observatory and its political, social, and cultural differences are important elements to be considered at the analyses of the scientific practices at time services in observatories. In this paper I will examine the time service at the National Observatory of Brazil at the first decade of 20th century. The time service was one of the main activities of this institution and it was connected to time transmission to Rio de Janeiro’s harbor. This service was provided by an active participation of mariners since the 19th century. The main instruments used for time calculation were a transit telescope by Dollond (256 x 169 x 97 cm) with 7 cm aperture, acquired in 1851 by the Observatory and used until 1920; a pendulum clock number 101 by Auguste Fénon, acquired probably in 1889; and several chronometers from different instrument makers, but all European. The instruments, the practices and the workers at the observatory will be analyzed in order to understand how an operating chain was established at this institution. Finally, the quest for precision at the astronomical time measurements and time keeping at this observatory will also be investigated not only as an element of the scientific practice but also as an aspect of advertising and scientific authority.

Session Chair: Johan Kärnfelt (Göteborgs universitet, Sweden)

Instruments and environmental change: applied geophysics at the Science Museum
Author: Alexandra Rose
In 1931, a special temporary exhibition at the Science Museum in London showcased an array of instruments for applied geophysics: seismic, magnetic, electrical and gravitational devices for oil and mineral prospecting. The exhibition’s curator, Herman Shaw, obtained an array of cutting-edge precision equipment for the displays, some not yet proven in the field; alongside these he reinterpreted existing artefacts in the Museum’s collection to present a narrative of technological development. In the context of an energy transition that was seeing a shift from coal to oil as an energy source, the exhibition was timely, and it also aligned with the objectives of the Museum’s governors to serve better the needs of industry. The exhibition was not merely a standalone display: it reflected the central and active role the Museum played in cultivating and promoting the new field of applied geophysics in Britain, resulting from the campaigns of politically-engaged scientists.

The topic of fossil fuel extraction, and the matter of how museums can effect social and environmental change, both have renewed pertinence today as the world faces an unprecedented climate crisis. This paper concludes by raising some open questions that will be the focus of planned future research. How might we reckon with the complex environmental legacies that some instruments – such as geophysical prospecting instruments – have left? Can historic, as well as contemporary, scientific instruments be mobilised by museums in their programmes of public engagement around the climate and environment? Could these collections even effect positive environmental change?

Attributing Precision to William Thomson’s Invention of Electrometry
Author: Daniel Jon Mitchell
The history of physics in Victorian Britain has given rise to two main socio-historiographical approaches concerning the origin of consensus about the precision of measurements: “centers of calculation” associated most closely with Schaffer and Latour, and “networks of trust” advocated in response by Gooday. The traditional opposition between these approaches, namely the role of trust and authority in the social processes that constitute precise measurement, masks an important point of agreement: “precision” is an attribute that emerges as a result of the successful assembly of chain of expertise, materials, instruments, procedures, and standards. Thus the precision of an instrument is made contingent upon extrinsic factors, to such an extent that calling an instrument “precise” lies somewhere between jumping the gun and making a category mistake.

This conclusion does not seem right. From a museological and a scientific viewpoint, there is something intuitive about ascribing precision to an instrument. In this paper, I explore the extent to which this intuition can be recaptured while preserving the insights of networks-of-trust and centers-of-calculation historiographies. I do so by returning to their origin in the history of Victorian physics through a study of William Thomson’s “precision” electrometers. I consider the extent to which the issue is a substantive or a semantic one, especially insofar as actors’ categories are involved. Previously neglected, the case merits careful consideration: Thomson was probably the most prolific and important inventor of so-called precision electrical measuring devices during the nineteenth century.

Breaking the Technological Monopoly: Initiating the Localization of Measuring Instruments through the UTD2000 Digital Oscilloscope
Author: Nianci Wang
Co-Authors: Ke Zhao, Deli Chen, Hongyin Lv
The invention of measuring instruments marks a pivotal shift for human beings from perceptual cognition to quantitative analysis. Since the 20^th century, electronic measuring instruments have been the key for gauging a nation’s scientific and technological prowess. In 2006, UNI-T, a Chinese firm seeking transformation, cooperated with the Institute of Electronic Testing Technology, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China. The cooperation results in the development of the UTD2000 digital storage oscilloscope within a year. With a bandwidth of 200 MHz and a price of 300 euros per unit – one tenth of the international counterparts, Agilent and Tektronix – the UTD2000 quickly penetrated the China market. It catered to applications requiring bandwidths below 500MHz with sales of 30000 units per year. Notably, it became one of the earliest Chinese electronic measuring instrument exported to Europe, Brazil, and beyond.

