The first meeting of the History of Science reading group this term will be on Tuesday, 1 October 2019, 5.30pm in the Alice Farrands room, 22 Gordon Square.
We'll start with ‘Eunice Foote, John Tyndall and a Question of Priority’ by Roland Jackson, available from Royal Society Notes and Records online ahead of print: https://doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.2018.0066
The paper is about the work of Eunice Foote and John Tyndall in the 19th century relating to climate science and climate change. The abstract highlights some of the issues involved:
In 1856, an American woman, Eunice Foote, discovered the absorption of thermal radiation by carbon dioxide and water vapour. That was three years before John Tyndall, who is generally credited with this important discovery—a cornerstone of our current understanding of the greenhouse effect, climate change, weather and meteorology. Tyndall did not reference Foote's work. From a contemporary perspective, one might expect that Tyndall would have known of her findings. But it appears that he did not, raising deeper historical questions about the connections and relationships between American and European physicists in the mid nineteenth century. The discovery is seen as a significant moment in physics generally and in climate science in particular, and demands a proper analysis. This paper explores the argument about priority, and the issues that the episode highlights in terms of simultaneous discovery, the development of science in America, gender, amateur status, the reputation of American science in Europe and the networks and means of communication between researchers in America and Europe in the 1850s.
Eunice Foote's work has recently attracted press attention. "This Lady Scientist Defined the Greenhouse Effect But Didn’t Get the Credit, Because Sexism", reported the Smithsonian in 2016. Scientific American described her as "The Hidden Figure in Climate Science" earlier this year. We'll discuss what roles gender, professional status and communication networks played in Eunice Foote's career and legacy.
Jackson, Roland, ‘Eunice Foote, John Tyndall and a Question of Priority’, Notes and Records: The Royal Society Journal of the History of Science, (2019) online ahead of print https://doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.2018.0066