What Is Your Future, History?
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NO. 111: OCTOBER 2016 ISSN: 1751-8261 MAGAZINE OF THE BRITISH SOCIETY FOR THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE Contents Choose Your Science Story 1-3 Undead Science Stories 4-5 Scientific Wives & Woes 6-7 Down the Hadron Collider 8-9 Taking London’s Pulse 10 Fossils & Fictionalisation 11-12 Grant Report 13 Conference Report 14 The future of travel and exploration? A fictional poster for travel to Europa, as created by Interview - Adam Mosley 15 NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Image courtesy of Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech BJHS, Viewpoint, BSHS info. 16 What is your future, Editorial I history? This issue features a variety of science stories. We begin with a story for you to A choose-your-own History of Science adventure from the participate in, as told by Amanda Rees Unsettling Scientific Stories team. (1-3): complete the quest to get a History of Science project up and running! An Remember: only YOU can choose your article by Thony Christie follows (4-5), with make it possible for you to change the future destiny... examples of the sort of stories that won’t – if only you can gather together the tools and May your journey be blessed by the Lady stop running, though historians of science weaponry you’ll need to succeed. Subtilitae and Lord Venatus, and may you believe they should be long dead. avoid the pit where the monster Dipsaeolian Shock and sensation were used in Do you lurks with the snake Suimendax fictional and non-fictional science stories. 1. Open your Notebook and start searching all of the Academy for Concepts, Methods Ann Loveridge shows the perils of loving Walk with Chronos, friend a scientist in 19th-century novels (6-7), and and Colleagues? Ross MacFarlane talks about how real Lon- These are dark times for the Academy. Many 2. Go for coffee with fellow inhabitants of doners were transformed into characters of your Colleagues have fallen in its defence, your Corridor to Discuss the Issues Again? in a very creative report on the healthcare delivering their last lecture in the teeth of the 3. Become disturbed by a tearful Student hardships they faced (10). three unsleeping Monsters that stalk its Cor- seeking Succor? Kanta Dihal talks about science sto- ridors: Plans That Are Not Thoroughly Thought ries for the young, exploring how even Through, Someone In Central Admin’s Vanity If you’ve chosen (2), Suimendax’s snares lie quantum physics has made its way into Project, and Low-Level Omnipresent Malaise. ahead. If (3), you must wait till tomorrow to tantalising tales (8-9). I’m also delighted The Overlords have decreed that More is once start the Quest – but remember, sometimes to welcome back former Viewpoint editor again Less. The Stipend for all is reduced. tomorrow never comes. Melanie Keene, who explains how a real Many Students are arriving and must be If you’ve chosen (1), you may continue. scientist has been immortalised in fiction Supervised through the Labyrinths of Halls, for children (11-12). Seminars and Required Reading to the sunny First, you must understand what the underly- Contributions to the next issue should uplands of Genuine Intellectual Engagement. ing Aim of your Quest actually is. On one level, be sent to [email protected] by 15th But you have been given the opportunity your plan is to investigate the role that science December. for one Heroic Quest – to understand how the and technology have played in creating this past thought about and created the future, history of the future that you will write. But both in fiction and in fact. Making a further Alice White, Editor beyond this, you must also figure out a way imaginative leap, you wonder if it might even to both protect Human Knowledge from 2 Viewpoint No. 111 A futuristic vision from 1829: the advance of technology leads to rapid transport, sophisticated tastes among the masses, mechanization, and extravagant building projects. Etching by W. Heath (using the pseudonym Paul Pry). Courtesy of the Wellcome Library. the twin assaults of Arrogance and Wilful Three will explore the well-trodden paths of rooms, with its unanticipated – and wholly Ignorance, and to add to her treasure in the the Case Study, seeking to carve out knowl- unintended – consequences. The future, these humble spirit of Knowing You Might Have edge of the Victorians and Edwardians, White Champions will show, was becoming fearful. Missed Something. Heat/Cold War and Environment, Complexity, But what of the other three Objects? They Catastrophe. are more unusual and are proving harder to Do you These Champions will explore the ways in define – although they each promise much 1. Collect a Huge Pile of Books and Paper which science and technology were deployed greater opportunities for you to hit your Vital Downloads: many more than you can in thinking