Science Portal
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
(Search in the main index for other
specific names and places.) (Use the Google search function
at the top of this page.)| |
Entries in Naples: Life, Death & Miracles dealing with science, technology, and the history of science: |
What's
this? Click image.
 |
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
supplemental article #1 in
the Science Portal
added 27 Feb 2020
ceroplastics, anatomical modeling
Anna Morandi Manzolini (1714–1774) - This, too, is art.
The number of
Italian artists, architects, and musicians who went
north to work for Imperial Russia in the 17-&-1800s
is astounding. You will find in these pages a section
devoted to the architects and comments in the
entries about composers such as Paisiello and Cimarosa
who did the same thing. You could call it a "brain
drain" but it really wasn't; the artists were well-paid
and generally stayed long enough to spread some of their
artistic wealth to the Tsars and Tsarinas (a few stayed
longer) and came home happy they had gone.
Here is one such artist, a woman in a highly unusual profession for anyone, much less for a woman in the late 1700s. Catherine II of Russia asked Anna Morandi Manzolini of the University of Bologna to come to Russia to lecture in anatomy and in the use of precise anatomical wax models in the medical profession. Manzolini was acknowledged to be the greatest anatomical wax modeler in Europe. The Czarina also made Manzolini a member of the Russian Royal Scientific Association.
Little Anna Morandi started out modestly, headed for the traditional domestic lifestyle that most young girls were groomed for. Her parents had the means to send her to a school where she studied art. She took to sketching and painting and did well. Along the way, she ran into her future in the form of Giovanni Manzolini, also a talented artist and aiming for the medical profession. They fell in love, became childhood sweethearts, and got married. She was 20 and he was 24. After five years of marriage, she was the mother of six children. He had become a professor of anatomy at the university of Bologna and due to his own natural artistic ability was one of the founders of ceroplastics, the art of using wax models to teach anatomy. It seemed to happen quite naturally; she simply learned everything he knew about crafting such models and worked alongside of him at the university as an assistant lecturer. Again, this was in an age when women didn't do such things. They could paint and did, write and did, make music and did. But in order to do what she did, Anna had to dissect cadavers so she could model the anatomy correctly. By her own count she dissected about one-thousand cadavers in the course of her career. Husband and wife worked as a team for years and their reputation for turning out quality spread. I have seen no estimate of the number of ceroplatic models they turned out together or she, by herself, after her husband died. My guess is several hundred, spread throughout Europe as their reputation grew.
to the incredibly complex:
She certainly didn't get rich. In 1769, five years before her death, she had to sell everything. She had spent every cent on her life's
work — her books, her tools, and whatever models she had kept. It all went. The gentleman who bought the collection promised he would take care of it and provided her with a monthly stipend to live on as well as a place to live. He apparently kept his word, because at least that collection has found its way back, after 250 years, to the Anatomical Museum of the University of Bologna. The museum, itself, has a
list of 60 of her works, very few of which (5 or 6) are actually on display. They have index cards with photos of many of the others. The items on this page are from their on-line display. It is not clear (at least to me) how many of these models still exist (a lot can happen to a clump of wax in 250 years!) and which ones are on display in Bologna or anywhere else, for that matter, perhaps in medical museums in places that bought them originally.
Anna did two models that are less anatomical than they are "human interest". One is a wax self-portrait in which she shows herself dissecting a brain (image, top right). The other is another wax bust, posed in similar fashion, of her husband — a tribute to her childhood sweetheart and her partner.
Anna Morandi Manzolini died in Bologna in 1774 at the age of 60.
English-language bibliography, sources:
Messbarger, Rebecca, The Lady Anatomist: The Life and Work of Anna Morandi Manzolini, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2010.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
ceroplastics, anatomical modeling
Anna Morandi Manzolini (1714–1774) - This, too, is art.
