Lmst

**Explaining the Tides Before Newton**

"_Astronomical explanations for tides, usually credited to Isaac Newton, can be traced to thinkers like Strabo and Pliny in the Classical era._"

🔗 https://daily.jstor.org/explaining-the-tides-before-newton/.

#History #Science #HistSci #Oceans #Physics

#Image attribution: Jebulon, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons. Page URL: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Komos_site_baie_Cr%C3%A8te.jpg.

"The archaeological site, and the bay of Komos, the ancient harbor of Phaïstos, Crete, Greece."

University Press Sales, cont'd

TODAY (12/1) ONLY - Johns Hopkins University Press is having a Cyber Monday sale:

🎁 50% Off All Books! ☃️
Code HCYB25 is valid only on 12/01/25. Free shipping valid on $50 spent after discount.

As you'd expect, Johns Hopkins has a great selection of #books on the #history of #medicine and #PublicHealth.

For example, this trenchant look at how global health policy is formed:
https://www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/12606/nothing-nets

#bookstodon #HistMed #HistSci

Today it is 61 years ago the world lost #JBSHaldane. Read more about him in A Dominant Character, an incredibly enjoyable #biography that never seeks to downplay the complicated character of this British polymath.

https://inquisitivebiologist.com/2021/05/12/book-review-a-dominant-character-the-radical-science-and-restless-politics-of-j-b-s-haldane/

#Books #BookReview #Bookstodon #Genetics #HistoryOfScience #ScienceHistory #HistSci #SciComm

Logician, psychologist and expert for colour vision, Christine Ladd Franklin, who fought against prejudice against women in academia her whole life, was born 1 December 1847 #histsci

https://thonyc.wordpress.com/2017/10/10/a-lady-logician/

Three years ago today, OpenAI launched ChatGPT. My latest newsletter essay, on Guillermo del Toro's FRANKENSTEIN, could not be more timely.
1/
#histsci #histmed #technology #ai #Frankenstein #histodons #writing #monsters #monsterdon

https://buttondown.com/surekhadavies/archive/who-made-the-monsters-a-lesson-from-del-toros/

Movie poster for Guillermo del Toro’s ‘Frankenstein’. In the centre is Victor Frankenstein in semi-darkness, viewed from behind. He’s in his wreck of a laboratory, with a beautiful circular window with elaborate tracery in the background. The phrase ‘Only monsters play god’ is along the bottom, along with the note that the film is ‘playing in select theaters and on Netflix’.

Three years ago today, OpenAI launched ChatGPT. My latest newsletter, on what we can learn from @realgdt.bsky.social@bsky.brid.gy's FRANKENSTEIN, could not be more timely. 1/ 🧪💙📚 🗃 #histsci #histmed #academicsky #politics

Frankenstein alt text: Movie poster for Guillermo del Toro’s ‘Frankenstein’. In the centre is Victor Frankenstein in semi-darkness, viewed from behind. He’s in his wreck of a laboratory, with a beautiful circular window with elaborate tracery in the background. The phrase ‘Only monsters play god’ is along the bottom, along with the note that the film is ‘playing in select theaters and on Netflix’.

This week's #NewBooks at the library:

- The Geological Society had a sale, so I snapped up a copy of Earth System Evolution and Early Life: A Celebration of the Work of Martin Brasier
- A signed copy of the 40th Anniversary Collector's Edition of The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, the classic first Fighting Fantasy title
- A second-hand copy of The Development of Biological Systematics: Antoine-Laurent de Jussieu, Nature, and the Natural System, another follow-up from my book review of the Linnaeus biography some time back.

#Geology #EarthSciences #GameBooks #HistoryOfScience #ScienceHistory #HistSci #Books #Scicomm #Bookstodon @bookstodon

A photo of three hardback books standing upright on a small, brown, wooden table. The out-of-focus background shows black shelves full of books and part of a red curtain covering a door

On the left, Earth System Evolution and Early Life, showing a black and white line drawing of a fossil at the bottom half, an ochre-coloured band across the middle with the publisher's name, and a cream-coloured top section with the title. It's hard to make out what the fossil is; it appears as a black square with several bits sticking out on all sides, but the legend explains it is a camera lucida drawing of a fossil stauromedusan, Haootia quadriformis (a species of stalked jellyfish), from the Ediacaran of Newfoundland, Canada.