In the transition of scientific research to market-ready products, the monopoly of technology becomes apparent, with technology serving as the key competitive asset. Established companies erect barriers, hindering newcomers through technical obstacles. When new companies manage to overcome these technology barriers, they still face the challenge of dealing with the low price set by the established ones. This research looks at how the UTD2000, a Chinese electronic measuring instrument, went from being developed to being sold internationally in the 2000s. It examines the decisions made by companies, government policies, and market fluctuations. Ultimately, it explores how scientific instruments can shake up the dominance of established companies, leading to innovations in a region.

The Keepers of Time / Historic Schools for Watchmakers in North America
Author: Gary Fox
By the mid 1880’s The American watch manufacturing industry was producing over 750,000 watches annually and given their mechanized processes, that number was increasing exponentially every year.
Producing over 2,000,000 watches annually, the Swiss industry believed there was little to fear from the American upstarts, until it was too late to see the looming change.  However, the Swiss industry recognized the need for trained watchmakers to maintain and repair the watches they produced long before their American counterparts. Schools were opened where the students learned not just how to repair a broken part but why the parts were designed as they were.
In the Americas, watchmakers were trained through apprenticeships and mentorships, a lengthy process with often dubious results. The result? There simply weren’t enough skilled watchmakers to meet the need.
The call went out for horological schools where a student could learn more in a year than in three years as an apprentice. But was anyone listening? James Parsons was.
This is the story of:

• the first school for watchmakers in North America – Parsons Horological Institute opened by James Root Parsons in La Porte, Indiana in 1886;
• the first school for watchmakers in Canada – The Canadian Horological Institute opened by Henry Richard Playtner in Toronto, Ontario in 1890, and;
• the Elgin Watchmakers’ College, started in 1922 by Playtner and funded by the Elgin National Watch Company.

Session Chair: Sumner Braund (History of Science Museum, University of Oxford, UK)

Making & doing: reflections on the mathematical cultures of 16th-century instruments
Author: Samuel Gessner
Co-Author: Michael Korey
Jim Bennett left a legacy that continues to influence and inspire museum professionals, cataloguers, science communicators, instrument experts, and many others. For instrument historians alone there are multiple levels of inspiration for the further study of the history and context of the rich corpus of the material heritage of science. Picking up on one, this paper foregrounds Jim’s analysis of 16th-century mathematical instruments. Without doing justice to Jim’s nuanced approach, we might simplify his stance to the statement that such instruments were not as much for ‘knowing’ as for ‘doing’ (1998, 2003). This paper will present a florilegium of early modern mathematical instruments whose functions seem clear, but not the context of their use or intended purpose. These include examples from our own work: a gearwork-driven equatorium conceived by Nicolaus Valerius (1564) and the Circles of Proportion produced by Elias Allen (c. 1630). The catchphrase ‘knowing and doing’ offers a fruitful perspective to solve some open puzzles about them. Following Jim’s understanding that instruments embody specific mathematical cultures helps with this task. Indeed, a large share of mathematical instruments produced and preserved from the 16th century are referred to today, perhaps somewhat euphemistically, as ‘compendia.’ As such, instruments give expression to a collection of knowledge areas, problems, and operations that were once seen as belonging to the repertoire of a single mathematical practitioner and hence coherent, albeit today classified in separate disciplines. Read as historical sources in this way, can instruments serve to sound out the contours of the past mathematical cultures from which they emerged?

Galileo’s Telescope Reassessed: Overlooked Documents and Material Analysis of Item No. MG-2428.
Author: Giorgio Strano
Museo Galileo in Florence owns the only three surviving items connected to Galileo Galilei’s activity as an optician: two complete telescopes and a broken objective lens.
In 2023, in the exigency of making a new and philologically reliable replica of Item No. MG-2428 — i.e. the telescope made by Galileo for the Grand Duke of Tuscany Cosimo II de’ Medici —, the original instrument has been removed from its showcase, partly dismounted, measured and inspected also with the aid of an endoscope. If nothing new has emerged about the optical components — which were thoroughly analyzed in the 1990s by the National Institute of Applied Optics in Arcetri, Firenze —, a number of remarkable facts re-delineate the telescope’s overall structure and story.

