XLIII Scientific Instrument Symposium - SIC 2024

Session Chair: Peggy Kidwell (Smithsonian Institution, USA)

Dr. Margarita Piedra as Cuba's first female nuclear engineer. Her role in the development and training of nuclear science in Cuba.
Author: Lubia Díaz Bernal
Co-Author: Lidia Lauren Elías Hardy
Cuba has historically been characterized by its sexist culture and that is why Cuban women have worked hard towards the recognition of their equal rights. This paper aims to highlight the figure of women in the field of nuclear sciences, through the visibility of the first Cuban woman trained in Nuclear Engineering in Cuba and the USSR. Having graduated in Cuba in 1971, Piedra traveled to Moscow to complete her training at the Energy Institute of said city, in the department of Electro-Nuclear Power Plants. She was the only woman in a group of seven men, where the young and enterprising Margarita, due to her great talent and ability, appeared on the cover of the magazine “USSR” as an example of the Cuban female scientist. Creator of the Fluid Mechanics Laboratory within a young institution dedicated to teaching nuclear sciences in Cuba (InSTEC) in which she worked until her death in 2020. Due to the impossibility of obtaining adequate or advanced instruments for teaching, she developed glass instruments and installations so that students could observe the phenomena of heat and mass transfer, and fluid mechanics. Dr. Margarita Piedra was and continues to be the example to follow. continue for the brave and still rare Cuban women who have chosen to channel their lives into the world of nuclear technical sciences.

A Countess and her astrolabe at the Paris Exposition Universelle in 1900: social and intellectual capital at the turn of the century
Author: Sumner Braund
Why did the Comtesse de Lespinasse submit an astrolabe to the Musée rétrospectif de la classe 15: instruments de précision at the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris?

The Paris Exposition Universelle of 1900 was designed to surpass all previous expos, and it attracted an estimated 50 million visitors in the course of its 8-month run. The city was transformed through new building projects, some permanent and others temporary, with extensive pavilions covering the city. The high profile of certain exhibitions, enhanced by the social status of their respective organisers, meant that these organisers not only curated displays – they also curated the social capital of objects and donors.

This paper will explore the ways in which Louise Marie Robertine Maillard de Liscourt, Comtesse de Lespinasse, navigated this environment and successfully displayed her astrolabe. The astrolabe that she submitted to Classe 15 had been made in 1227/8 CE for an Ayyubid ruler and nephew of Saladin. The magnificent instrument’s inclusion in Classe 15 raises many questions, including: why did the Comtesse choose this classe? What does this reveal about the status of women in this social and intellectual environment? What did it mean in this space for a French woman to assert physical and intellectual ownership of an instrument from the Islamic world?

This paper will address these questions using correspondence and notarial records from the Lespinasse family, the published records of the Classe 15, and the sale records of the astrolabe (which was sold to another collector, Lewis Evans, in 1911).

Women computers at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, 1890–1939
Author: Louise Devoy
In April 1890, Astronomer Royal William H. M. Christie (1845-1922) hired the first group of women to be employed in professional astronomy at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. Although this initial cohort only stayed for a few years, it set the trend for the ongoing recruitment of women who became an essential part of the Observatory’s staff.

Using archive materials and recently discovered observing notebooks, I will examine the women’s contribution through various questions: how did their roles compare to those of their male colleagues at Greenwich, particularly with respect to the use of instruments? Were they acknowledged in the same way in official publications? How did their experience at Greenwich shape their career and opportunities elsewhere?

These questions will be addressed across three main time periods, starting with the appointment of the ‘lady computers’ in the 1890s, who were ostensibly hired to make observations to facilitate the Observatory’s participation in the Astrographic Catalogue but who also became involved with other departments and instruments.

The second phase considers the First World War period when a few women were either recruited or invited to return to their previous roles as volunteers in response to the vacancies created by the call-up of male staff for military service.

Finally, I will consider the small group of women recruited as ‘Supernumerary Computers’ during the inter-war years who were assigned a variety of computing and data analysis roles.

The anatomical Venus models as epistemic instruments: value influences in the representation of women in science
Author: Alexandra Karakas
The history of science is rich in debates centred around problems concerning material culture and its relation to knowledge production. However, the issue of epistemic/internal and non-epistemic/external values in the sciences is still developing. While contemporary debates surrounding the presence of external and internal values in different phases of the production of scientific knowledge offer a great source of insight, the history of science is still overloaded with instances of value pluralism within physical instruments that are yet to be discussed.

A particularly interesting category of instruments are objects used for representing the female body. A prominent example of these are anatomical models, notably pieces made in Felice Fontana's workshop in Florence in the 18th century. While the functions of material models were diverse, from knowledge dissemination to entertaining, the peculiarity lies in that they were designed with not only internal scientific values in mind, such as clarity and coherence, but they were influenced by external values, such as artistic values, at the same time. These value-laden decisions led to a unique representation of the female body that mirrors the period’s take on social and scientific issues as well. The talk focuses on a lesser-known Fontana model initially commissioned by Joseph II for the newly founded medical academy in Vienna, which was later gifted to the medical faculty in Budapest. The research details the model's rich history and emphasises how external, artistic values determined many representational decisions, resulting in a peculiar visual portrayal of womanhood in the 18th century.

