G.L.E. Turner’s scientific contributions

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Publications (1)


Eighteenth-Century Scientific Instruments and Their Makers
  • Article

March 2003

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15 Citations

G.L.E. Turner

“The diffusion of a general knowledge and of a taste for science, over all classes of men, in every nation of Europe, or of European origin, seems to be the characteristic feature of the present age.” So wrote James Keir (1735-1820), the pioneer industrial chemist, in the preface to his The First Part of a Dictionary of Chemistry of 1789. There can be no question that the study of the material world - then described as experimental natural philosophy - seriously impinged on the popular consciousness for the first time in the course of the eighteenth century. This was achieved by means of a remarkable social and educational phenomenon: the lecture demonstration. Science today is understood to be the sphere of activity of the “scientist,” a term that was first coined in the 1830s by William Whewell (1794-1866), author of The History of the Inductive Sciences. The coinage marks a transition between the mainly amateur natural philosopher and the professional scientist. This is not, of course, to say that science was not studied, and used professionally, centuries earlier in Europe. What was missing in the classical Greek approach to the natural world was the use of experiment. Ideas were tested by reason alone, following the authority of Aristotle, which was broadly accepted throughout the Middle Ages. For example, Aristotle denied the possibility of a vacuum because he reasoned that bodies would move with infinite velocity, a theory that could not then be checked by experiment.

Citations (1)


... More than objects of private entertainment, these instruments became part of public lecture demonstrations that brought science to lay audiences and helped establish the professions of scientist and scientific instrument-maker (cf. Turner 2003). Sophie von La Roche herself attended such demonstrations during her 1786 visit to London and reported on them as follows: "Unser Abend verfloß bei physikalischen Experimenten, welche gewiß auch zum Gottesdienst gehören, indem sie uns so viel von den innern [sic] Eigenschaften der Wesen zeigen, wodurch ein fühlbares Herz zu vermehrter vernünftiger Verehrung seines Schöpfers geleitet wird." ...

Reference:

Fictions of Legibility: The Human Face and Body in Modern German Novels from Sophie von La Roche to Alfred Döblin
Eighteenth-Century Scientific Instruments and Their Makers
  • Citing Article
  • March 2003