History Newsletter CENTER for HISTORY of PHYSICS&NIELS BOHR LIBRARY & ARCHIVES Vol
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History Newsletter CENTER FOR HISTORY OF PHYSICS&NIELS BOHR LIBRARY & ARCHIVES Vol. 44, No. 1 • Summer 2012 Herschel Family Papers Now Open for Research at The Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin With generous support from the AIP Sir John Herschel’s own papers span 1809– botany, chemistry, geology, mathematics, Center for History of Physics, the Harry 1871 and chiefly document his scientific meteorology and barometry, music, Ransom Center recently completed activities and tenure at the Royal Mint, photography, physical optics, physics, a year-long project to rehouse, and other subjects. Also present rearrange, and describe its are his mathematical notebooks holdings of papers of the Herschel from his student years, his diaries Family in accordance with current spanning 1820–1871, and his travel archival practices and descriptive journals with observations from cataloging standards. The resulting tours in Italy, France, Germany, and finding aid describing the papers England, 1809–1850. is now available online at http:// research.hrc.utexas.edu:8080/ His observations at the Cape hrcxtf/view?docId=ead/00568.xml. of Good Hope (1834–1838) are documented by reports, notes, The Herschel Family Papers at the star charts, financial accounts, and Ransom Center largely represent diaries. Sir John’s correspondence the life and work of Sir John F. W. is extensive and includes Herschel (1792–1871), the noted exchanges with colleagues such English mathematician, astronomer, as George Biddle Airy, Charles chemist, and experimental Babbage, Francis Baily, Charles photographer. Also present are Darwin, William Rutter Dawes, manuscripts and correspondence Michael Faraday, John Russell Hind, by and about John’s father, Sir John William Lubbock, Charles William Herschel (1738–1822), Lyell, Thomas Maclear, George discoverer of the planet Uranus and Peacock, Edward Sabine, Richard stellar astronomy pioneer; John’s Sheepshanks, William Henry aunt, the noted astronomer Caroline but also depict his personal life as well as Smyth, George Gabriel Stokes, William Lucretia Herschel (1750–1848); and his relationships with colleagues, friends, Henry Fox Talbot, William Whewell, many other Herschel family members, and family. His manuscripts include Thomas Young, and many others. scientific colleagues, and friends. writings on actinometry, astronomy, (Continued on page 2) In this issue... Herschel Family Papers Now Open for Research at Please Help Us Contact .......................................................... 9 The Harry Ransom Center, UT at Austin ............................... 1 Documentation Preserved: New Collections .............................10 Fred and Linda Dylla Donate Daughter’s Painting Documentation Preserved: New Finding Aids ............................15 to the Niels Bohr Library & Archives .................................... 2 AIP’s Grant to Archives ..........................................................18 A Perfect Evening to Celebrate 14 Billion (and Fifty) Years ............... 3 Joint Project with University of Maryland Students ......................18 New Section in Annalen der Physik ........................................... 4 Friends of the Center for History of Physics ...............................19 Development at AIP .............................................................. 4 Charles Irwin Weiner (1931–2012) ............................................. 5 Cover Image: History of Astronomy at AIP .................................................... 7 Sir John Herschel. “The Honourable Mrs. Leicester Stanhope,” 1836. Cyanotype. Herschel invented the cyanotype process. Image Recent Publications of Interest ................................................ 8 courtesy of the Harry Ransom Center. AIP Member Societies: The American Physical Society • The Optical Society of America • The Acoustical Society of America • The Society of Rheology • The American Association of Physics Teachers American Crystallographic Association • American Astronomical Society • American Association of Physicists in Medicine • AVS The Science and Technology Society • American Geophysical Union (“Herschel Papers”, continued from page 1) Fred and Linda Dylla Donate Daughter’s Painting to the Niels Bohr Library & Archives Materials representing Sir William Herschel date from 1753 to 1822 and Fred and Linda Dylla have donated pursuit of knowledge. Existing shapes include correspondence, manuscripts Stellarator III, a painting by Fred’s of high-energy physics equipment of essays, notes, and tables. Within daughter, artist Kim Dylla, to the Niels and laboratories are pared down to his correspondence are letters from Bohr Library & Archives, where