about the future at different points Targets. You hesitate. The Case-Study is, after realistically read? during the long technological 20th century. all, the chief Weapon of the Academy. The 2. Put together a team of Crack Colleagues They will investigate how the dazzling displays snake Suimendax enlists her meretricious and with them hatch your plan to Catch and spectacular experiments of scientist-per- henchfolk, the twins Volens and Sordidus the Vital, but Elusive, targets of Impact, formers encouraged the development of what Cogitandi, to whisper in your ear that these Outreach, Intellectual Respectability and could be called a culture of futurism, in fiction, three Objects are surely enough to fulfil your International Significance? in fact and in a variety of different spaces. quest… 3. Decamp to the local Hostelry for Ale to More prosaically, they will consider how ideas sooth your throat and fevered brow? of improvement, reform and progress were Do you gradually replaced by notions of planning and 1. Agree. The mystic Gateway to Research If you’ve chosen (1) or (3) Dipsaeolian and crisis, as prospective limitations on resources is close now, and near closing: you have Suimendax will certainly savour your flesh. (economic, physical, historic) became plain. done enough. The Case Study Champions If (2) you may proceed. These case studies will show how early opti- will ride alone and the three remaining mism become considerably blunted, as fears Objects will disappear back into the Mists Congratulations! You’ve surmounted the of political or military defeat became overlaid of Might Have Been. first obstacles. Now, things become seri- by the awareness of looming natural disaster. 2. Disdain their wiles. Protecting and ous. You decide that your quest will seek six Confidence in technological, or technocratic increasing Knowledge alone will not Objects, and you appoint six Champions in progress was increasingly confronted, in Defend the Academy: you must also their pursuit. novels, films, research papers and committee reach out to the Real World and even, if Viewpoint No. 111 3 you’re brave enough, the Overlords. The you want to tell about the past’s future. You Champions will ride out to the Gateway identify Past Periodicals, Prospecting Futures as Six or None. and Presenting Choices. 3. Temporise. Maybe one more Object - you The first of these Three will use the Archive might just slip through the Gateway? – it will seek out evidence of how science was BSHS Notices historically deployed in journals and maga- If you chose (1), you find the Gateway slams zines throughout the long twentieth century shut against you. You return, abashed to your in order to imagine the future. It will treat HSS Conference Corridor, and seek to pursue and protect cartoons and advertisements with the same There’s still time to register for the annual Knowledge in the time you can clutch back respect it proffers to editorials and articles: all HSS conference, to be held this year at from Supervision. Maybe next year, you’ll be go to shape science in the public mind. The the Westin Peachtree Plaza in downtown braver. If you chose (3), you pass the Gateway, second will turn to Focus Groups, and join sf Atlanta, Georgia, 3–6 November 2016. but are trapped in Triage: you must battle reading groups and individuals in their own Online registration will be available it out with the other souls who had Good intrepid journeys through fiction. It will listen through 23 October 2016. Non-members Ideas Backed Up with Solid Plans, but simply and talk with them about how and why stories are encouraged to join the Society and Weren’t Distinctive Enough. Dispirited, the of the future matter: it eschews arrogance, enjoy discounted meeting registration. Corridor and Supervision await you and your preferring instead to aim at stimulating con- For more information, visit: time will be nibbled away by the Rats of Large versations on which relationships of equality hssonline.org/meetings/2016-hss-annual- and Small Admin Jobs. with lay experts can be built. The third – meeting/ If (2), you may proceed. Ethnographic Role-Play, invites publics to use And to register, go to: their imaginations to investigate the histories hssweb.org/registration/ The three remaining Objects are ones that of 20th-century scientific decision making, take you out of the Academy and force you and to decide on the choices that they would to figure out how your Quest makes sense in make, were they living in those histories. It the Real World. You need to look directly at will constantly seek feedback from its users, so IUHPST Essay Prize how people – expert and lay – used science to it can study both how people use science to think about the future in the past. You need think about the future, and how non-histori- The International Union of History and to figure out how to find out about how lay ans utilise historical knowledge.