Engines of Discovery: Scientific Instruments and the History of Astronomy and Planetary Science in the United States in the Twentieth Century

See, for example, Ezell E. C. and Ezell L. , On Mars: Exploration of the red planet, 1958–1978 (Washington, D.C., 1984) and Burrows William E. , Exploring space: Voyages in the solar system (New York, 1990). There were, in fact, two Viking spaceships, each composed of a lander and an orbiter.

The precise number depends on how one does the counting as well as the definition of ‘professional’. The estimate of “roughly two hundred” is based in part on data presented in Lankford's John forthcoming study of the American astronomical community between 1859 and 1940 as well as an unpublished count by DeVorkin David of paper authors in the Astronomischer Jahresbericht. The estimate of approximately two thousand professional astronomers and planetary scientists is taken from data presented in Joseph N. Tatarewicz's Space technology and planetary astronomy (Bloomington, 1990), 124–32.

Van Helden Albert and Hankins Thomas L. , “Introduction: Instruments in the history of science”, Osiris, 2nd ser., ix (1994), 1–6, p. 4.

Van Helden and Hankins , “Introduction”, p. 5. For an important exploration of the role of authority see Van Helden Albert , “Telescopes and authority from Galileo to Cassini”, Osiris, 2nd ser., ix (1994), 9–29. But for a warning that the notion of authority should not be pushed too far in dealing with twentieth-century astronomy, see Hufbauer Karl , “Artificial eclipses: Bernard Lyot and the coronagraph, 1929–1939”, Historical studies in the physical and biological sciences, xxiv (1994), 337–94, especially pp. 390–4.

Huggins William , “The new astronomy: A personal retrospect”, The nineteenth century, xli (1897), 907–29, p. 913. For a persuasive reading of Huggins's quotation, see Becker Barbara J. , “Eclecticism, opportunism, and the evolution of a new research agenda: William and Margaret Huggins and the origins of astrophysics”, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, The Johns Hopkins University, 1993. For an important recent paper on the rise of what became called astrophysics, see Schaffer Simon , “Where experiments end: Tabletop trials in Victorian astronomy”, in Buchwald Jed (ed.), Scientific practice: Theories and stories of doing physics (Chicago, 1995), 257–99.

Writing in 1985, Robert Anderson argued that “Historians of science have paid relatively little attention to scientific instruments and apparatus over the last twenty years”, quoted in Bud Robert and Cozzens Susan (eds), Invisible connections: Instruments, institutions, and science (Bellingham, 1992), p. xiv. Even six years later, the lack of the treatment of instruments is striking in the Companion to the history of modern science , ed. by Olby R. C. Cantor G. N. Christie J. R. R. and Hodge M. J. S. (London, 1990). On theory-dominated accounts in the history of science, see also, for example, Van Helden and Hankins , “Introduction” (ref. 3); Gooding David Pinch Trevor , and Schaffer Simon , “Introduction: Some uses of experiment”, in The uses of experiment: Studies in the natural sciences, ed. by Gooding David Pinch Trevor , and Schaffer Simon (Cambridge, 1989), 1–28; Hacking Ian , Representing and intervening: Introductory topics in the philosophy of science (Cambridge, 1983), especially chap. 9; and de Solla Price Derek , “Of sealing wax and string”, Natural history, xciii (1984), 48–56.

This claim is made in, for example, Pickering Andrew , “From science as knowledge to science as practice”, in Science as practice and culture , ed. by Pickering Andrew (Chicago, 1992), 1–28. On the growth of interest in experiment see also the “Preface” to The uses of experiment, ed. by Gooding Pinch and Schaffer (ref. 6), pp. xiii–xvii.

Bud and Cozzens (eds), “Introduction”, Invisible connections (ref. 6), p. xi.

Bennett J. A. , “‘On the power of penetrating into space’: The telescopes of William Herschel”, Journal for the history of astronomy, vii (1976), 75–108, Thoren Victor , “New light on Tycho's instruments”, Journal for the history of astronomy, iv (1973), 25–45, Van Helden Albert , “The invention of the telescope”, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, lxvii (1977), 2–67, and Warner Jean Deborah , Alvan Clark and Sons: Artists in optics (Washington, D.C., 1968).