On the one hand, two recently published documents indicate the provenance of the telescope tubes designed by Galileo. On the other hand, the material examination of Item No. MG-2428 outlines that the intrinsic structure of such tubes is different from the current interpretation. Finally, in addition to the information already available on the non-originality of this telescope’s ocular lens — which was loose in its housing, then lost, and finally replaced by the end of the 19th century — some historical documents (old pictures) and material elements (puzzling inconsistencies with the expected structure) indicate that the instrument underwent some dramatic modifications in the time lapse between 1860 and 1970.

Johann Friedrich Penther (1693–1749) and his book “Praxis Geometriae”
Author: Petra Svatek
This lecture analyses the book “Praxis Geometriae”, which was written by the German mathematician Johann Friedrich Penther (1693-1749). It deals with surveying instruments and their practical application in the field and thus offers an important teaching aid for cartographers in the production of maps. It was first published in 1732, at a time when surveying was experiencing an enormous boom in large parts of Europe, both in military and in private cartography.
After a brief biography of Penther, the presentation offers a critical analysis of the content of the frontispiece, which contains an allegorical depiction of geometry, the preface and the main text. Which sources did Penther use, how is the methodical procedure for drawing a map explained and how can his explanations be categorised in relation to the works of other authors who also published books on surveying at the same time?

The last part of the lecture is dedicated to the extensively illustrated appendix. Penther shows fictitious and real maps and plans, measuring instruments (compass, astrolabe, quadrant, etc.) and trigonometric figures. Using examples, he explains, among other things, the method of vertical and horizontal measurement and the realisation of the measurement results in a map. While the fictitious maps only show a few details and are used exclusively for learning the surveying method, the map of the German county of Stolberg illustrates the fine art of mapmaking with position and area signatures in a slightly hilly landscape, which was reproduced with hatchings.

Instruments and conflicting views on precision in the late 18th century.
Author: Jan Tapdrup
The late 18th century witnessed considerable disciplinary displacements between natural-/experimental philosophy and practical mathematics. At the same time, the attitude toward measurement and what was meant by precision changed significantly, as can be seen in both literature and instruments.

The diversity and range of the changed attitudes to quantification, precision, and the use of instruments, to what Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle earlier had termed l'esprit géometrique has been pointed out in The Quantifying Spirit in the Eighteenth Century, edited by Heilbron, Frängsmyr, and Rider (1990).

In this paper, I will firstly address, assess, and qualify the thesis in this book that the later 18th century saw a rapid increase in the range and intensity of application of mathematical methods by looking at the three collections belonging respectively to Jean Antoine Nollet (France), Adam Wilhelm Hauch (Denmark), and Antoine Laurent Lavoisier (France).

I will look at specific instruments and the relative number of instruments in the collections that may be regarded as precision instruments. Supplemented by an analysis of literary sources, I intend to examine to what extent the application of mathematical methods is reflected in scientific instrument collections and how. Secondly, I hope to show how the concept of precision developed epistemologically during this period.

Session Chair: Janet Laidla (University of Tartu, Estonia)

Recent Additions to the McPherson Collection of Scientific Instruments
Author: Jean Barrette
The McPherson Collection of the McGill Physics Department comprises a number of physical instruments and apparatus dating from the mid-19th to the mid-20th century. Many of those apparatuses were originally used in the Physics Department for research, teaching and demonstration and cover various aspects of mechanics, electricity and magnetism, heat, light, and sound. At the end of 2023, the manager of our undergraduate laboratories retired after more than 50 years of service at McGill. We took advantage of his occasion to retire many old apparatuses from the Department of Physics stock and move them to our McPherson Collection. The most interesting items will be presented. It includes: a high precision dip needle magnetometer, Wheatstone Bridges including one with Post Office Pattern, a 12 plate Echelon, a collection of old galvanometers, high precision potentiometers including a Dauphine Potentiometer produce by a Canadian company, an electrostatic colorimeter, Mica Condensers, and General Electric old H tubes, etc.

Architect’s Tools in Context: Collections in Turkey and Canada
Author: Gul Kale
This paper will explore the Ottoman architect’s tools, such as cubits and compasses in museum collections in Turkey and Canada by considering artistic, scientific, technological, and social transformations in architectural practice and theory. First, I will present a comparison between the museum collections in Istanbul and Ottawa, which have large repositories of measuring sticks. Istanbul Pera Museum’s “Anatolian Weights and Measures Collection” has an extensive collection that relates to Ottoman building traditions. On the other hand, Canada Science and Technology Museum has a similar collection consisting of cubits and balances, whose provenance has been examined to a certain degree. However, this collection has never been discussed within the context of wider early modern Ottoman building traditions by also comparing its contents to similar collections in Turkey. Whereas the circulation of tools globally was linked to collector’s personal interests and mobility, it is crucial to place these tools and their transmission within changing architectural and technological contexts that led to the transfer of these tools from the building sites to the collections turning them into museum objects devoid of context or use. Thus, the paper will explore the ways in which early modern social, scientific, cultural, and artistic changes made these tools dispensable at specific historical moments that initiated their move from workshops and building sites to the museums.