The number of
Italian artists, architects, and musicians who went
north to work for Imperial Russia in the 17-&-1800s
is astounding. You will find in these pages a section
devoted to the architects and comments in the
entries about composers such as Paisiello and Cimarosa
who did the same thing. You could call it a "brain
drain" but it really wasn't; the artists were well-paid
and generally stayed long enough to spread some of their
artistic wealth to the Tsars and Tsarinas (a few stayed
longer) and came home happy they had gone.Here is one such artist, a woman in a highly unusual profession for anyone, much less for a woman in the late 1700s. Catherine II of Russia asked Anna Morandi Manzolini of the University of Bologna to come to Russia to lecture in anatomy and in the use of precise anatomical wax models in the medical profession. Manzolini was acknowledged to be the greatest anatomical wax modeler in Europe. The Czarina also made Manzolini a member of the Russian Royal Scientific Association.
Little Anna Morandi started out modestly, headed for the traditional domestic lifestyle that most young girls were groomed for. Her parents had the means to send her to a school where she studied art. She took to sketching and painting and did well. Along the way, she ran into her future in the form of Giovanni Manzolini, also a talented artist and aiming for the medical profession. They fell in love, became childhood sweethearts, and got married. She was 20 and he was 24. After five years of marriage, she was the mother of six children. He had become a professor of anatomy at the university of Bologna and due to his own natural artistic ability was one of the founders of ceroplastics, the art of using wax models to teach anatomy. It seemed to happen quite naturally; she simply learned everything he knew about crafting such models and worked alongside of him at the university as an assistant lecturer. Again, this was in an age when women didn't do such things. They could paint and did, write and did, make music and did. But in order to do what she did, Anna had to dissect cadavers so she could model the anatomy correctly. By her own count she dissected about one-thousand cadavers in the course of her career. Husband and wife worked as a team for years and their reputation for turning out quality spread. I have seen no estimate of the number of ceroplatic models they turned out together or she, by herself, after her husband died. My guess is several hundred, spread throughout Europe as their reputation grew.
Her
works ranged from the simple but useful
—
  |
to the incredibly complex:
The text that
accompanies this image on the website of the Science
Museum in Bologna says:
Anna's husband died from TB in 1755 at age
45. She was left with little means of support. The
University of Bologna had to bend the rules, but she now
became Lecturer in Anatomy at the university, a
prestigious position, under her own name. She kept at
her ceroplastics and became the most sought-after such
provider in Europe of these absolutely essential tools
for medical schools. Her work became the archetype of
such models and the forerunners of those used even
today. She received offers from other universities but
turned them down. She stayed in Bologna and held
lectures on anatomy, not just to doctors but to curious
grand tourists as well. She imparted expert knowledge of
anatomy derived from years of experience. And she was
full of stories of how she or she and her husband had,
for example, discovered several previously unknown
anatomical parts, including the termination of the
oblique muscle of the eye. She was the first person to
reproduce minute body parts in wax, including capillary
vessels and nerves, and her work was so skillful that,
by many accounts, onlookers found themselves asking "Is
that a model or the real thing?"Fetus with umbilical cord and placenta attached. Wax, 55 x 44 cm [c. 22 x 17 inches]. This is a full-term fetus in which part of the anterior abdominal wall has been cut away to show the origins of the umbilical vessels, continuing out to display the umbilical cord and the placenta on the right. A portion of the amniotic membrane has been sectioned to show the vascular network of the placenta.
She certainly didn't get rich. In 1769, five years before her death, she had to sell everything. She had spent every cent on her life's
work — her books, her tools, and whatever models she had kept. It all went. The gentleman who bought the collection promised he would take care of it and provided her with a monthly stipend to live on as well as a place to live. He apparently kept his word, because at least that collection has found its way back, after 250 years, to the Anatomical Museum of the University of Bologna. The museum, itself, has a
list of 60 of her works, very few of which (5 or 6) are actually on display. They have index cards with photos of many of the others. The items on this page are from their on-line display. It is not clear (at least to me) how many of these models still exist (a lot can happen to a clump of wax in 250 years!) and which ones are on display in Bologna or anywhere else, for that matter, perhaps in medical museums in places that bought them originally.
