Scientific In,, t~ ument Society Bulletin March No. 72 2002 Bulletin of the Scientific Instrument Society ISSN0956-8271 For Table of Contents, see back cover President Gerard Tum~ Vice-President Howard Dawes Honorary Committee Gloria Clifton,Chairman Ron Bristow, Secreta~ Simon Cl~ifetz, Treasurer Willem Hackmann, Editor Peter de Clercq, Meetings Secretary Alexander Crum Ewing Tom Lamb Tom Newth Alan Stimpson Sylvia Sumira Trevor Waterman Membership and Administrative Matters The Executive Officer (Wg Cdr Geoffrey Bennett) 31 High Street Stanford in the Vale Farmgdon Tel: 01367 710223 Oxon SN7 8LH Fax: 01367 718963 e-mail: [email protected] See outside back cover/or information on membership Editorial Matters Dr. WiUem D. Hackmann Sycamore House Tel: 01608 811110 The Playing Close Fax: 01608 811971 Charlbury OX7 3QP emil: [email protected] Society's Website http://www.sis.org.uk Advertising See 'Summary of Advertising Services'panel elsewhere in this Bulletin. Further enquiries to the Executive Officer. Typesetting and Printing IAthoflow Ltd 26-36 Wharfdale Road Tel: 020 7833 2344 King's Cross Fax: 020 7833 8150 London N1 9RY The ScientificInset Society is Registered Charity No. 326733 © The Scientific Inset Society 2002 Editorial jr - JY" "it ! - issue's Mystery Object. It is a model 0 proposed by the German botnist Carl lgnatz Leopold Kny (1841-1916). Knv was profes- sor of Plant Physiology at the ~ndw/rtschaf- tliche Hoch~hule in Berlin who studied the development and growth of plants. Paolo writes that he is not a ~tanist and there(ore his explanation will be quite approximate. The lines on the glass tube of the mystery instrument are just a representation of the so-called 'genetic spirals' (spiralegi, n~atri- ce). From a purely morphological point of view the various parts of a plant (leaves, petal, aem etc) are regarded as 'mem- bers. Members growing at the same level on a common axis (called 'whorl') are represented with a section diagram as shown in Fig. I. If we imagine a spiral starting from a member and passing trough Fxe. l$...-:.Diagrxm ofmul- all the intersectionsmembers situated above it (for examples the leaves on a stem) and tilsteral m~stered xrr~Ke- following their development we have a merit, with dlvergenoe of t. genetic spiral (Fig. 2). This spiral is the line engravedon the mystery ob~. The other r IPm, "|L~D~ ~ mm [usa. t~. ~,ama ~oe lines and the fraction 2/5 indicate a Fig.l Section diagram of morphological mem- |wbloh I~vo t~o ooRamm~~lll- particular kind of symmetry present in |m o¢|, *moNee *me bers taken from Vines textbook. /,,,mm~-t~. =m-h~= m ~s4t- various plant. Paolo suggests that if more bT ~ ZaNiest, details are required, to consult: Julius Sachs, ch,~s Wl ~ ~ b3" Lehrbuch der Botanik (Leipzig, 1873), pp. 174- Broken Bones 187, and Sydney H. Vines. A Students" Te~- It is very gratifying that interesting papers Book of Botany (New York, 1910), pp. 23-31. continue to be submitted to the Bulletin from all parts of the globe. From that viewpoint Fig.2 Genetic spirals taken Brendel in Berlin was a maker who both the Bulletin and instrumental history is from Vines textbook. Sof~oCwialized m botanical models (plants, thriving. On the negative side membership er, etc.), in the collection of the to the Society has been dropping slightly Fondazione Scienza e Tecnica of Florence recently. This may be due to the recession or merits. For more information contact: De- (as well as in many other didactic collec- to the increasing power of the intemet borah Jean Warner, Curator, Physical tions!) dozen of Bmrgid models survive. catering for specialist interests. The SIS, as Sciences Collection, National Museum of the title denotes, covers the entire spectrum American History, 0636, Washington, of instrumental history, which has its D.C. 20013-7012. Also Bill Burns (e-mail: strengths and weaknesses. The 'mix' of mailto:[email protected]) has added a papers that are published in each issue of page on the Orleans, Massachusetts, cable the Bulletin is dependent on what has been station museum to his Atlantic Cable Cover Story submitted and on the space available. The website: http://atlantic-cable.corn/ Arti- Editor tries to vary the fare from issue to cle/FrenchCableStation. This cable station issue as much ashe can in the hope that was built in 1891 and operated until 1959. Willem Hackmann every reader will find at least something of The page includes a number of photograpkq ~iaI interest. This is a tall order but the of interestingoriginal equipment. Editor believes passionately in the need for a To end on a personal note, to get this Bulletin wide-ranging interdisciplinary }oumal in This