Scientific Correspondence Research Articles

The maximum quantum yield controversy. Otto Warburg and the ‘Midwest-Gang’

The maximum quantum yield controversy. Otto Warburg and the ‘Midwest-Gang’

Joan Salvador and James Petiver: the last years (1715–1718) of their scientific correspondence

At the time of the war of the Spanish Succession (1705–1714), Joan Salvador and James Petiver, two apothecaries with an impassioned interest in understanding nature, began a long and fruitful correspondence that would only come to an end with Petiver's death in 1718. A previous paper sets out and discusses these two naturalists’ correspondence (which is quite exceptionally complete) during the wartime period between the end of 1706 and the fall of Barcelona on 11 September 1714. This paper completes the review and discussion of their correspondence up until the death of Petiver in 1718.

Authors response to scientific correspondence

Authors response to scientific correspondence

On the Discordance of Metabolomics with Proteomics and Transcriptomics: Coping with Increasing Complexity in Logic, Chemistry, and Network Interactions Scientific Correspondence

We suspect that many biologists who have been following the development of functional ’omics and systems biology are wondering why, compared with the success in integrating information from large-scale studies of transcripts and, more recently, proteins, there is less success in integrating

The (Re-)Discovery of Euler’s Lunar Tables

Up to now only three lunar tables by Leonhard Euler (1707–1783), published in 1745, 1746, and 1772, were known. For a long time, however, it was assumed that the first two of these tables were identical. The author compared these tables with each other and proved the contrary. This fact also transpires from an examination of their history, which was reconstructed using Euler’s correspondence. In addition, evidence has been found in Euler’s voluminous scientific correspondence and in contemporary publications of the eighteenth century that, between 1742 and 1750, Euler published additional lunar tables anonymously. The author proved Euler’s authorship of at least five lunar tables containing some 100 pages, which were neither recorded in the list of his works nor published in the Leonhardi Euleri Opera Omnia.

ROOKMAAKER, L. C. Calendar of the scientific correspondence of Hugh Edwin Strickland in the University Museum of Zoology, Cambridge. University Museum of Zoology, Cambridge: 2010. Pp 379. Electronic edition (pdf). (Paperback also available. Price UK£ 12.)

ROOKMAAKER, L. C. Calendar of the scientific correspondence of Hugh Edwin Strickland in the University Museum of Zoology, Cambridge. University Museum of Zoology, Cambridge: 2010. Pp 379. Electronic edition (pdf). (Paperback also available. Price UK£ 12.)

Influence of Giulio Grablovitz in Spain: instruments and scientific correspondence

It is known that Giulio Grablovitz founded and operated a «geodynamic» station on Ischia Island from 1885 up to his death. But it is almost unknown that one of the instruments he designed, the horizontal pendulum, was installed at Ebre Observatory in Spain. Records from this instrument and correspondence between Grablovitz and the Ebre observatory are still preserved. These documents show how the research work done by Grablovitz was introduced and diffused in Spain. Also, they give us some new information on the construction of the seismic instruments designed by Grablovitz. The present paper deals with the analysis of the preserved materials, assesses the introduction of Grablovitz research in Spain and shows the importance of the use of manuscript sources

Giulio Grablovitz (1846-1928) and his scientific activity based on personal and institutional correspondence

Giulio Grablovitz was one of the leading figures in Italian and international seismology from the second half of the 1880s up to the 1920s. The documentary assets of his long, multifaceted and intense scientific experience consist of several thousand items, amongst which seismic and instrumental recordings, scientific correspondence, publications, bulletins, various manuscripts and photographic materials. What remains from the observatory’s original wealth of instrumental equipment is: the seismic tank, some masses and the precision pendulum time-keeping clock. Some partial operations of cataloguing, reproduction and study have so far allowed us to appreciate the great value and scientific and historical utility of the various published and unpublished components, which are individually of great value, but taken as a whole represent a unique heritage. The cross-matching of this documentation with other Italian epistolary archives allows us to sketch a preliminary profile of Grablovitz, his scientific and human character, together with his fundamental contribution to the birth and development of the Italian geodynamic service and the development of the experimental seismology of his day.