Gingerich Owen , “The development of astronomical theory and practice from the 17th to the 20th century”, Vistas in astronomy, xx (1976), 1–9, p. 8. In a paper from 1990, Wamer Deborah , in reviewing the literature on the histories of instruments in general, further contends that “… most studies to date have neglected the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and thus most instruments which most scientists of that time, and many historians of science as well, would consider scientific”: “What is a scientific instrument, when did it become one, and why?”, The British journal for the history of science, xxiii (1990), 83–93.

Neugebauer Otto , The exact sciences in Antiquity, 2nd edn (Providence, 1957), p. viii.

Sarton George , “Remarks concerning the history of twentieth century science”, Isis, xxvii (1936), 53–62.

For a thoughtful introduction to this topic, see Lindee Susan M. Speaker Susan L. , and Thackray Arnold , “Conference report: Writing history as it happens”, Knowledge: Creation, diffusion, utilization, xiii (1992), 479–96. See also Hoskin M. A. and Gingerich O. , “On writing the history of modern astronomy”, Journal for the history of astronomy, xi (1980), 145–6.

See Field J. V. , “What is scientific about a scientific instrument”, Nuncius, iii (1988), 3–26.

There are of course some notable exceptions. King's Henry History of the telescope carried the story to the time in which he was writing, the early 1950s. See too, for example, DeVorkin David , “Michelson and the problem of stellar diameters”, Journal for the history of astronomy, vi (1975), 1–18, Eddy John A. , “The Schaeberle 40-ft Eclipse Camera of Lick Observatory”, Journal for the history of astronomy, ii (1971), 1–22, and Warner Jean Deborah , “George Willis Ritchey and the development of celestial photography”, American scientist, liv (1966), 64–93. Although pitched at a semi-popular level, Struve Otto and Zeberg's Velta Astronomy of the twentieth century (New York, 1962) also contains a lot on instruments.

See, for example, Lovell Bernard , The story of Jodrell Bank (New York, 1968) and The Jodrell Bank telescopes (NewYork, 1985).

Abetti Giorgio , The history of astronomy, translated by Abetti Burr Betty (London and New York, 1952), 175.

Williams M. E. W. , “Attempts to measure annual stellar parallax: Hooke to Bessel”, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1981. Abetti , for example, implied that the quality of Bessel's instrumentation was key: Abetti , The history of astronomy (ref. 17), 178.

Hevly B. , “Reflections on Big Science and history”, in Big Science: The growth of large-scale research, ed. by Hevly B. and Galison P. (Stanford, 1992), 355–63, p. 360.

Hannaway Owen , “Laboratory design and the aim of science: Andreas Libavius versus Tycho Brahe”, Isis, lxxvii (1986), 585–610, and Williams Mari E. W. , “Astronomical observatories as practical space: The case of Pulkowa”, in The development of the laboratory: Essays on the place of experiment in industrial civilization , ed. by James Frank A. J. L. (London, 1989), 118–36. For other readings of Uraniborg, see Shackelford Joel , “Tycho Brahe, laboratory design, and the aim of science: Reading plans in context”, Isis, lxxxiv (1993), 211–30, and Thoren Victor , The Lord of Uraniborg: A biography of Tycho Brahe (New York, 1990).

Van Helden and Hankins , “Introduction” (ref. 3), 5. As Warner has emphasized, one has to apply the term ‘scientific instrument’ with care and avoid positing it as an unchanging category that can be applied in an unambiguous fashion to several centuries: See Warner , “What is a scientific instrument…” (ref. 10).

Tatarewicz , Space technology and planetary astronomy (ref. 2), 25.

Ibid., 117.

Doel Ronald E. , Solar system astronomy in America: Community, patronage, and interdisciplinary science, 1920–1960 (New York, 1996).

In an important review published in 1984, Fehrenbach identified “themes 1 and 2” as the two chief developments in astronomical instrumentation during the first half of the century: Fehrenbach Charles , “Twentieth-century instrumentation”, in Gingerich Owen (ed.), Astrophysics and twentieth-century astronomy to 1950 (vol. 4A of The general history of astronomy; Cambridge, 1984), 166–189, p. 166.

