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.

Session Chair: Peter Heering (Europa-Universität Flensburg, Germany)

Islamic Scientific Instruments: a ‘meeting point’ of science, faith, art and culture
Author: Nicola Bird
Co-Author: Silke Ackerman
Scientific instruments from the Islamic world form a significant part of the extensive collections at the History of Science Museum (HSM), and provide an inspiring springboard for inclusive public engagement fostering intercultural dialogue and learning. Since 2017, MultakaOxford, a multi-award-winning inclusive volunteering programme based at HSM, has championed collaborative practice to bring diverse representation and narratives to science, history, culture, and faith, enriching our understanding of contemporary society.
In this paper the presenters share the learnings on its collaborative approaches and how this contributes to the museum's ambitious transformation 'Vision 2024'.

The paper will present a case study highlighting the role of scientific instruments in engaging young people and public audiences in celebrating Islamic art for the inaugural UNESCO International Day of Islamic Art (November 2023). Through a series of workshops based on geometry and drawing instruments facilitated by the museum and Oxford-based Iraqi artist Lana Al Sham, the museum connected young people at Oxford’s Sudanese Saturday School and Al Sham Academy with science, faith and culture.
The case study culminates in a public museum event Patterns in the Sky which was co-planned and co-delivered with Multaka volunteers. This inclusive family event connected Islamic scientific instruments, such as the astrolabe that belonged to Shah Abbas II, and inspired visitors with object-based activities including scientific instrument handling, interactive digital mapping, calligraphy workshops, geometric collage activities, and art workshops. The event included a display of the work created by the cultural schools displayed in the form of a mahreb.
The presentation seeks to engage dialogue and reflections on different approaches and their learnings in engagement with scientific instruments through art, culture and faith.

The Moon Bites the Sun: Learners’ explorations with Mesoamerican Mirrors, Sunlight, and Solar Eclipse
Author: Elizabeth Cavicchi
Co-Authors: Isis María Cota-Martínez; Marvelin Higgenbottom; Parimala Rajesh
How do today’s learners discover the Sun directly, its energy, changes and light, and relate to peoples who experienced it as Earth’s lamp of day? For ancient Mesoamericans, Sun was deity; it made Day. When eclipsed, people feared. Redirecting Sun or other light, mirrors figured centrally in Mesoamerican culture. Crafted from stone with immense labor and precision polishing, some Mesoamerican mirrors survive, including at Harvard’s Peabody Museum of Archeology and Ethnography. During collection workshops, curators Emily Rose and James Walkingstick engage us and MIT students with these, among other mystery objects. What do you notice? What materials? How made and used? We observe, marvel, immerse ourselves in objects’ past. At MIT’s Edgerton Center, and outdoors, students explore with glass mirrors, lenses, Sunlight. What will students explore, notice, try? These explorations are open-ended, unconstrained by answers. Taking a magnifier, while viewing grass – a bright spot appears. What’s that? Reorienting the magnifier intensifies it. Surprise! Smoke! Will it burn Wood!?! Curiosity drives students’ precision in positioning lens and wood. Excitement and coordination builds. Miniaturizing French 1774 experiments, a student’s lens scorches diamond dust! Photographed crescents cast by Mexican trees during October 14, 2023’s solar eclipse ignite student wonder and experimenting. April 8, 2024 brings solar eclipse from Mexico to Canada. We report impromptu and facilitated experiences in and out of totality, by instrumental methods ranging from hole projection to filters to telescopic imaging. For everyone – children, MIT students, public, amateurs – the Moon biting the Sun is as awesome as for ancient Mesoamericans.

Affiliations: MIT Edgerton Center; Centro de Investigación en Materiales Avanzados S.C. (CIMAV), Chihuahua, Chihuahua, Mexico; MIT Edgerton Center; undergraduate student at Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Co-author Bio notes:

My name is Isis María Cota-Martínez, currently, I’m studying a Ph.D. in Material Science. I was born in Nogales, Mexico on January 13, 1994. My first approach to sky observation was at the age of 7 during a night walk with my dad, since then I’ve been passionate about Science.

Eclipses were tremendous events during Marvelin Higginbottom’s childhood in the Exotic Lands of Honduras. Mother confined her indoors, away from staring at the Sun! Fashion designing is her thing! MIT Edgerton Center Administrative Assistant, Marvelin leads MIT’s eclipse event “Watch the Moon Bite the Sun”, becoming the Latin Female Galileo!

MIT undergraduate Parimala Rajesh studies aeroastro and astronomy, codes with MIT’s Solar Electric Vehicle team, and explores campus tunnels. Her unbounded curiosity ranges from underground caves, to how planes fly, to the distant universe, and everywhere between.

Roues dentées et engrenages, nombres et opérations : allers et retours/ From cogwheels and gears to numbers and operations, and back
Auteur: Frédérique Plantevin
Mechanical calculating instruments can be studied from technological, historical and mathematical points of view. Together with a small group of primary and secondary mathematics and technology teachers, we developed and tested activities that exploit these three perspectives. First designed for students aged 10 to 13, they have subsequently led to teacher training courses; they were also partly tested with the public during the free tours of the Cabinet of Curiosity.

The sequence is based on the observation of a “Lightning calculator” adder and an Odhner type “Brunsviga 20” multiplier. The study of their characteristics shows some of the subtleties of the history of calculating instruments. But the crucial stage of the activity is the physical creation of a working prototype adder with a rudimentary kit provided (cogwheels, nails and support, graduation aid, stylus). To meet its specifications (add two three-digit numbers with automatic carryover) precise but with no indication other than the observation of the "Lightning calculator", it is necessary to closely link technological and mathematical issues. This leads to a concrete understanding of the operating principle of more advanced mechanical arithmetic machines (multipliers) which in turn, sheds new light on the mathematical operations they perform. This back-and-forth between instruments and the mathematical concepts they represent is an essential aim of this activity.

All these aspects will be presented succinctly but very concretely, with supporting examples and productions, leading hopefully to a fruitful exchange with the audience.

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: Alexandra Rose (Science Museum, UK)

Musings of a Curator - Precision and Accuracy in Online Museum Catalogues of Scientific Instruments
Author: Peggy Aldrich Kidwell
As museums seek to make holdings more widely available online many of us are reexamining instruments and records. Once cataloging was for internal use, focusing on museum numbers, object and source names, storage locations, and dimensions. Public access came through print publications, often focused on a single sort of object (e.g., a collection of astrolabes). The audience was distinguished, but small. Labels for the few objects placed on exhibit reached more people but were brief.

Many printed catalogs have been digitized and circulate online. Both initial and revised cataloging is now done on computer databases rather than typed cards, and much of the content is online for computer users across the world.
At NMAH, there has been greater emphasis on uploading records from databases than on assuring that they are useful, accurate or complete. However, some of us have reexamined records to provide accurate information and historical context. Website visitors can learn about such instruments of precision as Ramsden’s dividing engine and such feats of precise calculation as a 1961 printout of the first 100,000 digits of pi, as computed on an IBM 7090 computer. At the same time, there are efforts to use digitized museum records to make more precise counts of the number of objects in the museum – or at least the number of numbers that have been assigned (e.g., does one set of seven drawing instruments in a case count as one, seven, or eight objects?) Dates assigned and dimensions given also raise questions of precision.

Public Instruments of Precision
Author: Tacye Phillipson
Over the decades, our museum in Edinburgh has displayed a small number of working scientific instruments to the visiting public, giving access to precise readings of phenomena including the time, weather and ground tremors. They coexisted on the galleries with objects which worked as demonstrations and interactives, and which have a similarity to interactives and moving demonstration objects that are presently in the galleries. They provided access to the real objects of science in ways in which retired relics or replication cannot.