Work in Progress - America: How Science Built a Nation
Author: Elissavet Ntoulia
This paper will present a research project and a possible related display under development in the Science Museum in London about science and technology’s role towards the foundation of the USA.

In the context of mid-18th century colonial America, the project explores science and technology as tools of colonialism used to claim land, exploit natural resources, further knowledge and shape identity. For example, surveying was essential to land claiming and shaped national territoriality of the nascent USA. Surveyor’s tools such as the compass and the chain were widely used in this project of claiming vast American land that had already been managed and shaped by diverse Indigenous nations for thousands of years. The project engages with this complex history using an 'Atlantic' lens to go beyond the binary 'colonial periphery' and 'imperial centre' showcasing a rich tapestry of people where knowledge and goods were exchanged and circulated in dynamic and uneven relationships. By highlight such diverse and often obscured scientific thinking, it endeavours to question preconceived ideas about historic science.

I will pose some of these questions that our project is considering at this stage and present some of the methods by which we hope to answer them: What less discussed aspects of the use and application of scientific instruments the colonial American context can offer? In what politically and culturally complex worlds have such instruments operated? How can these considerations be presented in an exhibition with limited budget and space? At the end, whose science and at what end?

Bridging Cultures and Epochs: Tracing the Heritage and Development of Boğaziçi University's Scientific Collection in Istanbul
Author: Hasan Umut
This paper aims to offer an introduction to a historically remarkable collection of scientific instruments owned by Boğaziçi University’s Kandilli Observatory and Earthquake Research Institute in Istanbul. Encompassing over 200 artifacts from both Islamic and Western scientific cultures, the collection features seismographs, quadrants, astrolabes, clocks, barometers, theodolites, telescopes, globes, octants, and sextants. Most of these instruments date back to the Ottoman period, aligning with the foundation of the Ottoman Royal Observatory (Rasadhāne-i Āmire) in the nineteenth century. Over time, the collection expanded to meet the evolving demands of the observatory's functions, incorporating new instruments reflective of its growing needs. This paper aims to delve into the concurrent development of this collection with the establishment of the modern Ottoman observatory, underscoring the directors' dual focus: their commitment to modernizing the observatory to meet contemporary scientific requirements and their reverence for the tradition of Islamic astronomical instrumentation, especially as embodied by Fatin Gökmen (d. 1955). By examining the distribution and utility of the instruments within the collection, the study highlights the interwoven relationship between the provenance of these instruments and the institutionalization of modern astronomical, meteorological, and seismological research in the late Ottoman Empire and the early Turkish Republic.

Session Chair: Sabina Luz (UNIRIO, Brazil)

Dé-instrumentaliser l’instrument scientifique: l’exemple d’un restituteur planimétrique radial au Musée de la civilisation
Auteur: Valérie Bouchard
Pour un musée de société comme le Musée de la civilisation, le collectionnement d’objets scientifiques ne va pas toujours de soi, ces objets étant souvent associés à des institutions dont la mission est d’emblée scientifique. Pourtant, les innovations et développements technologiques et scientifiques ne surviennent pas en vase clos, mais sont au contraire étroitement liés à des préoccupations, à des intérêts ou à des besoins sociaux.

C’est dans cette perspective et dans la posture pratique qu’est celle d’une conservatrice de musée que cette communication propose de réinterroger l’instrument scientifique, à partir de l’exemple d’un restituteur planimétrique radial associé à la compagnie Donohue et récemment acquis par le Musée de la civilisation. Cette communication sera l’occasion d’explorer des pistes de mise en valeur d’un tel instrument, en allant au-delà de son cadre strictement fonctionnel, pour aborder plutôt ses dimensions historiques et sociales et les échos qu’il peut avoir pour les publics du Musée aujourd’hui. De cette approche émergera non seulement le caractère polysémique de cet instrument, mais également des questionnements plus larges sur les frontières de l’objet scientifique. Ces réflexions permettront ainsi d’envisager la manière dont le musée de société peut contribuer à jeter un nouvel éclairage sur la conservation et la diffusion du patrimoine scientifique.

