STS

• John Herschel


  Son of the world's most famous astronomer, William Herschel
• John Herschel helped liberate science from the realm of aristocratic privilege
• John Herschel made his first recorded astronomical observation, seeing Saturn's strange curvature


  1807
• William Herschel


  • Rocketed to fame from a musician to Europe's best-known astronomer
  • Appointed the "King's astronomer"
  • Discovered the planet Uranus
• William Herschel lacked advanced mathematical training to turn his observations into coherent physical theories
• John Herschel's mathematical training


  Privately tutored in advanced techniques developed by continental mathematicians like Laplace, Lagrange, and Lacroix
• At Cambridge, Herschel found the university had little interest in mathematical developments outside of the UK
• Cambridge and Oxford were less institutions of research and discovery, and more for training in law, church, and cultural polish for the landed elite
• Cambridge instruction remained devoted to the "dot-age" of Newton's calculus, rather than the "d-ism" of differential notation used in French mathematics
• Analytical Society


  Group convened by Herschel and others to promote the gospel of the d-ism of analysis instead of the conservative dot-age of the university
• Herschel published mathematical papers in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, showing little interest in applying analysis to the natural world
• Herschel was disappointed by the short-term failure of the Analytical Society to transform British mathematics
• London, rather than Cambridge, was the center of the UK scientific world where reform could occur alongside the growing influence and wealth of a new mercantile class
• Under Joseph Banks' long presidency, the Royal Society enshrined science as a privileged, gentlemanly pursuit
• Herschel moved from pure to applied mathematics in London, exploring chemistry, mineralogy, and optics
• Herschel discovered the properties of sodium thiosulfate solution and set the foundation for the primary method of fixing images in photography
• In France, Herschel was exposed to a new way of organizing science in which privilege was replaced by professionalization, with natural philosophers as state-employed, paid researchers
• Herschel found the scientific institutions of London, like the Royal Society, moribund and in need of reform, similar to his experience with mathematics at Cambridge
• Jean Baptiste Biot and François Arago


  Helped realize how mathematical equations were embodied in the interactions between crystals and polarized light
• Herschel's wife, Margaret: '"light was my first love"'
• French Academy of Sciences

  • Natural philosophers were employees of the state and paid for full-time research
  • Positions were highly sought after, limited in number, and required scientific output
• London's Royal Society


  • Only had an advisory role to the government
  • Was open to anyone recommended and approved by the society's fellows
  • Membership had ballooned to hundreds, of which only a small minority contributed scientifically
• Herschel found the scientific institutions of London moribund and in need of reform
• Herschel's strategy


  Involved a group of scientific rebels
• Herschel finally acquiesced to become his aging father's apprentice and take up his observational program


  After an abortive return to Cambridge as a tutor
• Herschel was not content to remain observing at his family's home in quiet Slough, 20 miles outside of London
• Herschel's means of combining his mathematical agenda with the reform of science

  1. Astronomy

  2. Helped found the new Astronomical Society of London in 1820 to challenge the hegemony of the Royal Society
• Astronomical Society (renamed the Royal Astronomical Society in 1831)


  • Provided a vehicle for applying new mathematics to the practice
  • Its members were primarily bankers, stockbrokers, and schoolmasters—namely, members of the new professional classes whose membership was resisted in the Royal Society
• As foreign secretary of the nascent society, Herschel


  Built a correspondence network with astronomers across Europe
• Science is the rational inquiry into nature
• London was becoming the commercial and banking capital of the world, and the Astronomical Society aimed to likewise become the clearinghouse for the world's astronomical data
• Object of Inquiry


  Topic that is being studied, assumed to have an objective existence independent of the inquirer's
• Prior to William and Caroline's work, astronomy had been primarily positional and concerned with establishing star positions


  • As a background for measuring the Moon (for navigation and especially determining longitude) and planets and comets (for refining the application of Newtonian gravity to the solar system)
• Inquirer


  Person or group seeking understanding, assumed to have an objective existence independent of the inquirer's and be capable of rational inquiry
• William's observing program was suited to his own unique instruments
• Science as Body of Knowledge

  • Rational inquiry to gain knowledge about nature
  • Knowledge resides in the mind as a mental picture/model of what nature is
  • Scientific knowledge is not perfect representations, it changes and improves
• William's catalogs included hundreds of new nebulae and double stars, but they did not provide the accuracy or organization for other observers to find them easily

  
• William's catalogs lacked standardized descriptions that would allow later observers to measure signs of change in those newly discovered objects
• Validating Scientific Knowledge


  1. Empirical statements must be tested through observation and experimentation

  2. If there are competing theories, must resort to observation and experimentation to decide

  3. A scientific body of knowledge must be internally consistent, have logical interrelationships, and be able to deduce testable predictions
• Line-of-sight doubles


  Stars that happened to appear close together along a line of sight from Earth but were actually distant from each other