These working instruments of public precision have previously been considered separately, each as part of the subject that they related to, such as featuring as part of the story of the Edinburgh time service, or in listing of seismographs. In this presentation I will explore them together as a type of exhibit, with a focus on the public accessibility of the working instruments and how this was portrayed by the museum and, where evidence exists, how this access was received by the visitors.

21st Century Online Accessibility to Scientific Instrument Collections and the Need for a Science and Technology Thesaurus: A Pilot
Author: Trienke van der Spek
Co-Author: Christel Schollaardt
In January 2024 five Dutch science museums and the Dutch governmental Cultural Heritage Agency launched collections-based online platform Vind het Uit (Invent it). It gives pupils and students access to scientific and technological objects from five museum collections with a uniform and new disclosure that allows free association and creative use of this heritage.

The platform is the first result of a longer-term collaboration that aims at improving the online visibility, accessibility and usability of Dutch science collections – and scientific instruments in special – by generating a central, standardized and durable online access to these sources in an (inter)national context.
During this first pilot project uniform disclosure of the collections proved to be more challenging than expected, despite the comparability of the collections, the use of the same collection database software by all and the shared ambition to work towards a disclosure of collections by Linked Open Data. One of the most important issues was the lack of a professional online thesaurus for scientific heritage with the a sufficient level of precision and versatility. As a result this project gave birth to an unexpected, but very much needed result: a first version of a Science and Technology Thesaurus (STT).

This paper presents the insights from this project and discusses next steps. It also includes an ambitious call to the SIC community to explore the development of an international STT as a tool to improve online accessibility to scientific instrument collections worldwide.

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.

Session Chair: Giorgio Strano (Museo Galileo, Italy)

Preservation actions on instruments for electrical measurements by means of in situ physico-chemical investigations
Author: Emma Angelini
Co-Author: Margherita Bongiovanni
A preservation campaign is going on in Politecnico di Torino on the important collection of instruments and equipments for electrical measurements coming from the Department of Physic, and from the laboratory for the Superior School of Electronics, founded by Galileo Ferraris in 1888, and ceded to the National Electronic Institute Galileo Ferraris when settling it in 1934. The collection includes a wide range of instruments employed for didactic purposes and research from 1920 to 1960: electrometers, voltmeters, amperometers, galvanometers, valve and battery testers, power supplies, converters, electrical analysers, etc.

These multimateric artefacts are in different conditions of conservation and the definition of tailored conservation strategies cannot ignore the knowledge of the chemical composition of the constituent materials as well as the one of the superficial layers, for example varnish, lacquers, corrosion products, etc..

The preservation campaign is carried out by means of in situ non invasive analytical techniques, X-ray fluorescence (XRF) spectroscopy and Raman spectroscopy, performing the measurements with portable instruments, as well as electrochemical characterizations by means of electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), to assess the protective effectiveness of the corrosion patinas or of the coatings on the artefacts.

Different corrosion morphologies related to the different metallic materials and to the different exposure conditions to the environment have been found among the instruments of the collection, rather common phenomena of galvanic corrosion resulting from the coupling between alloys of different nobility, as copper-based and iron-based alloys or gilded elements. have also been observed. Three case studies will be described in detail.

Management of Polychlorinated Biphenyls in Ingenium’s Scientific and Technological Collections
Author: Skye Marshall
Co-Author: Erin Secord
Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are a highly regulated class of organic compounds with negative toxic effects on human health and the environment. PCBs can be found in a variety of scientific, technological and industrial objects including computers, X-ray units, microscopes, sensors, and other electronics. Despite their prevalence in collections containing modern manufactured objects, PCBs in heritage institutions is only recently understood. To contribute to the field of knowledge related to PCBs in collection objects, Conservators at Ingenium - Canada’s Museums of Science and Innovation developed a risk management approach to the identification and remediation of of artifacts that may contain PCBs, This process was implemented during an ongoing large-scale collections move to a new purpose-built facility, resulting in over 1500 objects identified as containing PCBs or possibly containing PCBs.
The Ingenium PCB approach was holistic and innovative. PCB risks were managed with consideration of Regulators’ requirements, collection value, health and safety, and resource availability. This presentation will discuss Ingenium’s PCB management practices and the next steps in increasing awareness of PCBs in the Heritage sector.

