Showing 81–92 of 92 items
The Sir John Herschel Collection
The preparation of the print Calendar of the Correspondence of Sir John Herschel (Michael J. Crowe ed., David R. Dyck and James J. Kevin assoc. eds, Cambridge, England: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1998, viii + 828 pp) which was funded by the National Science Foundation, took ten years. It was accomplished by a team of seventeen professors, visiting scholars, graduate students, advanced undergraduates, and staff working at the University of Notre Dame.
The first online version of Calendar was created in 2009 by Dr Marvin Bolt and Steven Lucy, working at the Webster Institute of the Adler Planetarium, and it is that data that has now been reformatted for incorporation into Ɛpsilon.
Further information about Herschel, his correspondence, and the editorial method is available online here: http://historydb.adlerplanetarium.org/herschel/?p=intro
No texts of Herschel’s letters are currently available through Ɛpsilon.
Sending various publications by JH on light. [Responding to CH's queries], explains the nature of color and the action of the sun and stars in producing heat and light.
Thanks WP for having sent chart of the Orion nebula. Comments on its quality.
Acknowledges receipt of WJ's treatise on logic, and comments on it.
Maintains that JH did not invent the thaumsacope [thaumatrope], which some have ascribed to him. JH does note that he proposed moving pictures in an 1860 publication, five years before Alonzo G. Grant sought patent protection for this idea.
Notes that JH had pointed out the perpendicularity of the direction of wind to the direction of a wavefront's advance. Encourages research on the causes of such meteorological phenomena.
Describes a method JH devised of producing 'autographic representations of fungi on glass.'
Tells MH about the wedding plans of son John and Mary Power; comments on the health of daughter Constance, and sends a silly sketch by Emma Hardcastle. [Part of the letter is illegible.]
Answers LF's queries of 4 Aug.
Provides sources of information about polarization, spectroscopy and solar physics for son John, who is continuing his preparation for observing the solar eclipse [see JH's 1867-9-12].
The R.S.L. proposes sending telescopic and spectroscopic equipment to India to observe the solar eclipse of 1868. They want to know if son John would be prepared to make the observations. John could use some of his leave time in England to prepare.
Writes to son John [who is now in England] further about the solar eclipse observations [see JH's 1867-5-18]; comments on family matters, and talks about making improvements in photographic processes, so that JH is able to print on both sides of the paper.
Has been observing sunspots and talks about sunspot cycles; JH is glad to see that son John has been practicing observing with the spectroscope in preparation for the Indian solar eclipse [see JH's 1867-6-12].