Past Present and Future of Scientific Instruments Studies

SIC Symposium Athens, 19 – 23 September 2022

 Monday, September 19
08.30 – 09:30Registration and Coffee
09.30 – 10:00Opening ceremony
10:00 – 10.30Denis Weaire: What shall we keep? In memory of Peter Maria Schuster
10:30 – 11.00Coffee Break
11:00 – 13:00Session 1 (plenary) Session in Tribute to Paolo Brenni
Introduction and Chair: Mara Miniati
1. Fanny Marcon: Telegraphs, bridges and velocipedes: scientific instrument-makers in 19th-century Veneto region
2. Eugenio Bertozzi & Laura Rigotti: To teach, experiment and show: the apparatuses of the Cabinet of Physics at the University of Bologna
3. Roland Wittje: In the Laboratory of History of Physics: Re-working Historical Experiments
4. Anna Giatti: “Better than New?”: Paolo Brenni and the restoration of Scientific Instruments
13:00 – 14.30Lunch break
14:30 – 16.30Session 2 (parallel) 20th Century & Contemporary Instruments
Chair: Tacye Phillipson
1. Adam Adamopoulos: The exoticism of biomagnetism and the related scientific recording equipment
2. Juan-Andres Leon: Immaterial practices and their material cultures: Inside Stephen Hawking’s Office
3. Kevser Rukiye Karabuğa Hatipoğlu: Reception and Use of Neurocomputers in Turkey
4. Panagiotis Lazos: Made in Greece. Greek manufacturers of scientific instruments for teaching physics in the 20th century
14:30 – 16.30Session 3 (parallel) 18th and 19th Century Instruments
Chair: David Pantalony
1. Panagiotis Poulopoulos: The Role of Technical Drawings and Models in the Promotion of the Steam Engine
2. Artemis Yagou: Novel objects for new needs: European watches for the Ottoman markets (18th-19th c.)
3. Claudia Cristalli: An “opportunely modified” Fairbanks Scale: On Peirce and Jastrow’s (1885) Instrument to Measure Sensation
4. Johannes-Geert Hagmann: Miracle material? The disputes between inventors, investors and instrument makers on Magnalium around 1900
16:30 – 17.00Coffee break
17:00 – 19.00Session 4 (parallel) New Methods and New Interpretations
Chair: Evangelia Chordaki
1. Ad Maas: Yin and Yang and Scientific Instruments
2. Floor Koeleman: “Materialized Theories”: Computational models as scientific instruments for humanities research
3. Jan Tapdrup: Instrument studies taking a philosophical turn?
17:00 – 19.00Session 5 (parallel) 18th to 20th Century Instruments (part 1)
Chair: Joshua Nall
5. Wolfgang Engels: About the Replication of the Stern-Gerlach Experiment
6. Michelle Mercier: Lost for words: The challenge of verbalising observations in Young’s experiments on diffraction and interference
7. Mar Rivera Colomer: Replicating Henry Peter Brougham experiments on diffraction from 1796
8. Timo Mappes: From delectation to science – flashlights on the development of continental microscopes pre 1930
20:00Reception (Buffet) at the Atrium of the NHRF
 Tuesday, September 20
09.30 – 11:00Session 6 (parallel) Scientific Instruments and Women (Part 1)
Chair: Louise Devoy
1. Janet Laidla: Makers, Owners and Users: Questions on Cataloguing and Attribution
2. Gloria Christine Clifton: Hidden from History? Unearthing information about women instrument makers from the 17th to the 19th centuries
3. Peggy Kidwell: Women and Mathematical Instruments in the United States – Buyers, Designers, Makers, Users, and Curators
09.30 – 11:00Session 7 (parallel) Bringing Historical Scientific Instruments and Learners Together: Personal Stories, Educational Activities, and Visions for the Future (part 1)
Chair: Frédérique Plantevin
1. Elizabeth Cavicchi: Experiencing the Unknown: Historical instruments as education for me and students
