Has been requested by the Editor of the Quarterly Journal of Science to write a paper on JH and modern astronomy. Would like JH's sanction, and also a few notes on the most important aspects.
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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.
Has been requested by the Editor of the Quarterly Journal of Science to write a paper on JH and modern astronomy. Would like JH's sanction, and also a few notes on the most important aspects.
Offers advice to president of committee for adoption of uniform system of weights and measures for India.
Offers advice to president of committee for adoption of uniform system of weights and measures for India.
Asks GS to explain to R.S.L. Council why JH's son John cannot appear at a meeting of the Council, as he is due to sail for India.
Sent her father's [Josiah Quincy] memoirs to London as JH directed. Praises JH's Iliad translation, Cape Results, and astronomical career.
Will forward information on spectrum analysis when he receives it. Asks if JH is interested in studying the photochemistry of the sun during the upcoming eclipse.
Pleased that JH's son [John] will examine the chemical intensity of the sun during the eclipse. Offers suggestions for successful experiment. Sends paper regarding chemical intensity at the tropics.
Lack of circularity in some solar autographs is due to clouds. Discusses a quote regarding stars in the Southern Hemisphere. Also, Aristotle's examination of the eye.
Ashamed not to have written sooner. Has received AQ's meteorology of Belgium. Wishes success with his work on social physics. Enjoyed AQ's Histoire des sciences mathématique et physique chez les belges. Disgusted that the French insist Isaac Newton stole his ideas on the system of gravitation from Blaise Pascal. Hopes to send AQ his 'synopsis of all micrometrical measures' made by William Herschel on double stars. Sends Latin version of Friedrich Schiller's 'Spaziergang.'
Asks whether Michael Faraday's work with glass resulted in improved manufacturing or if rather its main scientific value was in discovery of diamagnetism.
In response to RH's 1867-10-28, JH sends a list of his writings on astronomy.
Editor cannot complain of JH's decision not to allow him to insert his poem on the telescope as that of Augustus De Morgan substituted is so good. Book will include poems of both dead and living men. Has unfortunately damaged the copy of De Morgan.
Requests AD send JH an astronomical drinking song.
His son George has died and was buried yesterday. Wife is bearing up well. Is ready to assent to the publication of the song.
Has managed to write out the song and insert the Blaise Pascal verse. Gave some advice to an Assurance Office yesterday, so he must be improving. Illness in his family this season has taken the form of great prostration. Gives curious confirmation of Isaac Newton's lack of knowledge of French. Blaise Pascal affair is growing into an epic.
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.