Upgrading Scientific Instruments Over Time Towards a Culture of Precision: Case studies from Coimbra University
Author: Pedro Júlio Enrech Casaleiro
Co-Author: Fábio Monteiro
The Coimbra Observatory houses an impressive collection of scientific instruments, ranging from astronomy and geodesy from the Royal Astronomical Observatory of the University of Coimbra since 1772, to meteorology, magnetism and seismology from the Geophysical Institute since 1864. This collection reflects the scientific endeavours throughout the history of the institutions, intertwined with the progress of science, dependent on its key figures (scientists, professors, staff), as well as the fluctuations of university administration, national governance and global influence. Both institutions were founded during periods of scientific vitality that paved the way for new paths in science, culminating in the current collections.

The research began with a comprehensive analysis of the collections, identifying trends in acquisitions over time, to serve the research and teaching endeavours of the University of Coimbra, with the aim of increasing the accuracy and precision of the data. This is followed by a more detailed examination of case studies of astronomical position and time instruments. It identifies the criteria and acquisition framework of these instruments, taking into account institutional dynamics, personnel and the use of new instruments. This project is based on the study of objects through documentary research in the university archives and libraries.

Acknowledgements: The CQC–IMS is supported by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT), through the projects UI0313B/QUI/2020 (DOI: 10.54499/UIDB/00313/2020), UI0313P/QUI/2020 (DOI: 10.54499/UIDP/00313/2020), and LA/P/0056/2020.

The ‘Kosmic Clock’ – A Rare and Valuable Artifact
Author: Ray Springer
Introduction
The traditional definition of local time
The Industrial Revolution and the rise in railroad travel in North America - issues
A tipping point in 1865

Examples of proposed time framework solutions
Sandford Fleming’s 24 hour day and ‘Cosmic Time’
The International Meridian Conference (IMC) of 1884 - a prime meridian

The ‘Kosmic’ Clock
Post IMC, 3 clock patents were obtained by inventor Martin V. B. Ethridge
6 ‘Kosmic’ Clocks manufactured by the E. Howard Clock Co., Boston
‘Kosmic’ features: patented 24 hour Ethridge dial, spindles and an additional hand
One ‘Kosmic’ sent to the Royal Canadian Institute (for Science) by Mr. E. Waite

Outcomes
Sandford Fleming supported the IMC proposal
Fleming did not endorse the ‘Kosmic’ however …

Conclusion
The ‘Kosmic’ Clock is a rare and valuable artifact. The context of its creation helps to better understand the journey towards a new model for local time and the implementation of a Prime Meridian and international time zones

Restoration
The ‘Kosmic’ Clock was restored by Dan Hudon, Master Clock Restorer of the Ottawa Valley Watch and Clock Club and his assistant Andrea Gilpin
Ray Springer
OVWCC Treasurer 2012-2022

A Torsion Balance in the Faculty of Physics of the University of Barcelona
Author: Júlia Garcia de la Torre
FFUB-0291 is one of the hundreds of instruments in the collection of the Faculty of Physics of the University of Barcelona. This torsion balance, built by french manufacturer Pixii, arrived in the University of Barcelona in 1847 within the frame of 'Pla Pidal', an education reform approved in 1845.  

Its form and history have been shaped by its scientific and historical contexts: from its role as an agent of modernisation of the Spanish educational system to its function within lectures of establishing experimentation as the only path to true knowledge. By the creation of its biography and the replication of its use, I have studied the possible links between the apparatus and its historical and scientific contexts, as well as contributed to the controversy surrounding Coulomb's experiment.

This tour is capped at 18. Transportation provided. A bus will be waiting at 3pm at the entrance of the Canada Science and Technology Museum.

The tour will include a viewing of the historic globes and a presentation of some of them with the archivists. There will also be a conservator present to describe the restoration of some of the globes and a recent restoration of a large map.

Preservation Centre
Centre de préservation

Location: 625, boul. du Carrefour, Gatineau (map)

Please meet at the front entrance of the Ingenium Centre

Please meet at the front entrance of the Ingenium Centre. Select at visit:

1. Reading Artifacts Room with Canadian Precision Instrument Inventory
2. Rom 154 with all the smaller scientific instruments
3. continue touring larger rooms

The Standard Tavern
360 Elgin St. Ottawa