2. Panagiotis Lazos, Constantina Stefanidou & Constantine Skordoulis: A fruitful encounter: When students interact with historical scientific instruments
3. Flora Paparou: Creating a science-museum. A school-project on Ancient Greek Technology
11:00 – 12:30Poster Session & Coffee break
Chair: Richard Kremer
1. Sena Aydin: Hypothetical Instruments in the Clouds for Ottoman Scholars to Understand the Formation of the Rainbow
2. Enes Tepe: Portable Quadrants in the Islamic World and the West: A Cataloging Attempt
3. Merve Sandalli: 500 Years of A Tradition: User Manuals of Rubʿ al-Mujayyab
4. Flora Zarani, Panagiotis Lazos, Panagiotis Lembessis, Polyxeni Gaitanari, Panagoula Angelogianni & Anastassios Philippou: The Museum of Physiology “Georgios Kotzias”
5. Carmela Petti, Piergiulio Cappelletti & Annamaria Pellino: The curious story of a forgotten instrument: the magnetoscope at the Mineralogical Museum of Naples (Italy)
6. Maribel Moreno Ochoa: The observation instruments in the 1769 transit of Venus in the peninsula of Baja California
7. Julien Gressot: Determining time at the Neuchâtel Observatory: Mastering the personal equation (1858-1960)
8. Maria Rosalia Carotenuto, Ileana Chinnici & Manuela Coniglio: Objects of the Past: The Future Starts in the present. Preventive Conservation Practices for the Scientific Heritage in Italy
9. Lea Leppik: 10 years of researching instruments in the proceedings of the University of Tartu Museum
10. Afra Akyol: Cryptic Connections? Arca Steganographica and Cryptology in the Islamic World
11. Małgorzata Taborska: 19th century set of platinum vessels for experimentation in fluorine and hydrogen fluoride
12. Ewa Wyka: The heritage of science in Polish museum collections – research results
13. George N. Vlahakis: Scientific instruments for experiments never done? Scientific instruments and physics teaching in 20th century Greece, a fictional reality.
12:30 – 14.00Session 8 (parallel) Scientific Instruments and Women (Part 2)
Chair: Janet Laidla
4. Louise Devoy: Annie Maunder: using instruments and photography to extend a constrained career
5. Mara Miniati: A “feminine touch” in the history of scientific instruments in Italy: Maria Luisa Bonelli Righini
6. Panagiotis Lazos: Made in Greece. Greek manufacturers of scientific instruments for teaching physics in the 20th century (stand-alone paper)
12:30 – 14.00Session 9 (parallel) Bringing Historical Scientific Instruments and Learners Together: Personal Stories, Educational Activities, and Visions for the Future (part 2)
Chair: Frédérique Plantevin
4. Chryssanthi Pikoula: Rediscovering scientific instruments: The case of the 1st Elementary School of Athens
5. Julie Priser: PATSTEC mission in Britany: Safeguard and conservation of contemporary scientific heritage
6. Jean Davoigneau & Françoise Le Guet Tully: Scientific instruments studies within the framework of the inventory of French astronomical heritage: evolution and critical assessment
14.00 – 15:30Lunch break
15:30 – 17:30Session 10 (parallel) Ottoman and Arabic Instruments from the 13th to the 18th century
Chair: George Vlahakis
1. Gaye Danışan: New perspectives on the History of Ottoman astronomy: Portable astronomical instruments and Calendars (16th – 18th centuries)
2. Taha Yasin Arslan: Curious Case of a 15th-Century Treatise on the Spherical Astrolabe
3. Beyzanur Topçuoğlu: Rediscovering Marrākushī: A Comparative Analysis of the Treatise ‘On the Use of Celestial Globes
15.30 – 17:30Session 11 (parallel) 18th to 20th Century Instruments (part 2)
Chair: Kostas Tampakis