Anna did two models that are less anatomical than they are "human interest". One is a wax self-portrait in which she shows herself dissecting a brain (image, top right). The other is another wax bust, posed in similar fashion, of her husband — a tribute to her childhood sweetheart and her partner.
Anna Morandi Manzolini died in Bologna in 1774 at the age of 60.
English-language bibliography, sources:
Messbarger, Rebecca, The Lady Anatomist: The Life and Work of Anna Morandi Manzolini, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2010.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
supplemental article #2
in the Science
Portal added 4 March
2021
Alexander von Humboldt in Naples and Naples in Volcanology
by Luciano Mangiafico (with Jeff Matthews)
Humboldt. Portrait by Joseph Stieler (1843).
Friedrich Wilhelm
Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) was one of the great European polymaths
(Jacks-of-all-trades and Masters of Most) in the
natural sciences of the late 1700s and early 1800s. In
my treatment of him here I deal with him as a
geologist, specifically, a volcanologist on the slopes
of Mt. Vesuvius. It was, as you may imagine, a good
place to study volcanoes. Geologists like Italy
because of the volcanoes and the great karst
formations and caves in the Alps and
in a few other places farther south.
[karst: stalactites, stalagmites, etc., geologically termed "speleothems".]
He was in Naples for the
first time in 1805 after an extended stay in the
Americas, where he had gone volcano hunting, among
other things, first in Central and South America and
then in the U.S. where Thomas Jefferson welcomed and
encouraged him. In his five years in the New World he
did what he did best —
everything. He explored, measured and described the
languages, the people, the landscape, and flora and
fauna of those lands. He climbed and studied volcanoes
such as Cotopaxi, the second
highest summit in Ecuador, at 5,897 m
(19,347 ft) and one of the world's highest
volcanoes.
When he came to Naples in 1805 it was with French scientist Joseph Guy-Lussac (1778-1850) and Franz August O'Etzel (1783-1850). Also, back in Italy he had a chance to visit his older brother, Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767-1835) in Rome. William became a prominent scholar in language and ethnolinguistics.
In Naples he and German geologist, Leopold von Buch (1774-1853), planned studies of Vesuvius and of geology in general. These were not trivial studies by any means. These were basic to the study of the earth and as important in their day as the theory of plate tectonics one-hundred years later —a "pillar"of modern geology. If you ask, What did they NOT know in 1795 about the earth? — a lot. Where did the earth’s physical features even come from? —what is a rock, anyway?
James Hutton
There
were two theories. The first one came from German
geologist, Abraham Werner (1749-1817). He said the earth’s physical
features had formed when cooling and lowering of the
seas had allowed dissolved matter to emerge and
crystallize. Believers in his theory were called
Neptunists, named for the Roman god of the seas. On
the other side was Scotsman, James
Hutton, (1726-97) (called "the father of modern
geology") who thought the earth’s features had emerged
from volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and phenomena
caused by pressures in the hot interior of our planet.
Hutton’s followers were known as Plutonists, after the
Roman god of the underworld. In the Alps and at
Vesuvius Humboldt and his friends sought evidence to
help settle the controversy. That is very basic stuff.
And they could sit near Vesuvius in pleasant Naples
and beat each other up over this great controversy,
surrounded by coffee and rolls, and now by a thriving
commercial rock and lava market that locals had set up
to cater to commerce from the growing Grand
Tourist trade, who all wanted
tangible souvenirs of Italy!
Painting by Sir Henry Raeburn (1776)
Naples and Vesuvius were ideal. Vesuvius erupted frequently, was easy to climb, and was near an accessible large city, where other scientists and documents could be consulted. Nature was ready for them! On July 26, 1805, a few days after their arrival in Naples the earth shook from a massive earthquake. The epicenter was inland, but the Naples area suffered damage. Then, during the night of August 11-12 a tremendous noise broke the stillness and a jet of fiery rocks and ashes rose from the main crater of Vesuvius to a height of about 200 m/600 ft. Other mouths then opened on the flank of the volcano and five distinct rivers of lava came down from the eruption sources, one of which went all the way to the sea in the town of Torre del Greco. Humboldt couldn’t believe his luck. He and his friends went to study the eruption up close, going up three times (some sources say six times) during their stay in Naples.
