2000 HSS/PSA Program 1 - History of Science Society

HSS Abstracts
intellectual and scientific abilities. For contrast, I will juxtaposition these
negative images of women with positive images of male scientists in which
they are depicted as heroes of modern life. By examining images of science
popularization, I demonstrate that the popularizers’ conception of women
replicated and defended that of the dominant middle class. Science
popularization in France in this period thus simultaneously promoted science
and a negative stereotype of women.
Sungook Hong Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and
Technology, University of Toronto
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‘One Faith, One Weight, One Measure’:
Language and the History of Units and Standards
My paper aims to examine a recurrent narrative in the history of units and
standards. It is a comparison between the existence of different languages and
lexicons, on the one hand, and the existence of diverse (and therefore the lack
of the standard) weights and measures, on the other. For example, John Swinton
stated in 1779 that “people who use measures differing both in size and name
speak as it were different languages.” My paper traces various appearances of
this narrative in John Swinton, John Riggs Miller who wrote the book
Equalization of the Weights and Measures of Great Britain (1790), John
Frederick William Herschel’s Preliminary Discourse, James Clerk Maxwell’s
article on “Atom,” John Ambrose Fleming’s proposal for the establishment of
the Standardizing Laboratory, and William Thomson’s 1883 lecture on
“Electrical Units of Measurement.” I will show that some changes in this
“linguistic metaphor” through the 18th and 19th centuries were associated
with, and mutually reinforced, the idea of “natural” units and standards.
Nicole␣ C. Howard Indiana University
The King, the Courtier and the Clockmaker:
Christiaan Huygens and Interpretations of Audience
The issue of the intended audience of a book is one which has recently gained the
attention of historians of science. In many cases, natural philosophers had in mind
a range of individuals—be they from a religious, political, or philosophical
background—whom they wanted to speak to through their work. Therefore,
understanding who the author had in mind as their readership can provide an
important insight into how they wanted their book to be received and read, and
may reveal the importance of specific parts of a work for different individuals. My
aim in this talk is to examine such authorial intentions by looking at two of Christiaan
Huygens’ books on the pendulum clock, the Horologium published in 1658 and
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