Scholars and Miners
Dowsing and the Freiberg Mining Academy
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4020110 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Warren Dym (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2008 |
| Volume | 49 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 833-859 |
| Publication date | 2008-10-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Technology and Culture (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0040-165X • E-ISSN: 1097-3729 |
| Publisher | Project MUSE (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1353/tech.0.0148 |
| OpenAlex | W2012262668 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 12 |
The Freiberg Mining Academy (f. 1765) illustrates how state control and the Enlightenment came to dominate European mining. Notwithstanding calls for a break with mining tradition, however, prospecting remained steeped in the tacit knowledge of miners, which legitimized the divining or dowsing rod. After 1800, German physicists and Romantic scientists developed a new theory of dowsing that drew on Galvani's and Volta's research. The famous Freiberg physicist Ferdinand Reich examined a dowser in the 1840s who claimed to experience a galvanic response to mineral ore. This case demonstrates a new synthesis of traditional prospecting and scientific theory that would mark dowsing practice in the modern age
Political science · Engineering · History of Science and Natural History · Twentieth Century Scientific Developments
Romanticism and the sciences
Science and the Secrets of Nature
Personal Knowledge
The German Experience of Professionalization
Renaissance and Revolution
From Renaissance Mineral Studies to Historical Geology, in the Light of Michel Foucault's the Order of Things
Divining the Enlightenment
University Reform in Medical Thought at the End of the Eighteenth Century
Kant, Schelling, and the Administration of Science in the Romantic Era
Power, Patronage, and the Authorship of Ars
Handworterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens
The Romantic Conception of Life
| Unique citing works | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,13 |
| Citation span | 2011 - 2023 (13) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |