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For the Week of 10/22/08 |
Assignment 8:
The Micro-Cosm
A Leeuwenhoek
scope and an and as seen by Hooke and probably drawn by Wren.
Early Microscopopy
Read Hall_LeeuwenhoekLecture-OCR-872KB.pdf
on the microscopy of Antony van Leeuwenhoek.
Read Fournier_FabricOfLife-Hooke-OCR-1.1MB.pdf
on the microscopy of Robert Hooke.
Read HookeMicrographiaExcerptsOCR-1.7MB.pdf.
These are a few excerpts from his famous book Micrographia from 1665.
Bring to class anything you
think might be interesting to look at under magnification. If you have any of the following,
please bring it/them in: a louse (louse is the singular of lice), bed bug,
various insects or tiny creatures, plant seeds, hot and/or mild spices, smooth
tasting substance, moss, fungus,É etc.
IÕm still brewing up some critter infused muchÉ weÕll look at it on
Wednesday. If you think you have
something with critters in it, feel free to bring it in.
Be prepared for a quiz on these
readings.
Homework Suggestions: Write up an essay or similar
report on the issues of microscopy.
What sorts of expectations did the early microscopists have? What were they hoping to see or were
they unbiased? How does their
method reflect that of Harvey or Galileo or Kepler? Did theological issues bump into microscopists like they did
for the astronomers? Or, use your
scope to make observations the same as or similar to HookeÕs or LeeuwenhoekÕs.
Use Hooke or Leeuwenhoek as your example on how to draw and write it up. If you can figure out how to take a
photograph through the thingÉ go for it.
You could even pretend to be a 17th or 18th-century
natural philosopher.
Cite all sources. Make it look good. Production quality matters.
Citations and additional sources
for souped up assignments.
Bedini, Silvio A. "An Early
Optical Lens-Grinding Lathe." Technology and Culture 8, no. 1 (1967): 74-77. Bedini-Early_lens_grinding_lathe-220KB.pdf
Dobell, Clifford, and Anthony
van Leeuwenhoek. Antony
Van Leewenhoek and His "Little Animals". New York,: Dover
Publications, 1960. This is the
main source for all Leewenhoek studies.
Ford, Brian J. "The Van
Leeuwenhoek Specimens." Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London 36, no. 1 (1981):
37-59. Ford_LeeuwenhoekSpecimens-3.9MB.pdf
Excellent images taken from Leeuwenhoek scopes.
Ford, Brian J. "The Royal
Society and the Microscope." Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London
55, no. 1 (2001): 29-49. Ford_RoyalSocietyMicroscopes-3MB.pdf Lots of nice pictures and interesting
factoids.
Fournier, Marian. The Fabric of
Life: Microscopy in the Seventeenth Century. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1996.
Hall, A. R. "The
Leeuwenhoek Lecture, 1988. Antony Van Leeuwenhoek 1632-1723." Notes and Records
of the Royal Society of London 43, no. 2 (1989): 249-273.
Hooke, Robert. Micrographia; or,
Some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies Made by Magnifying Glasses,
with Observations and Inquiries Thereupon. New York,: Dover Publications,
1961
(1st ed. 1665).
HookeÕs complete Micrographia
is available at Project Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/authors/h#a6091. You could definitely use some of his
other observations as inspirations for your own investigations. ItÕs all interesting.
Hull, Derek. "Robert Hooke:
A Fractographic Study of Kettering-Stone." Notes and Records of the Royal Society of
London 51, no. 1 (1997): 45-55. Hull_HookeKettering-Stone-1.4MB.pdf
Nice comparative analysis of HookeÕs microscopic investigation into the
Kettering-Stone.
Newsome, Daniel. ÒSimple Magnifier – Notes on
LeeuwenhoekÕs Microscopes.Ó MS.
200? Newsome-SimpleMagnifier.htm
Ruestow, Edward G. The Microscope in
the Dutch Republic: The Shaping of Discovery. New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1996. Excellent
book all around.
Wilson, Catherine. "Visual
Surface and Visual Symbol: The Microscope and the Occult in Early Modern
Science." Journal
of the History of Ideas 49, no. 1 (1988): 85-108. Wilson-Microscope_and_Occult_Science-772KB.pdf
She is one of my teachers and is a very good writer.
Wilson, Catherine. The Invisible
World: Early Modern Philosophy and the Invention of the Microscope. Studies in Intellectual History and the
History of Philosophy. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1995. An excellent book if you can find it in
your library.
Yost, R. M., Jr. "Locke's
Rejection of Hypotheses About Sub-Microscopic Events." Journal of the
History of Ideas 12, no. 1 (1951): 111-130. Yost_LockeRejectionMicroEvents2.4MB.pdf There is an interesting reference to
microscopic stuff in LockeÕs Essay on Human Understanding, if you feel like
finding it. Here is a copy on the
web: Locke-Essay-H-U Just do a search on ÒmicroscopeÓ and
read the sections that contain these references.
Back to Syllabus [SciRev Fall
2008]
Me – scirevf08@mifami.org
Review Materials:
Newsome-SimpleMagnifier.htm
- my notes on simple ÒbeadÓ microscopesÉ mostly the geometrical optics
This is a .doc and will download accordingly. Some of this is also in the .htm above,
but there is some other stuff here too:
Of courseÉ study your notes on the Fournier, Hooke, and the
Hall readings.
Posted: 12/6/08 4:06 PM