DeVorkin David , Science with a vengeance: How the U.S. military created the U.S. space sciences after World War II (New York, 1992), Edge David and Mulkay Michael , Astronomy transformed: The emergence of radio astronomy in Britain (New York, 1976), Hevly Bruce , “Basic research with a military context: The Naval Research Laboratory and the foundations of extreme ultraviolet and x-ray astronomy”, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, The Johns Hopkins University, 1987, Hirsh Richard , Glimpsing an invisible universe: The emergence of x-ray astronomy (New York, 1983), and Sullivan Woodruff T. (ed.), The early years of radio astronomy: Reflections fifty years after Jansky's discovery (New York, 1984) and Classics in radio astronomy (Dordrecht, 1982). There are a number of other important published works on the history of radio astronomy that place an emphasis on its working tools. These include: Agar Jon , “Making a meal of the big dish: The construction of the Jodrell Bank Mark 1 Radio Telescope as a stable edifice, 1946–57”, The British journal for the history of science, xxvii (1994), 3–21, Hey J. S. , The evolution of radio astronomy (New York, 1973), Needell Allan , “The Carnegie Institution of Washington and radio astronomy: Prelude to an American National Observatory”, Journal for the history of astronomy, xxii (1991), 55–67, and Robertson Peter , Beyond southern skies: Radio astronomy and the Parkes Telescope (New York, 1992).

Eisenhower Dwight D. , “Annual Message to the Congress on the State of the Union”, 9 January 1958, in The State of the Union Messages of the Presidents 1790–1966, iii: 1905–1966 (New York, 1966), 3076–86, p. 3077.

Kistiakowsky George B. , A scientist at the White House: The private diary of President Eisenhower's Special Assistant for Science and Technology (Cambridge, Mass., 1976), 385.

On the early U.S. reconnaissance program see, among others, McDonald Robert A. , “Corona”, Photogrametric engineering and remote sensing, lxi (1995), 689–720, Ruffner Kevin (ed.), Corona: America's first satellite program (Center for the Study of Intelligence, CIA; Washington, D.C., 1995), and various articles in Space times, xxxiv (1995), July-August issue.

Quoted in Beatty Kelly J. , “HST and the military edge”, Sky & telescope, lxix (1985), 302.

Tucker Wallace and Giacconi Riccardo , The x-ray universe (Cambridge, Mass., and London, 1985), 41.

See, for example, Hirsh , Glimpsing an invisible universe (ref. 26).

Sullivan Woodruff T. , “Early radio astronomy”, in Gingerich (ed.), Astrophysics and twentieth-century astronomy to 1950 (ref. 25), 190–8, p. 190.

Ibid.

On this topic, see, among others, the very interesting paper by Gieryn Thomas F. and Hirsh Richard F. , “Marginality and innovation in science”, Social studies of science, xiii (1983), 87–106.

Mitton Simon , “Newest probe of the universe”, New scientist, 19 October 1972, 138–40, p. 138. See also, for example, Shipman Harry L. , Back holes, quasars, and the universe (Boston, 1976), p. ix.

See, among others, Bahcall John , Solar neutrinos: The first thirty years (Reading, Mass., 1994), Burrows William E. , Exploring space: Voyages in the solar system and beyond (New York, 1990), Collins Harry , Changing order: Replication and induction in scientific practice (London and Beverley Hills, 1985), chap. 4, Hufbauer Karl , Exploring the Sun: Solar science since Galileo (Baltimore, 1991), and Pinch Trevor , Confronting Nature: The sociology of solar neutrino detection (Dordrecht, 1986).

Widmalm Sven , review of Values of precision, Science, cclxvi (1995), 905–6, p. 905. As an example of an earlier study that contains much of interest on the accuracy and precision of instruments in the nineteenth century see Cannon S. F. , Science in culture: The early Victorian period (New York, 1978), 95–104.

Widmalm , op. cit. (ref. 37), 905.

Hall A. to Peters C. , 29 April 1866, quoted by Rothenberg Marc , “The educational and intellectual background of American astronomers, 1825–1875”, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Bryn Mawr College, 1974, 230.

Lankford John , “The impact of photography on astronomy” in Gingerich (ed.), Astrophysics and twentieth-century astronomy to 1950 (ref. 25), 16–39, p. 33.

Ibid., 37.

Ibid., 34.

Bud and Cozzens (eds), Invisible connections (ref. 6), 4.

Hufbauer , Exploring the Sun (ref. 37), 288.

Hufbauer Karl , “Breakthrough on the periphery: Bengt Edlén and the identification of the coronal lines, 1939–1945”, in Center on the periphery: Historical aspects of 20^th century Swedish physics, ed. by Lindqvist Svante (Canton, 1993), 199–237, p. 201.

Ibid., 225.

Shapley , cited ibid., 199.