All Charged Up and Nowhere to Go: Preservation Issues for Batteries in Collections
Author: Erin Secord
Batteries are common in technological and modern collections and present a number of health and safety and preservation risks that should be well understood and managed.   Many historic objects contain, lead-acid nickel-cadmium, and alkaline batteries, while Lithium-Ion batteries may be found in objects manufactured after 1991.
Batteries are a form of stored energy, usually involving metals and electrolytes that can cause harm to human health, the environment, and collection objects. Ingenium has identified, preserved and managed over 400 battery objects and is undertaking collaborative research into the safe long-term storage of Lithium-Ion batteries.
This presentation will outline the preservation issues related to batteries in collections, Conservation treatment case studies for lead-acid and alkaline batteries, recent Lithium-Ion Battery Safety research undertaken by Ingenium’s Senior Research Fellow, and our next steps in understanding and preserving batteries in Museum collections.

Study and restoration of two microscopes from Geneva's Museum of the History of Science
Author: Mathilde Sneiders
The study and restoration of two microscopes from Geneva's Museum of the History of Science has revealed recurrent and visible alteration to scientific instruments.

The first microscope with its wooden case probably dates from the end of the 18th century. Residues of old white cleaning products are visible on the brass parts and in the interstices, some wooden parts are broken.
The second microscope, by Pillischer, dates from the 19th century. The varnished brass is corroded.
The CleanLaB project developed at the HE-Arc in Neuchâtel, proposes to treat varnished brass using active agents such as traditional complexing agents or greener alternatives (for the user or the environment) to stabilize degradation and reduce the corroded appearance under the varnish.

Tests and treatments were carried out using gels and playing with different parameters (pH, application time, type of active agent, viscosity, etc.). The aim was to obtain a satisfactory and uniform appearance for the varnished brass using the cleaning methods and products recommended following studies carried out in recent years by Julie Schröter and the HE-Arc of Neuchâtel.

Session Chair: Trienke van der Spek (Teylers Museum, Netherlands)

Songs of the Bowhead Whale: tracing the origins of marine mammal acoustic science in the Arctic through a collection of hydrophone artifacts
Author: Tom Everrett
In August, 1970, American biologist Roger Payne released “Songs of the Humpback Whale.” It would go on to become the highest selling environmental album in history and contribute to a flurry of popular and scientific interest in whale vocalizations. Over the course of the 1970s, marine mammal acoustics would develop from a niche area of inquiry into an established scientific discipline, attracting researchers from around the world. At the heart of this work was the humble hydrophone: a microphone adapted for underwater listening and recording. It is with this tool that scientists learned to listen to marine wildlife, record their acoustic environments, and develop improved means for tracking their movement across vast oceans. In Canada, Chester Beachell was among the first to develop hydrophone technology for documentary and marine wildlife applications. Through the 1970s, while working as an engineer at the National Film Board of Canada, he developed hydrophone equipment for a variety of purposes and locations: from the warm waters of the Caribbean to the frigid waters of the Canadian High Arctic. In this presentation, I will describe what Beachell’s artifacts and archival documents might tell us about the development of marine mammal acoustic science in the 1970s – a field in which he remains virtually unknown today. I will focus specifically on Beachell’s work in the Northwest Territories and northern Alaska between 1972 and 1974, during which time he participated in scientific expeditions, designed bespoke hydrophone equipment for use in extreme conditions, and captured what might be the first ever recording of a Bowhead whale’s “song.”

