Modern (18th-20th Century)

What if Hitler had been able to get what he wanted in Munich, so appeasement had actually worked? What if Goddard, von Braun, Oberth, Sanger, Korolev, Tsiolovsky, and other rocket scientists had been taken more seriously and had been properly funded? Would Germany have put the first man into space? Could Goddard, had he lived, have put a man on the moon without von Braun? Come and join the discussion, click either picture above.

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.

One hundred fifty years ago, in the operating theater on the top floor of the MGH’s Bulfinch Building, one of the greatest moments in medicine occurred. On Oct. 16, 1846, William T.G. Morton, a Boston dentist, demonstrated the use of ether during surgery, ending the indescribable pain — and the overwhelming dread — that had been associated with the surgeon’s knife.

Using a specially designed glass inhaler containing an ether-soaked sponge, Morton administered the anesthetic to Gilbert Abbott, a printer who had come to the MGH for treatment of a vascular tumor on his jaw. After several minutes, Abbott was rendered unconscious. John Collins Warren, MD, one of the most widely recognized surgeons of that time, then surgically removed the tumor. Upon wakening, Abbott informed the curious and skeptical physicians and medical students in the theater that he had experienced no pain.

The use of digital encoding in telecommunications and the other advances in DSP (digital signal processing), such as in speech synthesis, led to the use of DSP in recording. In 1972 Nippon Columbia began to digitally master recordings, and in the same year the BBC began using pulse code modulation for high-quality sound distribution in radio and television and in its studios began using an 8-track digital audio recorder with error correction. By 1975, it was demonstrated that DSP could improve old recordings (in the first case, by engineer Tom Stockham, historical recordings of Enrico Caruso), and digital audio tapes began to be widely adopted by audio engineers. Music synthesizers incorporating digital recording also began to proliferate. But then the technology took an interesting turn.

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.

The Needham Research Institute is the home of the Science and Civilisation in China Project, and houses the East Asian History of Science Library. As a recognised global centre of study, the NRI offers a unique collection of books and other published materials on the history of science, technology and medicine in East Asia, and welcomes scholars from all over the world.

The holdings of the Greater Glasgow NHS Board Archive, one of the largest health authority archives in the United Kingdom, consist principally of the archives of the hospitals in the Glasgow area and in Paisley. These date back to the late eighteenth century when Glasgow Royal Infirmary was established

On 3 May 1999 the Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre of the University of Melbourne was formed to sustain the academic, heritage and research activities of the Australian Science Archives Project.

The Henry Ford is widely recognized as one of the country's premier historical attractions and has been cited as having "the finest collection assembled documenting the American experience." Each day, thousands of children and adults from down the street and around the world are inspired by their experiences at this wonderful place.

Close to the library are the archives, a small collection of letters, meteorological and astronomical observations, papers and drawings related to the scientific and administrative life of the Bologna Observatory. The earliest documents date back to 1696, when a group of astronomers, lead by Eustachio Manfredi, planned the creation of an astronomical institute and the building of the tower. A reorganization of the archives is in progress, in order to give electronic access to documents, but saving the original structure of the archives itself.