Ibid., 224. For a case study on the importance of increasing precision for astrophysics in the late nineteenth century, see Sweetnam George , “Precision implemented: Henry Rowland and the concave diffraction grating, and the analysis of light”, in The values of precision , ed. by Wise Norton M. (Princeton, 1995), 283–310. Two other relatively recent studies of Rowland are Kargon Robert H. , “Henry Rowland and the physics discipline in America”, and Warner Jean Deborah , “Rowland's gratings: Contemporary technology”, Vistas in astronomy, xxix (1986), 131–6 and 125–30.

See, among others, Smith Robert W. , The expanding universe: Astronomy's ‘Great Debate’ 1900–1931 (Cambridge, 1982), 112–26.

Shane C. D. to author, private communication.

Wright W. to Slipher V. M. , 2 June 1925, Lowell Observatory Archives.

Arago F. , Oeuvres, vii (1858), 500, as quoted by Lankford , “The impact of photography on astronomy” (ref. 41), 16.

Spitzer L. , “Astronomical advantages of an extra-terrestrial observatory”, being Appendix 5 of “Preliminary design of an experimental world-orbiting spaceship”, Douglas Aircraft Company, report SM-11827, 1946, 75.

Hacking , Representing and intervening (ref. 6), 215.

Edge and Mulkay , Astronomy transformed (ref. 26), 129.

Ibid., 128. Edge and Mulkay give a number of other, similar quotations.

See, for example, the remarks of Praderie Fran&çoise , “International co-operation in Big Science”, in Megascience and its background (OECD, Paris, 1993), 25–40, p. 25, and McDonald Kim A. , “Researchers increasingly worried about the unreliability of Big-Science projects”, Chronicle of higher education, xxxvi (1990), issue of 15 August, A1 and A8, especially the comments of Lennard A. Fisk on A8.

A full history of the early years of the 236-inch has yet to be written but a partial, popular account appears in Ponomarev N. , Astronomicheskie observatorii sovetskogo soiuza (Moscow, 1987).

On the growth of observatories and the astronomical community during the twentieth century, see, among others, Blaauw Adriaan , ESO's early history: The European Southern Observatory from concept to reality (Garching b. Miinchen, 1991); Brush Stephen G. , “Looking up: The rise of astronomy in America”, American studies, xx (1979), 41–67; Bushnell David , The Sacramento Peak Observatory, 1947–1962 (Washington, D.C., 1962); Denisse J. F. , Trois siècles d'astronomie, 1667–1967 (Paris, 1967); Doel Ronald E. , Solar system astronomy in America: Communities, patronage, and interdisciplinary research, 1920–1960 (New York, 1996); Edmondson Frank K. , “AURA and KPNO: The evolution of an idea, 1952–1958”, Journal for the history of astronomy, xxii (1991), 68–86, and AURA, Kitt Peak and Cerro Tololo: The early years (New York, forthcoming); Evans David S. , Under Capricorn: A history of southern hemisphere astronomy (Bristol, 1988); Evans David S. and Mulholland Derrel , Big andbright: A history of the McDonald Observatory (Austin, 1986); Fehrenbach Charles , Des hommes, des télescopes, des étoiles (Paris, 1990); Herrmann D. B. , The history of astronomy from Herschel to Hertzsprung, 3rd edn, transl. by Krisciunas K. (Cambridge, 1985); Hodge John E. , “Charles Dillon Perrine and the transformation of the Argentine National Observatory”, Journal for the history of astronomy, viii (1977), 12–25; Hufbauer , Exploring the Sun (ref. 37); Jarrell Richard A. , The cold light of dawn: A history of Canadian astronomy (Toronto, 1988); Jones B. Z. , Lighthouse of the skies: The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (Washington, D.C., 1965); Massey Harrie Sir and Robins M. O. , History of British space science (Cambridge, 1986); Osterbrock Donald E. Gustafson John R. , and Unruh Shiloh W. J. , Eye on the sky: Lick Observatory's first century (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London, 1988); Parker Barry R. , Stairway to the stars: The story of the world's largest observatory (New York, 1994); Putnam William L. (ed.), The explorers of Mars Hill: A centennial history of the Lowell Observatory (West Kennebunk, 1994); Riekher Rolf , Fernohre und ihre Meister, 2nd edn (Berlin, 1990); Smith Graham F. and Dudley Janet , “The Isaac Newton Telescope”, Journal for the history of astronomy, xiii (1982), 1–18; Tatarewicz J. N. , Space techology and planetary astronomy (Bloomington, 1990); Whitaker Ewen A. , The University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory: Its founding and early years (Tucson, 1985); and the works on radio, ultraviolet, and x-ray astronomy cited in ref. 26. A forthcoming work that promises to be essential reading on the growth of American astronomy is Lankford's John Community, careers, and power: The American astronomical community 1859–1940 (Chicago, forthcoming).

