The scholar as craftsman
Derek de Solla Price and the reconstruction of a medieval instrument
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 20316335 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Seb Falk (0000-0003-1576-8111, University of Cambridge, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2014 |
| Volume | 68 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 111-134 |
| Publication date | 2014-06-20 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Notes and Records the Royal Society Journal of the History of Science (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0035-9149 • E-ISSN: 1743-0178 |
| Publisher | The Royal Society (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1098/rsnr.2013.0062 |
| PMID | 24921105 |
| OpenAlex | W2154101899 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 8 |
The Royal Society Conversaziones were biannual social evenings at which distinguished guests could learn about the latest scientific developments. The Conversazione in May 1952 featured an object that came to be called King Arthur's Table. It was a planetary equatorium, made in Cambridge's Cavendish Laboratory at the behest of Sir Lawrence Bragg. Conceived by the historian of science Derek de Solla Price as a huge, tangible realization of Chaucerian astronomy, it was displayed at the new Whipple Museum of the History of Science, discarded, stored incognito, catalogued with that whimsical name, and finally re-identified in 2012. This article examines the biography of that object and, through it, the early, inchoate years of the discipline of history of science in Cambridge. The process of disciplinary establishment involved a range of actors beyond well-known figures such as Herbert Butterfield and Joseph Needham; the roles of Price and Bragg are highlighted here. Study of these individuals, and of the collaboration that brought about the reconstruction, reveals much about the establishment of a discipline, as well as changing scholarly and curatorial attitudes towards replicas
Art history · Biography · Discipline · Epistemology · History of science · Object (grammar) · Social science · Sociology · Australian Indigenous Culture and History · Classics · History · History and Developments in Astronomy · History of Science and Natural History · Philosophy
The Royal Society, its Fellows and industrial R&D in the mid twentieth century
The Cavendish Laboratory Archives
The Scholar and the Craftsman in the Scientific Revolution
William and Lawrence Bragg, Father and Son
Derek John de Solla Price
Alfred Rupert Hall (26 July 1920–5 February 2009) and Marie Boas Hall (18 October 1919–23 February 2009)
On Discipline Building
The Origins of Modern Science
| Highly cited | No |
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