(Terminology: magma is the hot silicate liquid pooled beneath the surface; when a volcano explodes and that material is forced onto the surface and starts to flow freely, it is called Iava.)
Humboldt learned what he could from the experience but was still bothered by a few things. He worried about the commercialization of the area. "Rock and lava dealers," he said, have taken over and would sell you anything just to get your money. That was not science. But even the science —well, he said in 1795, "Look at Vesuvius. We have written 200 papers about it in the last 150 years and it all amounts to little more than a laundry list of eruptions. There is very little of scientific value." (cited in Rapisarda, below)
At the end of August 1805 Humboldt left Naples for Rome and then set out for Berlin. He was back in Naples for a few days in late 1822 to study the eruption in Oct-Nov of that year. He had gone with his king, Frederick William III of Prussia (1770–1840) to the Congress of Verona of Sep-Dec 1822 and took time off to go back to Naples. As usual, he got in as much research as possible.
What can you in the end say about Alexander von Humboldt in Naples? His dedication and energy were contagious. He was good for science in the city, but what the city did to him was vital for his own reputation as a scientist. Here is where he started his shift to Plutonism. He helped settle one of those questions that then became a "pillar" of modern geology. Humboldt became a better geologist because of his time in Naples. Alexander von Humboldt died in 1858 in the city where he was born, Berlin. It was not yet the age of specialists — physicists, chemists, 'thisists' and 'thatists'. That was coming, but for almost a century he was universally respected and revered as the Grand Old Man of Science. No scientist has so captured the imagination of the world, with the glorious exception of Albert Einstein.
References
1. De Ceglie, Rossella. Book Review of Marie-Noelle Bourguet, Le monde dans une carnet. Alexander von Humboldt en Italie (1805). Nuncius 34
pp. 207-210. 2019.
2. Rapisarda, Cettina. Lava memoriae deodati dolomieu. Alexander von Humboldts Gesteinsstudien in Neapel. HIN (International Review for Humboldt Studies).
3. Repetto, Paolo. Humboldt Controcorrente. I quaderni di Altronovecento - Numero 9, 2018.
4. Surdich, Francesco. "The fortunes of A. von Humboldt in the Italian geographical culture of the XIX century." Bulletin of Environmental and Life Science, 2, pp. 42-55. 2020.
5. Wulf, Andrea. The Invention of Nature. New York: Knopf: 2015.
Alexander von Humboldt in Naples and Naples in Volcanology
by Luciano Mangiafico (with Jeff Matthews)
Humboldt. Portrait by Joseph Stieler (1843).
Friedrich Wilhelm
Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) was one of the great European polymaths
(Jacks-of-all-trades and Masters of Most) in the
natural sciences of the late 1700s and early 1800s. In
my treatment of him here I deal with him as a
geologist, specifically, a volcanologist on the slopes
of Mt. Vesuvius. It was, as you may imagine, a good
place to study volcanoes. Geologists like Italy
because of the volcanoes and the great karst
formations and caves in the Alps and
in a few other places farther south.[karst: stalactites, stalagmites, etc., geologically termed "speleothems".]
He was in Naples for the
first time in 1805 after an extended stay in the
Americas, where he had gone volcano hunting, among
other things, first in Central and South America and
then in the U.S. where Thomas Jefferson welcomed and
encouraged him. In his five years in the New World he
did what he did best —
everything. He explored, measured and described the
languages, the people, the landscape, and flora and
fauna of those lands. He climbed and studied volcanoes
such as Cotopaxi, the second
highest summit in Ecuador, at 5,897 m
(19,347 ft) and one of the world's highest
volcanoes.Mt. Vesuvius, 1944
eruption. Photo
courtesy of Herman
Chanowitz. Photo
restoration by
Tana A. Churan-Davis.
When he came to Naples in 1805 it was with French scientist Joseph Guy-Lussac (1778-1850) and Franz August O'Etzel (1783-1850). Also, back in Italy he had a chance to visit his older brother, Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767-1835) in Rome. William became a prominent scholar in language and ethnolinguistics.
In Naples he and German geologist, Leopold von Buch (1774-1853), planned studies of Vesuvius and of geology in general. These were not trivial studies by any means. These were basic to the study of the earth and as important in their day as the theory of plate tectonics one-hundred years later —a "pillar"of modern geology. If you ask, What did they NOT know in 1795 about the earth? — a lot. Where did the earth’s physical features even come from? —what is a rock, anyway?
James Hutton
There
were two theories. The first one came from German
geologist, Abraham Werner (1749-1817). He said the earth’s physical
features had formed when cooling and lowering of the
seas had allowed dissolved matter to emerge and
crystallize. Believers in his theory were called
Neptunists, named for the Roman god of the seas. On
the other side was Scotsman, James
Hutton, (1726-97) (called "the father of modern
geology") who thought the earth’s features had emerged
from volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and phenomena
caused by pressures in the hot interior of our planet.
Hutton’s followers were known as Plutonists, after the
Roman god of the underworld. In the Alps and at
Vesuvius Humboldt and his friends sought evidence to
help settle the controversy. That is very basic stuff.
And they could sit near Vesuvius in pleasant Naples
and beat each other up over this great controversy,
surrounded by coffee and rolls, and now by a thriving
commercial rock and lava market that locals had set up
to cater to commerce from the growing Grand
Tourist trade, who all wanted
tangible souvenirs of Italy! Painting by Sir Henry Raeburn (1776)
| James Hutton
(1726–1797) advanced the idea that the
physical world's remote history can be
inferred from evidence in present-day rocks.
He studied features in the landscape and
coastlines of his native Scottish lowlands,
such as the Salisbury Crags or Siccar Point
and developed the theory that geological
features could not be static but underwent
transformation over long periods of time. He
argued, in agreement with many other early
geologists, that the Earth could not be young.
All this was, of course, in complete
disagreement with Biblical accounts of
Creation. Some consider that uniformitarianism
should be a required first principle in
scientific research. Other scientists disagree
and say that nature is not absolutely uniform,
even though it does exhibit certain
regularities. Simply put, modern geology holds
that "the present is the key to the past" and
that geological events occur at the same rate
now as they have always done, though many
modern geologists no longer hold to a strict
gradualism. His work was later refined but he
was crucial to today's view that Earth's
history was as a slow, gradual process,
punctuated by occasional natural catastrophic
events. |
Naples and Vesuvius were ideal. Vesuvius erupted frequently, was easy to climb, and was near an accessible large city, where other scientists and documents could be consulted. Nature was ready for them! On July 26, 1805, a few days after their arrival in Naples the earth shook from a massive earthquake. The epicenter was inland, but the Naples area suffered damage. Then, during the night of August 11-12 a tremendous noise broke the stillness and a jet of fiery rocks and ashes rose from the main crater of Vesuvius to a height of about 200 m/600 ft. Other mouths then opened on the flank of the volcano and five distinct rivers of lava came down from the eruption sources, one of which went all the way to the sea in the town of Torre del Greco. Humboldt couldn’t believe his luck. He and his friends went to study the eruption up close, going up three times (some sources say six times) during their stay in Naples.
(Terminology: magma is the hot silicate liquid pooled beneath the surface; when a volcano explodes and that material is forced onto the surface and starts to flow freely, it is called Iava.)
