Show threadAbie7h ago

Point unités obsolètes :

Millimicrocuries : j'imagine que nano n'était pas encore entré dans le language courant.

Radium Emanator :
"Our device produces 2500 mache units." https://www.orau.org/health-physics-museum/collection/radioactive-quack-cures/emanators/radium-emanator.html

Mache : "unité de mesure de la radioactivité volumique utilisée autrefois dans l'indication de la concentration de radon dans les eaux de source et dans l'air. Depuis 1985, cette unité a été remplacée par le becquerel par litre."
Mache https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mache_(unit)

#unitoftheday #flops #histsci #histtech

Fabienne Gallaire1d ago
Au musée de la Pharmacie de Bâle, qu'on me recommande chaudement (le plus ancien d'Europe), un bel exemplaire de Micrographia nova (1687), montrant des cirons du fromage, chers à Pascal.
Image F. K-L
#histnat #bookhistory #histsci #histtech
Show threadFabienne Gallaire1d ago
"For one shilling a head, spectators were ushered into a dimly lit back room to see the Euphonia, a machine that boasted the ability to replicate human speech. (...)
Sideshow automaton’s voices were often faked by hiding a person somewhere beneath the apparatus. Viewers of the Euphonia were impressed because there was clearly no hidden chamber for such a ruse to take place."
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/texttospeech-in-1846-involved-a-talking-robotic-head-with-ringlets #histtech
Text-To-Speech in 1846 Involved a Talking Robotic Head With Ringlets

Meet the Euphonia, a machine that boasted the ability to replicate human speech.

Atlas Obscura
Fabienne Gallaire1d ago
"The Euphonia was a talking machine created in the early to mid-nineteenth century by the Austrian inventor Joseph Faber (...)
Faber's "Fabulous Talking Machine" was constructed of several different mechanisms and instruments: a piano, a bellows, and a mechanical replica of the human throat and vocal organs."
#wikifact
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphonia_(device) #histtech #histsci
Euphonia (device) - Wikipedia

Carsten Timmermann2d ago
#Manchester History, #HistSTM & #HistTech hivemind: Do we know if anyone is working on a biography of Harold Hankins, UMIST Principal from 1984, and first VC when UMIST obtained university status? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_...

Harold Hankins - Wikipedia
Harold Hankins - Wikipedia

Abie5d ago

Mot du jour : Electroculture.
"En 1783, l'abbé Pierre Bertholon de Saint-Lazare invente l'électrovégétomètre, appareil visant à recueillir l’électricité atmosphérique pour la distribuer dans le sol."

#histtech #motdujour
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89lectroculture

Thony CMay 8
The natural historian, Henry Baker, who wrote The Microscope Made Easy described as the first laboratory manual for microscopy, was born 8 May 1698 #histsci #histtech
https://thonyc.wordpress.com/2011/05/08/how-to-use-a-microscope/
How to use a microscope.

The regular reader of this blog (are you still there?) will have long ago realised that I have a genuine fondness for polymaths and that I like to promote the memory of obscure contributors to the …

The Renaissance Mathematicus
Thony CMay 1

Joseph Moxon wrote, printed and published the first ever accurate and detailed account of the techniques and methods of printing 1683-84 #histtech

https://thonyc.wordpress.com/2026/05/01/joseph-moxon-a-man-of-many-talents/

Thony CMay 1
Joseph Moxon innovative printer, publisher, author, globe and instrument maker in the second half of the seventeenth century #histsci #histtech
https://thonyc.wordpress.com/2026/05/01/joseph-moxon-a-man-of-many-talents/
Joseph Moxon–a man of many talents

As I explained in a previous post Emery Molyneux (d. 1598) was the first English, printed-globe maker. After Molyneux departed from England to the Netherlands in 1597, where he died a year later, i…

The Renaissance Mathematicus
Sara PritchardApr 22
Today is #EarthDay. 🌍 But what about Earth at #night? 🌌🌃 And how did scientists come to understand #night as environment, albeit in distinct ways? #envhist #envhum #histsci #histtech #sts @[email protected] uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295...

Transforming Night
Transforming Night

Who owns the night—and what is lost as we flood it with light, worldwide?Darkness has become legible—and contested. Blending archival narrative with on-t...

University of Washington Press