Cambridge University: A Museum and Two Online Resources

[Putaendo Patrick]

If you are interested in the history of science, I recommend a visit to the Whipple Museum at Cambridge University. Perhaps not the largest collection on the history of astronomy, but what it has is both fascinating and first rate! There is, for example, an original telescope made by William Herschel. The internet site is well worth a good browse; this is the link to some of the astronomical highlights:

http://www.hps.cam.ac.uk/whipple/explore/astronomy/introduction/

In addition, Cambridge University is the host to two internet sites on the history of astronomy. The first, entitled Starry Messenger, provides a number of short articles on different themes including early equipment and biographies. Succinct and useful, aimed at undergraduates, it's a good start with bibliographical suggestions etc. Personally I had hoped it might grow into something more comprehensive, but that doesn't seem to be the intention.

http://www.hps.cam.ac.uk/starry/starrymessenger.html

Secondly, "Diagrams, Figures, and the Transformation of Astronomy, 1450-1650" is an altogether more ambitious project. According to the home page:

This project aims to examine the roles of visual representations in the early modern transformation of astronomy. While certain elements of this transformation, such as the invention of new instruments and techniques of observation, the introduction of new world systems and the integration of mathematical astronomy with natural philosophy have received a good deal of attention, the roles of visual representations have tended to be neglected.

Our source-driven approach is based on the important early modern astronomical holdings of the Cambridge University Library, the Wren Library of Trinity College, and the Whipple Library at the Department of History and Philosophy of Science and has three central pillars:

• translation
• description
• commentary

Beautiful and fascinating images, if you like that sort of thing - I do! The link is:

http://www.astronomicalimages.group.cam.ac.uk/about_the_project.html

[laudropb]

Nice links. Thanks for posting.