Scientific Instrument Books

• Study, Measure, Experiment: Stories of Scientific Instruments at Dartmouth College

  Study, Measure, Experiment: Stories of Scientific Instruments at Dartmouth College An outstanding collection of instruments that sheds light on the history of science in America.

• Important Watches, Clocks, Barometers, Mechanical Music and Scientific Instruments

  Important Watches, Clocks, Barometers, Mechanical Music and Scientific Instruments Fascinating Sotheby's catalogue from a London auction on Thursday, February 26, 1998. Besides clock and watches there are some wonderful items decribed. From 15th century globes, to original gramaphones, to World War II decoding machines. Engrossing information from the minute the catalogue is opened

• Thing Knowledge: A Philosophy of Scientific Instruments

  Thing Knowledge: A Philosophy of Scientific Instruments Western philosophers have traditionally concentrated on theory as the means for expressing knowledge about a variety of phenomena. This absorbing book challenges this fundamental notion by showing how objects themselves, specifically scientific instruments, can express knowledge. As he considers numerous intriguing examples, Davis Baird gives us the tools to "read" the material products of science and technology and to understand their place in culture. Making a provocative and original challenge to our conception of knowledge itself, Thing Knowledge demands that we take a new look at theories of science and technology, knowledge, progress, and change. Baird considers a wide range of instruments, including Faraday's first electric motor, eighteenth-century mechanical models of the solar system, the cyclotron, various instruments developed by analytical chemists between 1930 and 1960, spectrometers, and more. Illustrations: 23 b/w photographs, 24 line illustrations, 2 tables

• Building Scientific Apparatus

  Building Scientific Apparatus Unrivaled in its coverage and unique in its hands-on approach, this practical guide to the design and construction of scientific apparatus, or laboratory instruments, is essential reading for every scientist and student of engineering, and physical, chemical, and biological sciences. Featured in this great new edition are features including the physical principles governing the operation of the mechanical, optical and electronic parts of an instrument, new sections on detectors, low-temperature measurements, high-pressure apparatus, and updated engineering specifications. 400 hand drawn figures and tables, have been added to this edition, which basically teaches scientists and engineers how to perform experiments.

• Scientific Instruments and Apparatus CD-ROM and Book (Electronic Clip Art)

  Scientific Instruments and Apparatus CD-ROM and Book (Electronic Clip Art) Selected from hard-to-find 19th-century sources, these black-and-white engravings cover the entire spectrum of scientific study. Featured items include prisms, gyroscopes, barometers, pendulums, pneumatic machines, astrolabes, telescopes, microscopes, and many other instruments. With 436 images to choose from, this collection offers a wealth of distinctive illustrations.

• Scientific Instruments, 1500-1900: An Introduction

  Scientific Instruments, 1500-1900: An Introduction The impulse to collect is an almost universal one, satisfying the hunting and acquisitive instincts, the love of beauty, and intellectual curiosity. The wealthy have collected rare and beautiful things from the earliest days of civilization, but the collection, or "cabinet," containing natural curiosities dates from the sixteenth century, and it was this type of collection in which scientific instruments found a home. In the twentieth century, we have come to accept a vast range of technical, often complex, equipment for everyday use. Science has become the very substance of our life style. But the appeal of historic scientific instruments remains, and from them much can be learned of the practice and development of science over four centuries. This book traces the historical origins and development of instruments as they spread across the globe, explaining their manufacture, use, and adaptations. This must-have book for the active collector gives practical advice on dealing with instruments and checking their authenticity. It features a comprehensive international list of major museums and instrument collections. Over 100 superb illustrations show the instruments to their full advantage.

• Collecting and Restoring Scientific Instruments

  Collecting and Restoring Scientific Instruments

• Science Preserved: A Directory of Scientific Instruments in Collections in the United Kingdom and Eire

  Science Preserved: A Directory of Scientific Instruments in Collections in the United Kingdom and Eire The Domesday Book of historical scientific instruments in the United Kingdom and Eire. At its core is an inventory in which are individually described some 3700 instruments from collections throughout the British Isles. Astronomical, mathematical, optical and other types of instrument are all covered, as well as philosophical, physical and chemical apparatus. The inventory is preceded by a substantial glossary in which more than 50 categories of instrument are described, from abacus and air pump to waywiser and wheel-cutting engine.

• SCIENTIFIC INSTRUMENTS IN ART & HISTORY

  SCIENTIFIC INSTRUMENTS IN ART & HISTORY

• A Brief History of Science: As Seen Through the Development of Scientific Instruments

  A Brief History of Science: As Seen Through the Development of Scientific Instruments Fascinating and enlightening, this encyclopedic volume by mathematician and anthropologist Thomas Crump explores the wedding of scientific technology to the advancement of civilization as he examines the design and production of the instruments that have continually redefined the horizons of the world we observe and perceive. He thus shows that the driving desire of diverse peoples and cultures throughout the course of history to further their understanding of the universe has resulted in an unending development of increasingly more sophisticated instruments to measure our material reality's components and extend its frontiers. While human genius had devised numerous tools to record and measure the expanses of time and space well before the seventeenth century--from astronomical charts and calendars to Arabic numerals and algebraic notation, all of which Crump's comprehensive history includes--not until the 1600s would an essentially modern technology be born. With Galileo's telescopic exploration of the skies at the beginning of the seventeenth century and Newton's experiments with the prism and light at its end, the optical instruments fundamental to all scientific research had been invented, as Crump amply illustrates before proceeding to electromagnets, cathode tubes, thermometers, vacuum pumps, X rays, accelerators, semiconductors, microprocessors, and instruments currently being designed to operate in subzero temperatures. Here, then, in one dramatically detailed and succinctly narrated volume, is the enduring human quest for knowledge through technology. Here, too, is the proof that what is knowable is, and has always been, far more compelling than what is known.

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