Physical Sciences

About Goddard Space Flight Center

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 11/08/2007 - 20:19.

URL:

http://pao.gsfc.nasa.gov/gsfc/welcome/history/history.htm

Author:

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Excerpt:

The father of modern rocket propulsion is the American, Dr. Robert Hutchings Goddard. Along with Konstantin Eduordovich Tsiolkovsky of Russia and Hermann Oberth of Germany, Goddard envisioned the exploration of space. A physicist of great insight, Goddard also had an unique genius for invention.
By 1926, Goddard had constructed and tested successfully the first rocket using liquid fuel. Indeed, the flight of Goddard's rocket on March 16,1926, at Auburn, Massachusetts, was a feat as epochal in history as that of the Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk. Yet, it was one of Goddard's "firsts" in the now booming significance of rocket propulsion in the fields of military missilery and the scientific exploration of space.

Annotation:

This site from NASA contains a brief biography and photograph of the physicist and "father of modern rocket propulsion," Robert Hutchings Goddard. Among the many firsts by Goddard listed, is the first liquid fuel rocket (1926), which led to the development of military missiles and the possibility of space exploration. A link on the liquid fueled rocket leads to several photographs and engineering sketches and an account of its inaugural flight. Statistics (size, employees, locations, funding, milestones) about the NASA center which is named after Goddard are also available.

Albert Einstein Online

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 11/08/2007 - 20:19.

URL:

http://www.westegg.com/einstein/

Author:

Steven M. Friedman

Excerpt:

Have located the film "Einstein's Universe." It is a 2-hour film produced by the BBC in 1979 and is distributed in 16mm and NTSC VHS formats by: Corinth Films, 34 Gansevoort, New York, NY 10014, Tel. 800-221-4720
Purchase price is a hefty $250.00, and rental price is $175.00 for a one-time showing. Unfortunately, unless it is available from some other source, such as the BBC, it shall remain largely inaccessible for home viewing by the general public.

Annotation:

Not presenting any original material of its own, this site is a portal for all things related to Albert Einstein. The long list of links includes over 30 references to online material on Einstein's life and work. There are also links to photographs, primary materials, quotations of and by Einstein. In addition, there are links to sites explaining Einstein's complicated physics; some of these sites are designed for advanced science students only, while others are designed for a general audience. Links to dozens of other sites on Einstein, from serious to humorous, round out the site.

Society for the Social Studies of Science

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 11/08/2007 - 20:19.

URL:

http://www.4sonline.org/

Author:

Society for the Social Studies of Science

Excerpt:

Society for Social Studies of Science is the oldest and largest scholarly association devoted to understanding science and technology. While as many of us study technology as science, we continue to use our original name, or simply "4S".

Annotation:

This site contains an annotated and well maintained listing of web resources related to science and technology, organized by category. Links are also made to websites for a variety of related publications. Syllabi submitted by professors from different universities are collected. There is also a student division of 4S, and information regarding it is available.

Alan Turning HomePage

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 11/08/2007 - 20:19.

URL:

http://www.turing.org.uk/turing/

Author:

Andrew Hodges - Wadham College

Excerpt:

Alan Turing would probably have laughed at the idea of being called a great philosopher, or any kind of philosopher. He called himself a mathematician. But his 1950 paper Computing Machinery and Intelligence has become one of the most cited in modern philosophical literature. This is principally because he brought the new and rigorous mathematical concept of computability to bear on traditional problems of mind and body, free-will and determinism.

Annotation:

Alan Turning (1912-1954) was a pioneering mathematician and philosopher of the mind who most famously worked on breaking Nazi codes and presaged developments in artificial intelligence and computer technology. This site conveys Turning's biography, providing a timeline and short prospectus of Turning's life. There is also a scrapbook that includes many photographs of Turning, diagrams of his mathematics and logic, and a large glossary of related historical terms and context. In the scrapbook, you will find a discussion of the code-breaking effort in England in the second World War and the techniques used by Turing and others in detail. Photographs of the locations and machines involved are also included, as are links to other sites with related historical and contemporary material.

History of Astronomy in Uppsala

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 11/08/2007 - 20:19.

URL:

http://www.astro.uu.se/history/

Author:

Uppsala Astronomical Observtory

Excerpt:

Uppsala University was founded in 1477 and is the oldest of the scandinavian universities. Preserved lecture notes from the 1480's show that lectures in astronomy were given at the philosophical faculty. There is no certain evidence of a professorship in astronomy until 1593 when the university was reerected after a period of decline following the Lutheran reformation.

Annotation:

Uppsala University, in Sweden, is the oldest university in Scandanavia and a pioneering university in astronomy. This small site provides an overview of the history of the university from the fifteenth century to the present (in both English and Swedish). Included on the site are about 10 images (paintings, photographs and drawings) of the university observatories, listings of university publications from the early to middle twentieth century, a timeline of university professors in astronomy, since its origin, and a manuscript page of lecture notes from the 1480s. There are also links to related materials on astronomy and the scientists involved with the university and its discoveries.

Chemsoc - The Chemistry Societies Network

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 11/08/2007 - 20:19.