iasue's cover illustration is to celebrate ready for publication has been a painful Professor Michael Cooper's wide-ranging the field of scientific instruments. What do experience as at the end of January I badly you think? Ninth Annual Invitation lecture on the broke my left leg in a fall resulting in a history of land and hydrographic surveying, Congratulations to Paoio Brenni for having compound fracture which has destroyed in particular the evolution from opto- been awarded the 2002 Paul Bunge Prize in much soft tissue in the ankle. Most of this mechanical surveying instruments to the recognition for his works in the field of the issue has been edited in a haze of painkillers electronic surveying systems of today. The history of scientificinstrument and material on a laptop perched precariously over my illustration is the title page of Aaron culture. The Geselleschaft Deutscher Che- temporary bed made up in the living Rathbome's The Surt~Cor in Four B~,es, micher will award the prize on the 10~ of downstairs to which [ have been restricted. published in 1616. Rathborne (1572-1618) The surgeons predict that ! shall be fully May at the University of Potsdam during was probably a Yorkshire man who moved the opening session of the 'Bunsen-Tagung'. mobile again m five months, so I crave to London as an engraver and pm/essional This is a well-deserved honour. indulgence for all those unanswered e-mails surveyor. He may have been an apprentice of and any additional errors that may have John C,odwyn and was a member of the Anne C. van Heiden has resigned from crept into this issue. London circle of mathematical practitioners Museum Boerhaave after fourteen years in Corrisenda which included Henry Briggs, the first post to take up a position as physics teacher Gresham Professor of Geometry in London in a secondary school. We wish him every Minor errors occum.d in two of the captions and the first Professor of ~metry at success and regret the loss of his experience of the figures accompanying the paper on Oxford, and John Speidell, a professional to our sui~ect, in particular on the history of the restoration of instruments of the teacher of mathematics and friend of Elias the air pump. Palermo Observatory in the December Allen. In his book Rathborne recommended Deborah Warner has drawn our attention to issue. In Fig. I the columns support the the use of printed pocket-tables of k~ga- a new on-line catalogue at http://american- verticaland not the horizontal circle,and m rithms, sines, tangents and secants. Gerard history.si.edu/surveying, of surveying and Fig. 9 the word 'scale'should be deleted in Turner in his Eli~brthan Instrument Makers geodetic instruments in the National Mu- the third line. (OUR 2000), illustrates(item 76) a surveyor's seum of American History. This is a work in Mys~ry Object Solved a~OKr, which he tentatively attributes to progress: more images are to come, as well ynvyd and ~y resembles an as descriptions of about 50 more insla'u- Paolo Brenni has solved the December engraving in Rathbome's book. Bulletin of the Sc~tific ~t Society No. 72 (2002) 1 The Annual Invitation Lecture From Graduations on Metal to Binary Biphase Modulation, or From Land and Hydrographic Surveying to Geomatics Michael Cooper, Fro, Professorof Engineering Surveying School of Engine,".' .ity University London ca |... A Historical Context The era of prehistoric surveying began about 50,000 years before the present (BP), I~ssibly earlier, when hunter-gath- erers roamed the land. If surveying is a means of acquiring information and knowledge about the earth and its resources, knowing how to find a way from one place to another, and passing on all that information, then homo ~piens was a surveyor from the earliest times. For each one of these ancient people, surveying was literally a matter of life or death. In order to survive, everyone had to know where to find fia~ and water (even when n(me could be seen) how to move from place to place, and when to do ~,. Locations in time and space were not measured by instrumen~ but reck- g~g.l I',,rt,~l./, C,m~cra ob-,.~,: ,tt'c~tc t,v oned bv the senses and embedded in "~,q';'m.~,'. From W. Derh,mt. ed, R~ert song and myth for the benefit of present th~&e's l'hih~phical Experiments and and future g'enerations. Surveying instru- Ob,,ervations ~l.~mdon, 1720~. ments came into use to impnwe our sen.,~es and memory, in order to meet I ntrod uction increasingly complex social needs. I am honoured to have been invited to The ancient era of surveying started gl~e the ~lentific Instrument Society's around 7,t~)BP when pt~ple began to Fig.2 11.' tittl: and last ot the '(.,rent Annual Lecture.