5. Olov Amelin: Scientific Instruments at the Frontier
6. Feliks Gornischeff: The role of the Russian diplomatic representatives in London in acquiring navigational instruments for Russian navigators in the beginning of the 19th century
7. George Borg: Discoverer and Methodologist: Alfred O. C. Nier and the Mid-20th Century Instrumental Revolution in Geochemistry
8. Sabina Luz & Moema Vergara: The Eiffel Tower method: radiotelegraphy, observatories and time signals
17:30Departure to the National Observatory of Athens
Tuesday EveningEarly Career Scholars’ Dinner
 Wednesday, September 21
09.30 – 11:30Session 12 (parallel) Visualization of Instruments – Instruments in Film (part 1)
Chair: Michael Korey
1. Jacopo Tonini: How to translate scientific contents into digital language: the experience of the Museo Galileo
2. Christine Azémar, Pierre Lauginie & Alain Sarfati: Light, camera, action – Making of the history of science film: “Les magiciens de la lumière” (Wizards of Light)
3. Frédérique Plantevin & Pietro Milici: Tangible transcendental curves: The video “Exponential ex machina – A quest from history to action”
4. Jane Desborough: Ancient Greek science through the lens of surviving objects and modern scientific research
09.30 – 11:30Session 13 (parallel) Scientific Instrument Studies – Decolonised (part 1)
Chair: Rebekah Higgitt
1. Silke Ackermann & Stephen Johnston: Casting a Long Shadow: Calendars, Clocks and the Decolonisation of Time
2. Emily Akkermans: Decolonising horological collections: towards a more sympathetic terminology
3. Alexi Baker: Flashpoint and fulcrum: a university instrument collection in the context of DEAI
4. Mathilde Daussy-Renaudin: Decolonised labels
11:30 – 12.00Coffee Break
12:00 – 14:00Session 14 (parallel) Visualization of Instruments – Instruments in Film (part 2)
Chair: Samuel Gessner
5. Frederik Nehm: BEHIND THE STARS – An app to teach basic astronomy through interactive early-modern instruments
6. Michael Korey: Geared to the Planets: The Digital Re-Animation of a War-Damaged Renaissance Equatorium
7. Samuel Gessner, Paula Redweik & Susana Reis: Squaring the Circles: Digital 3D modelling and website documentation of Lisbon’s earliest slide rule
8. Karsten Gaulke: Turning the Inside Out: A Digital Scheme for the Three-Dimensional Representation of Early-Modern Clocks
12:00 – 14:00Session 15 (parallel) Scientific Instrument Studies – Decolonised (part 2)
Chair: Stephen Johnston
5. Federica Gigante: Finding and Founding: Decolonising Astronomical Instruments of the Islamic World at the History of Science Museum
6. Rebekah Higgitt, Alex Butterworth, Duncan Hay & Sarah Middle: Interrogating and visualising the colonial histories of scientific instrument collections
7. Christel Schollaardt: Collecting for Everybody: Detoxing the Museum
General Discussion
14:00 – 15:30Lunch break
15:30 – 17:30Session 16 (parallel) 16th to 18th Century Astronomy
Chair: Efthymios Nicolaidis
1. Daniele L. R. Marini: The astronomical machine by Johannes Kepler
2. Jarosław Włodarczyk: ‘Goodness me, how badly you were deceived by this treacherous instrument!’: The Past, Present, and Future of the Telescope in the Correspondence of Johannes Hevelius and Elias von Löwen
3. Jip van Besouw: The camera obscura: practical uses and the geometrical location of the image, 1568-1711
4. Huib Zuidervaart: An Exceptional Planetarium from the 18th-century Austrian Netherlands Restored
15:30 – 17:30Session 17 (parallel) Collecting and Exhibiting at the Museum
Chair: Panagiotis Lazos
1. Tacye Phillipson: Collecting scholarship
2. Julia Bloemer: Dowsing for Evidence. Controversial Topics in a Museum