URL:

http://www.chemsoc.org/index.htm

Author:

The Chemistry Societies Network

Excerpt:

Welcome to chemsoc - a brand new site for chemists and the home of the RSC's chemistry societies' electronic network. The site provides interesting features and useful services for the chemistry community. The information you find has been made available by various national chemistry societies for dissemination on a single site. Currently around 30 such societies are providing varying levels of information on chemsoc.

Annotation:

Website maintained by the Royal Society of Chemistry containing a variety of pages of potential interest to researchers ans students alike. An interactive timeline provides an interesting overview of scientific events and discoveries since the Big Bang. They also feature archives of their webzine "chembytes," as well as exhibition of exemplary chemistry projects. Links to a variety of sites, including the Royal Society of Chemistry's Library and Information Centre are made.

As We May Think

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 11/08/2007 - 20:19.

URL:

http://www.isg.sfu.ca/~duchier/misc/vbush/

Author:

Vannever Bush

Annotation:

An online version of Vannever Bush's article "As We May Think" in The Atlantic Monthly, July 1945. The article, all text with a few links added, discusses the recent past and future of science and technology at the end of World War II. It is written for a general audience. Aghast at the horror of what science wrought in the war, Bush looks to a more peaceful and productive day when advanced technologies will offer a better life for all human beings. He envisions a machine akin to the modern fax machine as well as other beneficial consumer and industrial technologies.

Institute and Museum of History of Science

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 11/08/2007 - 20:19.

URL:

http://galileo.imss.firenze.it/

Author:

Institute and Museum of History of Science

Excerpt:

The Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza [IMSS] is one of the foremost international institutions in the History of Science, combining a noted museum of scientific instruments and an institute dedicated to the research, documentation and dissemination of the history of science in the broadest senses.

The museum, the specialized library, the archives, the multimedia, photographic and restoration laboratories provide an integrated whole in the service of disseminating scientific culture, capitalizing on Italy's technical/scientific heritage, while continuously updating research in the history of science and technology

Annotation:

This site is an online catalogue for one of the most famous science museums in Europe, located in Florence. Its collections are mostly from the early modern period (roughly 1500-1800), with a particular emphasis on Galileo, his inventions and related materials from his lifetime. A room-by-room map of the museum allows visitors to view dozens of drawings, paintings and photographs of early astronomical, medical, mathematical, chemical and engineering instruments. There is also a virtual video tour of the Galileo room and accompanying photographs of his telescopes and other memorabilia. The site is written in non-technical bilingual form (English and Italian). Short biographies of important early modern Italian scientists and a multitude of links to other history of science and technology sites in many languages are included.

Jean Baptist Porta

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 11/08/2007 - 20:19.

URL:

http://members.tscnet.com/pages/omard1/jportat2.html

Author:

Scott Lincoln

Excerpt:

Giambattista della (John Baptist) Porta (1535-1615), was a Neapolitan scholar of notable ability who had devoted great attention to the study of natural and physical science. Porta visited most of his known world to gather and perfect the knowledge utilized in his writings. His first work, "Magia Naturalis"- "Natural Magick" was first published in 1558 in "four" books (written, according to the author, "Porta, " when he was fifteen years old, - see "Preface To The Reader" in "Natural Magick"). It was later expanded to twenty books compended into one volume in 1584. In this form the book had a great vogue, being translated from the original Latin into the principal European languages, and republished in the Latin edition in many places for a hundred years. The version presented here is the final compendium of his life's work, completed when he was fifty years old, transcribed from a original 1658 English translation.

Annotation:

John Baptist Porta (1535-1615), also known as Giambattista della Porta, was an early modern natural philosopher from Naples. This site by an amateur historian brings together short biographies (generally culled from other sites and works like the Encyclopedia Britannica) as well as primary source material on Porta available in other locations on the Web. Porta was best known for his 1558 book entitled "Natural Magic" (Magia Naturalis), which used an experimental method to describe magnetism and other elements of the physical and chemical sciences. He was also interested in the "occult" sciences and alchemy. This site is best for those with no knowledge of Porta looking for a basic overview and excerpts of his work. Several paintings and drawings of Porta enhance the site.

Iconographic Archives

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 11/08/2007 - 20:19.

URL:

http://www.cis.unibo.it/icon/home.html

Author:

University of Bologna

Excerpt:

The Iconographic Archives (IA) set up by CIS illustrate the history of science and technology at the University of Bologna from the Middle-Ages to the twentieth century. The IA include 700 colour and b/w images with captions. Captions contain information about the artifacts, people and places represented as well as the location, author and date of the originals.

Annotation:

The Iconographic Archives are a project of the University of Bologna's International Centre for the History of Universities and Science (CIS). The Archives are an online repository for images of people, artifacts, and places with corresponding descriptions and location information. The University, founded in 1088, has a long history as a center for scientific scholarship, and these images reflect this relationship. Though the CIS site is available in English, the archival information is in Italian, requiring some knowledge of the language to utilize the search functions. Searches can be made by year to circumvent this. Unfortunately, there also is no way to browse the images without using the search tool.