it is their essential forms evoking French his father and other relatives in now hanging in the reading room. In master Paul Cezanne’s famous idiom: Germany. A list of the telescopes Sir the exhibition brochure for “Visionary ‘Everything in nature adheres to the William constructed and documents Distillations,” guest curator Sarah cone, the cylinder, and the cube.’ relating to his early musical career are Tanguy notes: also present. Any suggestion of her subjects’ “In Kim Dylla’s art, physics and intended use surrenders to the Holdings for Caroline Lucretia technology go hand-in-hand with seductive interplay of light and form. Herschel span 1783–1849 and consist a sophisticated understanding of Silent, cool and forceful, the machines of correspondence, biographical computer graphics and a hyperrealistic assume new identities and suggest a memoranda, documents, tables, and style. Having a physicist as a father layered, enigmatic reality of their own. diaries. In her correspondence are predisposed her to seeing the inherent Dylla generates her compositions by letters from Carl Friedrich Gauss, John beauty in laboratory equipment and cropping passages of zoomed-out Haygarth, Alexander von Humboldt, machinery and to exploring space, light, photographs. These in turn serve as and Joseph Lalande. Among her and time. With college degrees in art observational references to the final manuscripts are diaries for 1833–1845, and computer science, she honed her paintings. Up close, the exacting drafts of her autobiography, and a artistic skills by copying old masters. photorealism loosens into painterly commonplace book of astronomical abstraction. Reflected surfaces memoranda that records her education “Her current ‘machine’ paintings, coalesce into blobs of color, and edges as an astronomer. though void of people and narrative, soften, becoming permeable upon celebrate human creativity and the occasion.” ■ The remainder of the collection contains papers of other Herschel Family members—including Sir John’s mother Mary Pitt Herschel, his wife Lady Margaret Herschel, and several of his children—as well as papers by or correspondence between Herschel colleagues, such as George Biddell Airy, James Russell Hind, Thomas Maclear, Edward Sabine, William Samuel Stratford, and others. The Herschel Family Papers are supplemented by other holdings at the Ransom Center, including books and scientific offprints formerly owned by the Herschels, photographs taken by Sir John; additional printed documents and pamphlets; and a few personal objects. ■ Submitted by: Joan M. Sibley, Senior Archivist Archives & Visual Materials Cataloging Harry Ransom Center The University of Texas at Austin P. O. Box 7219 Austin, TX 78713-7219 P: 512-471-7110 F: 512-471-7930 www.hrc.utexas.edu/ Kim Dylla, Stellarator III, 2010, oil on canvas, 36” x 36.” 2 History Newsletter | Summer 2012 www.aip.org/history A Perfect Evening to Celebrate 14 Billion (and Fifty) Years Reprint of a posting from Nicole Cranberg’s blog at http://texasfireframe.com/fireplace-grate-blog/ My son Jake and I hopped a cab from Dad would have enjoyed meeting Dr. about a giant leap for mankind. The George Washington University to an Mather, an astrophysicist whose Webb, according to NASA, “will examine apartment on the other side of DC scientific focus is light years from that every phase of our history, from the first whose former occupant, we later of a nuclear physicist: the vast reaches galaxies to form after the Big Bang, to learned, was Lena Horne. That set the of outer space vs. the nucleus of an the formation and evolution of planetary tone for the evening which started with a atom right under your nose. I later told systems capable of supporting life, to bang. Nobel Laureate in physics Dr. John Dr. Mather that his desire for Congress the history of our own Solar System.” C. Mather gave a lively talk about his to be comprised of more scientists was Dr. Mather even stated the possibility role in discovering remnants of the Big also one of my dad’s favorite themes. of the massive telescope leading to the Bang that proved the theory beyond any Mather and my father also shared a discovery of alien life forms. doubt, and led to his earning the most keen interest in educating and inspiring esteemed award in science. He described the next generation of physicists. The Very cool. 400 degrees below zero cool, his book to us, The Very First Light – The Nobel Laureate generously contributed in fact. That’s the temperature (farenheit) True Inside Story of the mirror will be the Scientific Journey cooled to with the Back to the Dawn of help of sun shields the the Universe, which size of a tennis court. he promised had Mather’s mother of intrigue, scientific all telescopes will be adventure and even launched in 2018. “But “people behaving we don’t have an exact