Halley's Quest A Selfless Genius and His Troubled Paramore (2005) / Chapter Skim
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Pages 229-244
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To further confuse things, England began the year on March 25. A full account of Halley's voyages did not appear in print until 1775 with the publication of Dalrymple's A Collection of Voyages Chiefly in the Southern Atlantic Ocean.
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His claim is based on the fact that he was the first renowned scientist to plan and execute a voyage to test his hypothesis that was fully funded by a government and not for commercial advantage.Likewise, in 1849 Alexander von Humboldt considered the voyages thusly in his Cosmos: A Sketch of a Physical Description of the Universe: "Never before, I believe, had any government fitted a naval expedition for an object whose attainment promised such advantages to practical navigation, while at the same time it deserved to be regarded as peculiarly scientific and physico-mathematical." Similarly, in 1849, Captain S
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Such societies and clubs provided a public forum and captive audience that when paired with the British concept of public spirit created enthusiasm for new ideas like never before. For more on classes of sea captains, see J
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For an idea of the lawlessness of life at sea, sea William Byam's account published in London in 1665. It is titled, "Exact Relation of the Most Execrable Attempts of John Allin, Committed on the Person of His Excellency Francis Lord Willoughby of Parham, Captain General of the Continent of Guiana, and of All the Caribby-Islands, and Our Lord Proprietor." Some simply define navigation as "finding the way." Teredo worms, which reach up to six inches in length, are a variety of mollusk that reproduce faster than rats on a ship.
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Good sources on the history of the Royal Society include Dwight Atkinson's Scientific Discourse in Sociohistorical Context: The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 1675-1975, and Michael Hunter's Royal Society and Its Fellows, 1660-1700, the Morphology of an Early Scientific Institution. Its governing body was a committee of 23 men, including an elected president, vice president, and two secretaries.
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He must understand, however, that he is utterly debarred from professing the doctrine of nativities and all judicial astrology without exception." Two years later in 1621, Savile's son-in-law, William Sedley, followed suit and endowed a natural philosophy chair. Oxford's first two astronomy professors, John Bainbridge and John Greaves, subscribed heavily to Ptolemy's views, so the Copernican system was not promoted until almost 1649 when Seth Ward assumed the chair.
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CHAPTER 4 TROUBLE ON THE PINK For more on Dampier, see his New Voyage Round the World, with an introduction by Sir Albert Gray. Diana and Michael Preston's A Pirate of Exquisite Mind: Explorer, Naturalist, and Buccaneer: The Life of William Dampier is a solid, contemporary retelling of his adventures.
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Soft iron is easily realigned with passing magnetic fields. All iron materials possess both hard and soft properties but to varying degrees, which determine their overall magnetization.
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He writes: "Respect for science, however, did not operate sufficiently strong on the Officers of Dr, or rather Captain, Halley's ship, to prevent their taking offence at being put under the command of a man who had risen without going through the regular course of service with the Royal Navy." Through the 19th century, studies at Oxford University were governed by the Laudian Statutes of 1636, which is also known as the Caroline Code. Since Archbishop Laud was a member of the clergy, he emphasized theological studies.
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The incident inspired Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. Dampier wrote extensive memoirs of his voyages in which he had only praise for Halley and his quest: "I cannot but hope that the ingenuous Author, Captain Halley, who to his profound skill in all theories of these kinds hath added and is adding continually personal experiments, will ever long oblige the world with a fuller discovery of the course of the variations, which hath hitherto been a secret." CHAPTER 6 OUTWARD BOUND In his appendix to the 1710 edition of English scholar Thomas Streete's Astronimia Carolina, Halley noted that practice observations from the deck of a moving ship were possible in mild conditions with telescopes of five to six feet in length.
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It is likely that on this voyage he collected two plant specimens, an Acacia and Synaphea. Two years later, in 1699, sailing in HMS Roebuck, Dampier landed on Dirk Hartog Island in western Australia and made a collection of specimens of flora as well as drawings of birds, fish, and other animals of this New World.
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Hellman, a renowned German historian of science. See History of the Russian Fleet During the Reign of Peter the Great, by a Contemporary Englishman to follow up on Peter's interests in building his naval forces.
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Alexander von Humbolt first proposed the words "isogonic," "isoclinic,"and"isodynamic"to describe lines of equal variation, dip, and magnetic field strength, respectively, according to Charles Cotter. Two other manuscripts exist that detail isobaths, or equal depths of water.Although Halley was unaware of their existence, they were published in 1584 and 1697, respectively.
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For a concise and complete account of how the clockmaker solved the longitude quandary, see Dava Sobel's rather brilliant Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time. The true nature of so-called secular variation wasn't completely understood until the mid-19th century.
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And for Queen Anne in context, see Cruickshanks's Glorious Revolution. One of the best summaries of Halley's hollow Earth hypothesis is found in a 1992 issue of the Journal for History and Astronomy, "The Hollow World of Edmond Halley." David Kubrin's chapter, "Such an Impertinently Litigious Lady," in Standing on the Shoulders of Giants also gives a strong summary of the struggle between Hooke and Halley and Newton.
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And they are just as worthy of study." Norman Thrower explains Halley's relationship to his patrons eloquently in "The Royal Patrons of Edmond Halley, with Special Reference to His Maps" in Standing on the Shoulders of Giants. The Boston Gazette and Country Journal carried the 12-part series on the return of the comet.
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