Scientific correspondence in the archive of the General Directorate of Agriculture under the Ministry of Agriculture Industry and Commerce

The archive, which testifies the activity of the offices dedicated to geological studies and to the collection of meteorological investigations from 1870 to 1895, contains important files of scientific correspondence. The latter includes letters from scientists, members of the councils, committees and research commissions established under the Ministry of Agriculture Industry and Commerce, as well as correspondence of technicians who were charged with particular duties by the administration, like Nicola Maraglia, general director for Agriculture, and Felice Giordano, director of the Service of the Mines. They are rich in news, opinions, observations and reports portraying scientific events and personalities of the time. As an example, some documents concerning the following topics are illustrated: the origins of the Central Office of Meteorology and the role of Giovanni Cantoni the establishment of a service for the systematic collection of data about seismic phenomena, by Michele Stefano De Rossi; the activity of the Geodynamic Commission; the project by Giulio Grablowitz for the constructionof the observatory of Ischia.

Pietro Tacchini’s activity as astronomer in the scientific correspondence kept at the UCEA

A scientific profile of Pietro Tacchini (1838-1905) and especially his activity in the field of astronomy, is drawn by means of the correspondence kept in the Tacchini archival fund at the UCEA in Rome. A brief description of the fund is added and other archival funds concerning Tacchini are mentioned.

The correspondence of Giovanni Santini and Giuseppe Lorenzoni, directors of the Astronomical Observatory of Padua in the 19th century

Giovanni Santini was appointed director of the Astronomical Observatory of Padova from 1817 to 1877. His scientific correspondence covers a period from 1807 to 1874. Most of the letters are from Italian and European astronomers, mainly concerning astronomical subjects. In actual fact, all Santini’s activity was devoted to the classical astronomy, mainly to the new comets and planets orbit calculation, as far as to the compilation of a catalogue of almost ten thousand stars. From 1821 to 1828, he was involved in geodetic observations in order to determine the difference of longitude between Milan-Padua and Padua-Fiume. Giuseppe Lorenzoni was appointed director after Santini’s death, from 1877 to 1913. Since 1873, he took part in the Italian Geodetic Commission to which he devoted almost all his scientific activity. Lorenzoni’s scientific correspondence was partly lost for war reasons. A partial correspondence with Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli and almost the complete correspondence with Pietro Tacchini, were recovered after the second World War. Santini and Lorenzoni correspondence cover a period about a hundred years long. So, it is an important tool of knowledge for the history of Padova Astronomical Observatory in the 19th century, for its scientific activity, and for the relationship among Italian and European astronomers and institutions.

The female figure in 19th century scientific correspondence

The scientific correspondence are in the archives of astronomic and meteorological observatories and in many scientific institutes is very useful to know the character of the people involved, to understand the development of their research, doubts and certainty during their careers. This correspondence sometimes contains intimate family detils which enhance our knowledge of these people.

Letters in the earth sciences: written in the past useful in the future

This contribution presents a balance of the research performed in some national and international projects concerning the history of seismology with a view to the scientific and historical use of scientific correspondence between earth science scholars. We also present some of the contents of the scientific correspondence studied in the course of those projects. As many scholars and observatories, above all in the 19th century, operated in different sectors of the earth sciences at the same time, we highlight the importance of a coordinated collaboration between scholars and relevant institutions and in valorising the epistolary assets produced by the earth sciences observation networks.

The Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Global Exchange of Government Documents, 1834–1889

In the United States support for international agreements regard ing the official exchange of publications came from those who needed the information published by foreign learned societies and academies. Learned and scientific societies were the most active participants in exchanges of transactions and proceedings, and such exchange pro grams clearly reflected the growth of American cultural and scientific nationalism during the nineteenth century. In addition, exchange of scientific publications provided a mechanism that helped give America a visible identity within the world cultural community. One of the first acts of America's earliest scientific society, the Ameri can Philosophical Society, founded in Philadelphia in 1743, for example, was to ask its founder, Benjamin Franklin, to distribute volume 1 of its Transactions to institutions in England, Russia, and Italy. By this means the United States began to enter into scientific correspondence, manifested in the exchange of publications.1 Over time, as governments published growing amounts of information important to scientists, educators, and legislators, two key institutional players began to promote the interna tional exchange of government publications. Although the Library of Congress initiated the first exchange of publications in the 1830s, it was a partnership between the Library and the Smithsonian Institution that resulted, by the end of the nineteenth century, in an international convention for an official worldwide system of publications exchange.

Weijnen en zijn nalatenschap

In this contribution, the paper legacy of Toon Weijnen, as stored and made digitally searchable in the library and archives of the Meertens Institute in Amsterdam, is described. Weijnen’s library is a reflection of the entire state of Dutch dialectology until the final decade of last century. His scientific correspondence includes almost 2000 letters from the period 1935-2006 and around 500 other manuscripts. But above all this, his students are the scientific legacy of Toon Weijnen.

The road to Experience and Prediction from within: Hans Reichenbach’s scientific correspondence from Berlin to Istanbul

Ever since the first meeting of the proponents of the emerging Logical Empiricism in 1923, there existed philosophical differences as well as personal rivalries between the groups in Berlin and Vienna, headed by Hans Reichenbach and Moritz Schlick, respectively. Early theoretical tensions between Schlick and Reichenbach were caused by Reichenbach’s (neo)Kantian roots (esp. his version of the relativized a priori), who himself regarded the Vienna Circle as a sort of anti-realist “positivist school”—as he described it in his Experience and Prediction (1938). One result of this divergence was Schlick’s preference of Carnap over Reichenbach for a position at the University of Vienna (in 1926), and his decision not to serve as a co-editor with Reichenbach for the journal Erkenntnis that they jointly established in 1930 (which was then co-edited by Carnap and Reichenbach from 1930 to 1938). A second split rooted in different views on induction and probability, which culminated in the Hans Reichenbach’s refusal to serve as an invited author on probability within the International Encyclopedia of Unified Science series ed. by Rudolf Carnap, Charles Morris and Otto Neurath from 1938 onwards. In this regard it is remarkable that also Richard von Mises, who was the second leading figure of Logical Empiricism in Turkish exile, criticized the theory of probability put forward by his former Berlin colleague. In this paper I analyse this controversial exchange, drawing on the relevant correspondence and asking whether these (meta)philosophical differences were a typical feature of the pluralism inherent in Logical Empiricism in general.

Evolution of Cardiopulmonary Bypass

At the end of the Second World War, the devastation of many cities in Europe, combined with the problems of reconstruction and loss of financial support, had brought European medical research to a halt. On the other hand, in the United States the war brought about an enormous amount of scientific research through the development of nuclear weapons, the mass production of penicillin, early computers, and a variety of other technological advances, some of which were eventually put to use by medical investigators. In the immediate postwar years, Congress began 3 decades of generous funding for medical research and education through the National Institutes of Health and the Public Health Service. In the 1920s and 1930s, medical research money had been scarce, but after the war there was a flood of money. The National Institutes of Health budget for medical research in 1945 was $180 000. By 1947, it was increased to $4 000 000, in 1950 to $46 000 000, and in 1974 to $1 billion.1 By 2008, the total budget just for the Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute was almost $3 billion. Since colonial times, it had been customary for young American physicians to spend postgraduate time in Vienna, Berlin, London, or Paris. Now the opposite was true. It became important for a young European physician to have worked for a year or so in a US medical center. The world center for medical education and research had shifted from Europe to the United States. Postwar medical progress was also stimulated by several other programs. The Hill-Burton act of 1946 provided funds for community hospital upgrades and construction. Initially this bill provided $75 million per year for 5 years. It was a matching plan in which local hospitals were required to raise two thirds of the new …