In the middle, The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, showing a colour painting of an old male sorcerer in a blue coat with a flaring collar. His right hand is enveloped in a bright-blue plasma. A large, winged, red dragon looms in the background. The title is stamped across the bottom in gilded letters.

On the right, The Development of Biological Systematics, showing several line drawings in two-tone colours (cream and green) of plant parts and a tree-like diagram drawn in an old-fashioned style to appear like branching coral. The cover is divided into a cream left half, a white section top right, and a lime-green section bottom right.

My last talk for 2025 is next week - an online book talk about HUMANS: A MONSTROUS HISTORY! Dec 4th, 7-8pm CST / 8-9pm EST. Sign up below. #histsci #skystorians #earlymodern 1/2 events.lindahall.org/humansamonst...

events.lindahall.org/humansamonstro...

The rise of the scientific societies to discuss the new developments in natural philosophy in the 17th century #histsci
https://thonyc.wordpress.com/2025/11/26/from-τὰ-φυσικά-ta-physika-to-physics-lv/

25-Nov: On this day in 1835, HMS Beagle entertained a royal visitor in the ‘large awkward’ shape of Queen Pōmarre of Tahiti. Here’s the story… https://friendsofdarwin.com/articles/royal-visit/ #histsci

See reply below for the link to the recording #histsci Science and Religion from the Ground Up

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:ka2vhfzmt6iatiuuk5yn2wva/post/3lnnddnjejc2t

24-Nov: On this day in 1859 was published Charles Darwin’s ‘On the Origin of Species‘. As revolutionary science books go, it’s a damn fine read. Here’s my retrospective review: https://friendsofdarwin.com/reviews/book-review-origin-of-species-by-charles-darwin/ #histsci

On 24 November 1639 the British astronomers Jeremiah Horrocks and William Crabtree became the first observers to record a transit of Venus. #histsci
https://thonyc.wordpress.com/2009/11/24/an-important-anniversary-in-the-history-of-science/

Free online book talk on HUMANS: A MONSTROUS HISTORY! Join me online at the lovely Linda Hall Library on Thursday 4 Oct at 7pm CST (Kansas, Missouri time).

Register below.

#histsci #histodons #history #earlymodern

https://events.lindahall.org/humansamonstroushistory

Perks of the job: sneak previews of awesome books! This is a beautiful blend of travel & adventure; wonder & awe; 🧪STEM, #histsci, astronomy, art & nature. If you've ever looked up and wondered "what is that?", then the inimitable @drlucyrogers.com@bsky.brid.gy has written this for you!

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:pxy4cjqfugcpue5aa6eadtx5/post/3lwb7vkae4k2t

#FossilFriday The Megalosaurus jawbone, sacrum and femur (Image credit: OUMNH) 🧪⚒️🦖 #histsci

https://paleonerdish.wordpress.com/2024/02/20/200-years-of-the-great-fossil-lizard-of-stonesfield/

#HistSci on display in Bologna: the Anatomical Theatre of the Archiginnasio (1637). The theatre was destroyed in an air-raid in 1944, but reconstructed using all the original pieces recovered from the rubble.

#HistSci on display at the San Petronio Basilica, Bologna… A meridian line designed by Cassini to measure local noon (when sunlight entering through a small hole in the church roof crosses the line). Cassini concluded observations made with this instrument were consistent with Kepler’s heliocentric theory, but not with the older, geocentric, Ptolemaic model.

Working with #legacy #data?
Share your experiences w/
Inna Kouper & Gretchen Stahlman as part of a study of how such resources are perceived, preserved, and collaboratively managed

#histsci #astronomy #science #heliophysics #planetaryscience #earthscience

https://fsu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_5oksoaU3slliVJc

Elias Allen: The leading scientific instrument maker in seventeenth-century London #histsci #histtech
https://thonyc.wordpress.com/2025/11/19/the-leading-scientific-instrument-maker-in-seventeen-century-london

#histsci

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