Van Helden Albert , “Building large telescopes, 1900–1950”, in Gingerich (ed.), Astrophysics and twentieth-century astronomy to 1950 (ref. 25), 134–52, p. 138.

Smith Robert W. , The Space Telescope: A study of NASA, science, technology, and politics, paperback edn (New York, 1993), chaps. 4, 5 and 6. I am also grateful to Craig Waff to allowing me to see his unpublished manuscript on the history of the Galileo project.

Capshew James and Rader Karen A. , “Big Science; Price to the present”, Osiris, new ser., vii (1992), 3–25, p. 16.

This point is made in Smith Robert W. and Tatarewicz Joseph N. , “Counting on invention: Devices and black boxes in Very Big Science”, Osiris, new ser. ix (1994), 101–23, p. 104.

The early history of AURA is the subject of Edmondson, AURA, Kitt Peak, and Cerro Tololo (ref. 60).

Smith , The Space Telescope (ref. 62), chap. 4. There are of course many other examples, including the Anglo-Australian Telescope and the European Southern Observatory.

Tatarewicz , Space technology (ref. 2), 132.

Many of these are detailed in Pisano Dominick A. and Lewis Cathleen S. , Air and space history: An annotated bibliography (New York and London, 1988).

Osterbrock Donald E. , Pauper and prince: Ritchey, Hale, and big American telescopes (Tucson and London, 1993). On Ritchey, see also Warner Jean Deborah , “George Willis Ritchey and the development of celestial photography”, American scientist, liv (1966), 64–93. On Hale, the most extensive biography is still Wright Helen , Explorer of the universe: A biography of George Ellery Hale (New York, 1966). On Lick as a factory observatory, see Osterbrock Gustafson and Unruh , Eye on the sky (ref. 60).

Lankford John , “Women and women's work at Mt. Wilson Observatory before World War II”, History of geophysics, v (1994), 125–27, p. 125. See also Kidwell P. A. , “Three women of astronomy”, American scientist, lxxviii (1990), 244–51, and Lankford J. and Slavings R. L. , “Gender and science: The experience of women in American astronomy, 1859–1940”, Physics today, xliii (1990), 58–65.

These quotations were tellingly employed by DeVorkin David in “Electronics in astronomy: Early applications of the photoelectric cell and photomultiplier for studies of point-source celestial phenomena”, Proceedings of the IEEE, lxxiii (1985), 1205–20.

Struve O. , “The story of an observatory”, Popular astronomy, lv (1947), 288–94.

Shapley Harlow (ed.), Sourcebook in astronomy, 1900–1950 (Cambridge, Mass., 1960), 1.

Hufbauer K. to author, private communication.

Goldstine's Herrman H. The computer from Pascal to von Neumann (Princeton, 1972) includes some material on astronomy. The use by astronomers of hand calculating machines in the early part of the century is one of the topics of Peggy Aldrich Kidwell's “American scientists and calculating machines from novelty to commonplace”, Annals of the history of computing, xii (1990), 31–40.

Ryle Martin and Hewish Anthony , “The synthesis of large radio telescopes”, Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, cxx (1960), 220–30. For an important study of the impact of the electronic computer on another scientific discipline, see Nebeker Frederik , Calculating the weather (San Diego, 1995).

Ed Regis , Who got Einstein's office: Eccentricity and genius at the Institute of Advanced Study (New York, 1987), 171.

Bud and Cozzens (eds), Invisible connections (ref. 6), p. xi.

Smith and Tatarewicz , “Counting on invention” (ref. 64).

Bud and Cozzens (eds), Invisible connections (ref. 6), p. xiii.

Edge David , “Mosaic array cameras in infrared astronomy”, ibid. , 130–67. On laboratory signatures, see also the paper by Mukerji Chandra , “Scientific techniques and learning: Laboratory ‘signatures’ and the practice of oceanography”, ibid., 102–29.

Bud and Cozzens (eds), Invisible connections (ref. 6), 86.

Berry Arthur , A short history of astronomy (London, 1898), 67.