The Growth Cone as Seen Through Cajal's Original Histological Preparations and Publications

During the development of the nervous system, each neuron must contact its appropriate target cell in order to establish its specific connections. More than a century ago, Ramón y Cajal discovered an amoeboid-like structure at the end of the axon of developing nerve cells. He called this structure the growth cone [cono de crecimiento] and he proposed that this structure was guided towards its target tissue by chemical substances secreted by the different cells that line its course. We have reviewed the discovery of the growth cone by Cajal using his original publications, his original scientific drawings, and by studying his histological preparations conserved at the “Instituto Cajal” (Madrid, Spain).1 We found a very good correlation between the structure of the growth cone in the Golgi-impregnated and reduced silver-nitrate-stained material used by Cajal, and that which is revealed with present-day methods. Finally, Cajal's view of the function of the growth cone and his chemotactic hypothesis will also be considered in the light of present-day knowledge. 1The Cajal Museum is situated within the Cajal Institute at Doctor Arce 37, Madrid, where most of the items that Cajal himself produced are conserved, such as: histological preparations; scientific drawings; his photographic collection; scientific manuscripts; scientific correspondence; artistic drawings, and paintings (Freire, 2003). *Both authors have equally contributed to this work.

Multiple Regulatory Roles for SELF-PRUNING in the Shoot System of Tomato

In the Scientific Correspondence by [Thouet et al. (2008)][1], the authors present several sections of tomato ( Solanum lycopersicum ) apices probed by the SELF-PRUNING ( SP ) gene and claim that (1) SP is expressed in all nongrowing axillary meristems, not only sympodial meristems, and (2) SP is

Curt Teichert - Dokumente zu einer Emigration (Dänemark - Australien - USA)

Curt Teichert (Konigsberg 1905—Arlington, Virginia 1996) provides in his life story examples of the many hardships and difficulties encountered by emigrants who were fortunate to escape Hitler´s regime. He was a great paleontologist and stratigrapher whose fieldwork on four continents involved nearly every fossil group; his interests were focussed mainly on the Paleozoic and the Triassic. His results and critical remarks on many general topics filled numerous publications. Remarkably, he accomplished all this under partly very unfavorable working conditions. He donated his scientific correspondence from his times in Germany, Denmark and Australia to the Geological Archive in Freiburg. The following article makes use of these documents. Teichert’s professional career started in Germany in the scientifically exciting nineteen-twenties; he worked at the universities in Konigsberg, Munich and Freiburg/Breisgau. In Freiburg, however, he had serious disagreements with the Director of the Geological Institute there—this in spite of his investigations having produced some excellent results. The times around 1930 were a period of a global economic crisis, and, like many others, he could only survive financially by getting fellowships from different institutions and payments for publications. In 1933, his situation in Germany became even more critical: this was because he had married a “Non-Aryan”. However, he was able to work in Copenhagen from the end of 1933; this was largely a result of his having participated in 1931–1932 in an expedition to Greenland led by the Dane Lauge Koch. Unfortunately, he could not get a permanent position in Copenhagen because the relations between him and the influential Koch became very unpleasant. Noting Hitler´s war preparation, Teichert tried to escape from Europe. He wrote many touching letters to correspondents around the globe, receiving mostly disappointing answers. Finally, in 1937, he succeeded in getting the post of a research paleontologist at the University of Perth, in Western Australia. There he worked very successfully, both in the field and in the laboratory. Additionally, he cooperated with the University in lecturing, and contributed much to its collections. His wife Gertrud assisted him always in his work, with great effectiveness. Yet tenure still eluded him, even after seven years of hard work—tenure was what he wanted, understandably, especially after such a long period of uncertainty. Finally, he succeeded in getting tenure in Eastern Australia , but moved then to the USA in 1954. There his outstanding scientific qualities were fully recognized, both in the Geological Survey and in several universities, also as an editor of several classic publications.