3. Samantha M. Thompson: Rethinking instruments for the National Air and Space Museum’s new look at astronomical history
4.Eckhard Wallis: An Instrument and its Network: A 20th Century Helium-Neon-Frequency Standard
17.30Departure to the Kotsanas Museum of Ancient Greek Technologies
 Thursday, September 22
09.30 – 11:00Session 18 (plenary) SIC40: Reflecting on Four Decades of Symposia and the Development of Instrument Studies (part 1)
Chair: Sofia Talas
Introduction: Richard Kremer and Sara Schechner
1. Robert Anderson: 1980s
2. Sara Schechner: 1990s
3. Richard Kremer: 2000s
4. David Pantalony: 2010s
11.00 – 11:30Coffee Break
11:30 – 14.00Session 19 (plenary) SIC40: Reflecting on Four Decades of Symposia and the Development of Instrument Studies (part 2)
Chair: Marvin Bolt
5. Boris Jardine: Historiography
6. Alison Morrison-Low: Catalogues
7. Trienke van der Spek: Exhibitions and Galleries
8. Jean-François Gauvin: Education
9. Sofia Talas: National Trends
Closing remarks: Richard Kremer and Sara Schechner
14:00 – 15:30Lunch break
15:30 Presentation of the Antikythera Mechanism
 Friday, September 23
09.30 – 11:30Session 20 (parallel) 16th to 18th Century Instruments
Chair: Boris Jardine
1. Andrew Biedermann: The Collected Tools of Elector August of Saxony: Modelling Saxon Work, Industry and Materials through Aesthetic Utility
2. Convin Splettsen: Magic Instruments against Superstition
3. Giorgio Strano: Athanasius Kircher’s “Organum Mathematicum” – Part Two
4. Stephen Johnston: Astrolabes and Astrology: Instrumental Transformations in 16th Century Europe
09.30 – 11:30Session 21 (parallel) 19th and 20th Century Astronomy
Chair: Roland Wittje
1. Joshua Nall: Portable transit instruments and the ‘American method’ of longitude determination in late 19th-century India
2. Prashant Kumar: “Machines Without the Certainty of Machinery:” Labor, Correction, and the Native Observer
3. Ricardo Barbosa: The 1905 Time Service of the Royal Observatory of Belgium
4: Martina Schiavon & Frédéric Soulu: Tracing the path of the circle built by Nicolas Fortin for the Paris Observatory (1822) from the minutes of the Bureau des longitudes and its databases
5. Johan Kärnfelt: “Excellentissimo tubo Dollondiana”: The 10-foot achromatic refractor of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
12:00 – 14:00Session 22 (parallel) 19th and 20th Century Instruments
Chair: Trienke van der Spek
5. Francesco Guerra, Matteo Leone & Nadia Robotti: To the North Pole and back: the scientific instruments of the “Italia” airship expedition (1928)
6. Karl Grandin: General undulation theory and instrumentation in Sweden in the mid1800s
7. Martin Weiss: The Albert Nestler AG Slide Rules
8. Andreas Junk: Measuring terrain with the naked eye – The hovering mark as an overlaying tape measure
12:00 – 14:00Session 23 (parallel) Astronomy and Astronomical Instruments in Inter-religious and Inter-cultural Entanglements in the Medieval and Early Modern Periods
Chair: Silke Ackermann
1. Robert Morrison: Scientific Instruments and Jewish Scholars in the Ottoman Empire
2. Philipp Nothaft: Latin Astrolabe Literature during the Twelfth Century (Did the Astrolabe Have a Twelfth-Century Renaissance?)
3. Petra G. Schmidl: Wandering Stars, Wandering Names: Denoting the Planets in 13th Century Yemen and Beyond
4. Josefina Rodríguez-Arribas: The Quadrant of Israel and Its Circulation in Hebrew Manuscript Sources
14:00 – 15:30Lunch break
15:30 – 17:30Annual General Meeting of the SIC and Farewell
20:00Conference Dinner

Saturday and Sunday September 24 and 25: Excursion to Andros Island.