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SIS Bulletin Issue 37 Scientific Instrument Society Bulletin of the Scientific Instrument Society No. 37 June 1993 Bulletin of the Scientific Instrument Society ISSN0956-8271 For Table of Contents, see inside back cover Executive Committee Jon Darius, Chairman Gerard Turner, Vice Chairman Howard Dawes, Executive Secretary Trevor Waterman, Meetings Secretary Allan Mills, Editor Michael Cowham, Advertising Manager Brian Brass, Treasurer Ronald Bristow Anthony Michaelis David Wt~ttm Kristen Lippincott David Hughes Membership and Administrative Matters Mr. Howard Dawes P.O. I~x ] 5 Pershore Worcestershire WRI0 2RD Tel:0386-861075 United Kingdom Fax: 0.386-861074 ....IT/ See reside back cover jbr infvrmation on membership Editorial Matters Dr. Allan Mills Astronomy Group University of Leicester University Road Leicester LEI 7RH Tel: 0533-523924 United Kingdom Fax: 0533-523918 Advertising Mr Michael Cowham The Mount Tuft Cambridge Tel: 0223-262684 United Kingdom Fax: 0223-263948 Organization of Meetings Mr Trevor Waterman 75a Jermyn Street London SWIY 6NP Tel: 071-930 29~ United Kingdom Fax: 071-321 0212 Typesetting and PHnting Halpen Graphic Communication Limited Victoria House (~.rtrude Street Chelsea London SWIOOJN Tel 071-351 5577 United Kingdom Fax 071-352 7418 Price: £h per is.,,ue, including back numbers where available The Scientific Instrument Society is Registered Charity No. 326733 © The Scientific Instrument Society 1993. Editorial and Announcements But it says in the book... It is therefore a good thing that The Society congratulates its Acting established textbook wisdom should be Chairman on this well-deserved award. All textbook writers inevitably begin by queried from time to time. Two decades At the same time this recognition of our digesting the works of their ago the 'inert' character of the noble subject is really most heartening, and predecessors (perhaps when students gases was shown to be a fallacy, and we look forward with confidence to themselves) and then synthesize this this has led to important developments further growth in the subject, the knowledge, along with contemporary in krypton, xenon and (particularly) Society, and its influence. developments, into their own books. It fluorine chemistry. This issue of the is well known that this process Bulletin contains a report of a discussion Apologies to David Penney sometimes leads to mistakes and where the generally accepted story of anomalies being perpetuated through the invention of the refracting telescope Members will doubtless have noticed the generations, for no author can be in the Netherlands in 1608 was and deplored the very poor expected to be expert in every field, or challenged. It was also (quite rightly) reproduction of the clock movement on to question the antecedents of every ably defended. Readers must make up the rear cover of Bulletin 35. This can be statement he makes. their own minds on the result, but I am seen to be due to the printers mistakenly sure none will question the value of the using a scanning rather than a Thus, school texts and schoolchildren exercise. photographic technique, and so the (and university students come to that) printed version in no way conveys the still trot out the 'colours of the The Editor very fine quality of the original drawing spectrum' as: by David Penney. Apologies are /,i Gerard Turner awarded the Caird therefore tendered to him, and to the red-orange-yellow-green-blue-indigo-violet Medal authors in the same issue whose line illustrations were similarly botched. when any unbiased observation of a In March of this year Professor Gerard solar spectrum will disclose a ribbon of L'E. Turner (History of Science and The printers have been changed, a continuosly-varying hue. Yet a few Technology, Imperial College, London) further stage of proof checking initiated, pages later it is taught that the spectrum was awarded the Caird Medal by the and a much better job made of No.36. represents a range encompassing an Trustees of the National Maritime We therefore trust that the reputation of infinite number of different Museum, Greenwich, "in recognition of the Bulletin for the highest attainable wavelengths of light, and that the the outstanding work he has done in quality in every area will be regained. human eye can distinguish some 2000 promoting the study of scientific distinct tints! The 'indigo' also causes instruments." trouble: ask someone who has named it to put their finger on this colour, and they will usually be very unhappy! Newton originally named 5 colours, but NOTICE OF ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING many years later (in the Opticks) added orange and indigo, perhaps seeking a The 9th Annual General Meeting of the relationship with the octave in music. Scientific Instrument Society will be held at It's the same with the 'blue sky' The Society of Antiquaries, Burlington House, London