Interpreting color and measuring light: Precision in diabetic glucose analysis
Author: Elizabeth Neswald
For much of the 20^th century color indicators were used to show urine sugar and, later, blood glucose levels to diagnose and monitor diabetes. Whether Benedict’s solution in a test tube or glucose oxidase on a test strip, shades of color corresponded to glucose concentration. Despite numerous attempts to create color standards for these tests, which were primarily used by physicians and patients, they could, at best, be described as semi-quantitative. Difficulties with reproducing colors for the scales, gaps between color scale “units”, and the effect of ambient lighting pointed to problems that arose from making color material. The most intractable problem was the variability of human visual perception. Colors and eyes were not precise enough tools of measurement. In addition, the question of what was precise enough changed, as approaches to diabetes management demanded ever tighter glucose control.

In the second half of the 20th century, Instruments based on photocells were introduced into biochemistry and physician and patient testing regimens in part in response to these problems. This paper shows how dissatisfaction with these semi-quantitative methods and distrust in the visual capacity of test users drove both the adoption of photoelectric registration methods and the automation of the testing process. The aim was to replace both measurement techniques and testing regimens that were considered imprecise and human-error-prone with methods deemed more “objective”. Through photoelectric colorimeters, reflectance photometers, and automatic analysis apparatus, human agency was removed from the testing and interpretation process.

Suppression of Self-Noise in Stepping Correlator Channel Sounders: A Cautionary Tale
Author: David G. Michelson
Accurate characterization of the wireless environment has long been key to designing and deploying effective wireless communications systems. The introduction of the sliding correlator channel sounder by Cox in the early 1970’s helped to transform such characterization from an art into a science. By the 1990’s, advances in digital technology made it possible to introduce the stepping correlator channel sounder and thereby overcome some key limitations of the earlier instrument. While most of the behaviour and limitations of the stepping correlator channel sounder were well-predicted by theory, the existence of spurious responses or ‘self-noise’ was an ongoing concern. Many authors offered explanations for why such self-noise was occurring and suggestions for how it could be suppressed. We attempted to verify the authors’ conclusions by replicating their setups and conducting experiments, but were unsuccessful.

Our conclusion: Reviewers and editors had done science a disservice by forcing authors to idly and incorrectly speculate concerning the causes of observed behaviour. Once reported in the literature, and cited by authors who were in turn cited by other authors, myths die hard. Moreover, none of these authors seemed to be aware of similar work being conducted by the acoustics community which was often more sophisticated than those employed by wireless researchers. The published literature concerning suppression of self-noise in stepping correlator channel sounders is a cautionary tale that reveals how a process designed to ensure that truth is fully revealed can actually do just the opposite.

Reading Galvanometers: Infrastructure and Instrumental Practice of Electrical Metrology at the University of Toronto
Author: Chen-Pang Yeang; Erich Weidenhammer; Victoria Fisher; Ava Spurr; Patrick Finnigan

Historians of science and technology have explored scientific instruments for their implications to metrology, the concepts of precision, materiality of laboratories, pedagogy, and tacit knowledge. We use the galvanometers as a lens to study the local development of expertise and training in electrical science and technology. Galvanometers were known for their precision in measuring minute electric currents. Integral to industry and science from the mid-19th to the 20th century, these instruments gained prominence as fundamental tools in electrical metrology. Their significance and operational challenges required specialized training in physics and electrical engineering.
In this paper, we inspect a set of historical galvanometers and the teaching of their uses at the University of Toronto. We adopt two materially-oriented methodologies. The first, informed by the Winterthur method of “artifact reading,” examines four historical galvanometers from the University of Toronto Scientific Instruments Collection to trace the development of local metrology and its broader Canadian context. The second, guided by experimental replication and a close reading of curricula and students’ lab notebooks from the University of Toronto Archives, aims to reconstruct the pedagogical practice and embodied skills involving galvanometers. Our study showcases the fruitfulness of materially-engaged methodologies in investigating the laboratory practice, teaching, and material conditions surrounding a ubiquitous measuring instrument at a Canadian university in the 20th century.

Co-author bio notes:
Chen-Pang Yeang is an Associate Professor at the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology, University of Toronto.