Women assistants using scientific instruments in Tartu before and after World War Two
Author: Janet Laidla
More women entered the staff of universities and other research institutions at the end of 19th and the beginning of the 20th century as calculators, demonstrators and assistants. These assistant positions may have encompassed many different things: from mostly clerical work (typing, correspondence), teaching duties, assisting the researchers, conducting individual research, to keeping libraries and taking care of collections. This also depended from one faculty to another.

The main goal of this presentation is to reveal how many assistants at Tartu had any contact with scientific instruments based on the institutional archival materials and papers from scientific journals. In Athens I briefly introduced one of the women assistants at the astronomical observatory who used a small telescope. How many more examples can we find? We know, for example, that assistants working at the faculty of medicine w

Session Chair: Richard Kremer (Dartmouth College, USA)

Man, Machine or both? Reconsidering the precision of stereoscopic rangefinders
Author: Andreas Junk
The precision of rangefinders can be considered to be depending from the components of the instruments, which are used for distance measurements. This is particularly true for rangefinders as devised by Pacecco ab Ucedos (1762) or Georg Brander (1781). But those instruments are developed to be in a state, where a more or less untrained observer can easily adjust the settings and make a readout of the result. What if the operator with his unique set of experiences and training becomes a part of the instrument? Or maybe even worse: what if the operator's physiological limits also set an operational limit for the instrument?

The stereoscopic rangefinder of the Zeiss company, first presented as a measurement concept in 1899 on a model provided by the then-deceased Hector de Grousilliers, is based on Helmholtz's telestereoscopic design from 1857 and works with stereoscopic triangular distance marks. For both of these reasons, the operator's physiology plays an important role in determining a correct readout of the distance. Hence the question arises, if an instrument, which is prone to the imperfections of its human operator, can be considered a precision measurement device.

When precision is not a virtue: three forensic science objects where persuasiveness is the most important metric.
Author: Kristen Frederick-Frost
Three artifacts—a display of arsenic tests from the 1872 trial of Lydia Sherman, John Larson’s 1921 cardio-pneumo-psychogram for lie detection, and a sexual assault examination kit from the early 1980s—used precision in process, presentation, and procedure to validate investigative analyses. We can also consider how these objects were not just tools of systematic study but products of their maker’s beliefs about what was needed to make their work convincing beyond the science itself.

Professor George Frederick Barker’s shotgun approach to the presentation of arsenic tests invites us to think about how a previous poisoning case featuring warring medical experts created a perceived need to give the jury multiple types of chemical analyses for several victims. John Larson’s lie detector had to balance perceptions of two different audiences—that of the suspect and that of the fact finder. For the former, Larson needed to create an emotional response, ideally a suspect’s fear and anxiety. For the latter, Larson wanted to create an objective paper record that stood on its own outside of an interrogation. And the Vitullo sexual assault kit found acceptance because one of its creators, Marty Goddard, immersed herself in the reticence of police and medical professionals alike to investigate these crimes. The contents of this early kit, as well as those that follow, represent a negotiation between what various communities found necessary and worthy.

Each of these objects is a manifestation of a maker’s desire to be more than precise. They wanted to be persuasive.

Post-Earthquake Pioneer: The Application of the Low Altitude Remote Sensing System on Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
Author: Zhao Ke
Co-Authors: Congting Hao, Deli Chen
On May 12, 2008, a powerful earthquake at 8.0 Ms hit Wenchuan, a mountainous area in western Sichuan, China. Nearby, amounts of “quake lakes” formed by severe landslide, threatening the people living downstream. On May 13, the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China assembled a volunteer group with six institutions. They brought a low-altitude remote sensing system on Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) to Wenchuan to help. The UAV was capable of a 200-kilometer range in two hours, with wooden structure and a 38cc gasoline engine. The remote sensing instrument could take 0.2 m solution photos from 1000 meters above. They inspected the landslide dam-created Tangjiashan Lake, providing the data and rendered photo to the Prime Minister as a command. It helped the government to take measures to discharge flood from the dam bursting and evacuated people from downstream Mianyang City with a 5 million population. During 12 days, they detected over 100 rivers with the instrument, and gathered data of 34 risky lakes.

This study traces the instrument’s historical application in disaster contexts. Although the remote sensing instrument lacked groundbreaking technological innovations, its practicability surpassed other counterparts. In metrology, advancing both frontier research and translating it into engineering products is paramount. The system's deployment underscores the pivotal role of precision scientific instruments in informing decision-making during crises, emphasizing the necessity for a dual focus on theoretical advancement and practical application in scientific research.