W1 phenomenon. Textbooks happily quote on Lord Rayleigh as proving that the Thursday, 8th July, 1993 at 2.00 p.m. scattering of light is inversely proportional to the fourth power of the wavelength, and then claim that this In accordance with the constitution all Officers and Ordinary members of the relationship gives rise to the blue sky. It Committee resign at the Annual General Meeting. does not - one would see a violet sky! The fact is that we must also take into All members of the Scientific Instrument Society are invited to submit nominations for account two further curves varying with any post as Officer or Ordinary member of the Committee. wavelength: the emission of the Sun and Each candidate requires a nominator and two seconders, and the nominator should the sensitivity of the human eye. seek permission of the candidate prior to nomination. Compounding these three curves together does give a resultant peaking Nominations should reach the Secretary at P.O. Box 15, Pershore WR10 2RD, in the blue. Worcestershire, England, as soon as possible. Back Cover Illustration IRON CLOCKS 'The iron wheel turns regularly, and thereby measures the passage of time.' This print of a clockmaker's workshop comes from the New Discoveries drawn by Johannes Stradanus, and issued as a set of engravings by Galleus of Antwerp in 1638. ! Bulletin of the Scientific Instrument Society No.37 (1993) 1 Meeting Report Was there an Elizabethan Telescope? The di.,~'ussion meeting entitled "Was chairmanship of Robert Fox, Professor as well as a general di~usskm. He was there an Elizabethan Telescope?" of the History of Science at Oxford pleased k~ see in the audience a broad organized by the ~ientific Instrument University. He welcomed the two cross-section of the astronomical and S~cieh,' was-held 26 March 1oq3 at the invited speakers, Colin Ronan and historical communities, m~ all of them ~)cietv of Antiquaries in Burlington Gerard Turner. adding that there would members of the SIS House, Piccadilly, under the be some additional short contributions Colin Ronan spoke to the proposal There was an Elizabethan Telescope Colin Ronan outlined the ca.so for the legal restriction on publication had a device might prove useful in existence of the first practical been made by the Elizabethan military and naval warfare. Bourne's telescope in Elizabethan England. government in view of the possible report still exists, and contains much Referring briefly to the work of military and naval use of such an vital information, in the first place he Leonard Digges ic. 1520-c.1559) as invention. makes evident that his information recorded by his son Thomas Digges (c. came from a visit or visits to John Dee 1546-15q5) in his 1571 edition of his It is however to be noted that Thomas and Thomas Digges. Second, he father's book Pantometria (about Digges was a good astronomer - describes the properties of lenses and which Mr Ronan had previously Tycho Brahe used his observations on mirrors, as well as the preparation of published a paper) he expres~d the the supernova of 1572 - and that it a reflecting surface on the rear of view that Thomas Digges' report seems possible that he tried a those which are of glass rather than contained therein about his father's telescope out on the sky, this leading metal. Finally, Bourne then makes a experimental and mathematical work him to the concept of an infinite remark which is crucial to the on 'perspective glasses' seemed to be universe. question of whether such a device in two parts. The first described the existed, and this is the comment that use of lenses and mirrors, about Certainly there can be no claim that "...the greatest impediment ys, that which Thomas himself claimed to be Digges was trying to get on a yow can not beholde, and see, but the writing a book. This included what bandwagon; he was reporting smaller quantity at a tyme". The may well be a reference to a reflecting something new which was not to be significance of this statement is that it teh'scope, possibly of Herschelian claimed again as an invention for describes the small field of view type. The second de~ribed what such nearly forty years. Yet the position of observed through a telescope, 'glasses' could achieve in the way of the Digges is not completely something which indicates that seeing distant objects. It was this satisfactory, and independent Bourne himself had looked through second section that contained the confirmation is required. The such an instrument, it is very doubtful exaggerations - for instance about evidence of William Bourne (I/. 1567- indeed that even Thomas Digges, for reading an open letter in a distant 1580), a noted writer on military and all his mathematical ability, could r,a~m - that have led some historians naval matters, turns out to be have calculated this effect from purely to discredit Thomas Digges" whole significant in this respect.
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