Instruments and the Imagination (Princeton Legacy Library) - Softcover

Hankins, Thomas L.; Silverman, Robert J.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0691005494 ISBN 13: 9780691005492

Publisher: Princeton University Press, 1999

Synopsis

Thomas Hankins and Robert Silverman investigate an array of instruments from the seventeenth through the nineteenth century that seem at first to be marginal to science--magnetic clocks that were said to operate by the movements of sunflower seeds, magic lanterns, ocular harpsichords (machines that played different colored lights in harmonious mixtures), Aeolian harps (a form of wind chime), and other instruments of "natural magic" designed to produce wondrous effects. By looking at these and the first recording instruments, the stereoscope, and speaking machines, the authors show that "scientific instruments" first made their appearance as devices used to evoke wonder in the beholder, as in works of magic and the theater. The authors also demonstrate that these instruments, even though they were often "tricks," were seen by their inventors as more than trickery. In the view of Athanasius Kircher, for instance, the sunflower clock was not merely a hoax, but an effort to demonstrate, however fraudulently, his truly held belief that the ability of a flower to follow the sun was due to the same cosmic magnetic influence as that which moved the planets and caused the rotation of the earth. The marvels revealed in this work raise and answer questions about the connections between natural science and natural magic, the meaning of demonstration, the role of language and the senses in science, and the connections among art, music, literature, and natural science.

About this title

Review

In the 16th century, European "natural philosophers" introduced a wide variety of scientific instruments, among them clocks, magnets, and compasses. Braving the risk of being accused of witchcraft, they helped change the face of science.

"Instruments have a life of their own," write historians of science Thomas Hankins and Robert Silverman in this engaging study. "They do not merely follow theory; often they determine theory, because instruments determine what is possible, and what is possible determines to a large extent what can be thought." The "natural magic" of inventors such as Father Francis Linus and Athanasius Kircher introduced their contemporaries to the notion that with the proper tools nearly any advance in science was possible. And those who came after them made great advances indeed, from the 18th-century Aeolian harp, from which came the belief that light could be bent to produce sound, to automated weather stations, telestereoscopes, and early phonographs. Many of those inventions, Hankins and Silverman note, anticipated the technological advances that mark our own time, which seems itself to be full of natural magic. --Gregory McNamee

From the Inside Flap

"This is an important, welcome, and brilliantly executed book.... One of the best available discussions of the ways in which Renaissance magic was transformed into forms of natural philosophical reasoning."--Simon Schaffer, Cambridge University

Edition details

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0691005494
• ISBN 13: 9780691005492
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 352