Humboldt learned what he could from the experience but was still bothered by a few things. He worried about the commercialization of the area. "Rock and lava dealers," he said, have taken over and would sell you anything just to get your money. That was not science. But even the science —well, he said in 1795, "Look at Vesuvius. We have written 200 papers about it in the last 150 years and it all amounts to little more than a laundry list of eruptions. There is very little of scientific value." (cited in Rapisarda, below)
Bits
and Pieces of Vesuvius
Whether you were a Grand Tourist and just wanted "something to take home" or a geologist
who wanted something to study, this is what you were looking for. (comments below)
Whether you were a Grand Tourist and just wanted "something to take home" or a geologist
who wanted something to study, this is what you were looking for. (comments below)
1. |
2.
 |
|
3.
 |
|
|
4.
 |
5.
 |
Comments: "Bits and pieces" —small slabs of the volcano embedded with other smaller bits; solidified shreds of magma (called 'lava' when it is still hot and flowing. Maybe #3 might cause the Neptunists and Plutonists to get testy with each other; #4 is a carefully prepared display box (in the collection of archaeologist and geologist Sir William Hamilton; #5 is unusual, scientists have engraved the place and date, and, movingly, also tributes to other geologists, all put in with a stylus when the material was still warm and malleable (this image is filtered to bring out the text). Some of these samples are in the Berlin Museum of Natural History. It is not clear if any of them came directly from Humboldt, himself. His vast number of travel diaries are still being sorted and are currently being digitized.Humboldt was primarily interested in studying and acquiring samples of volcanic "products", and in Naples there were several important rock and mineral collections that Humboldt wanted to see. One of the most extensive belonged to Guglielmo (William) Thomson (1760-1806), an English doctor who had moved to Naples in 1792 and set himself to the study of volcanoes. He was one of the 60-70 English scientists gathered around William Hamilton. (Thompson has truly "gone native", even legally changing his name to "Guglielmo"!) Humboldt also studied the collections of Duke Nicola Filomarino della Torre (1778-1842), reassembled after his late father’s collection was plundered and the duke and his brother killed during the Revolution of January 1799. (That lasted six months, was very brutal on both sides, and showed little respect for scientific rock and lava collections!)
At the end of August 1805 Humboldt left Naples for Rome and then set out for Berlin. He was back in Naples for a few days in late 1822 to study the eruption in Oct-Nov of that year. He had gone with his king, Frederick William III of Prussia (1770–1840) to the Congress of Verona of Sep-Dec 1822 and took time off to go back to Naples. As usual, he got in as much research as possible.
What can you in the end say about Alexander von Humboldt in Naples? His dedication and energy were contagious. He was good for science in the city, but what the city did to him was vital for his own reputation as a scientist. Here is where he started his shift to Plutonism. He helped settle one of those questions that then became a "pillar" of modern geology. Humboldt became a better geologist because of his time in Naples. Alexander von Humboldt died in 1858 in the city where he was born, Berlin. It was not yet the age of specialists — physicists, chemists, 'thisists' and 'thatists'. That was coming, but for almost a century he was universally respected and revered as the Grand Old Man of Science. No scientist has so captured the imagination of the world, with the glorious exception of Albert Einstein.
References
1. De Ceglie, Rossella. Book Review of Marie-Noelle Bourguet, Le monde dans une carnet. Alexander von Humboldt en Italie (1805). Nuncius 34
pp. 207-210. 2019.
2. Rapisarda, Cettina. Lava memoriae deodati dolomieu. Alexander von Humboldts Gesteinsstudien in Neapel. HIN (International Review for Humboldt Studies).
3. Repetto, Paolo. Humboldt Controcorrente. I quaderni di Altronovecento - Numero 9, 2018.
4. Surdich, Francesco. "The fortunes of A. von Humboldt in the Italian geographical culture of the XIX century." Bulletin of Environmental and Life Science, 2, pp. 42-55. 2020.
5. Wulf, Andrea. The Invention of Nature. New York: Knopf: 2015.
[from jm-thanks to Peter
Humphrey, geologist, my good friend, and a good
friend to this website.]
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
supplemental article #3 in the Science Portal - added Mar 15, 2021
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
supplemental article #3 in the Science Portal - added Mar 15, 2021
The Antiythera Device
(or Mechanism), the World's
Oldest Computer
A 2,000-year-old device often called the world's oldest "computer" has been recreated. The Antikythera Mechanism was found on a Roman-era shipwreck in Greece in 1901. It is named for Antikythera, a Greek island in the Aegean Sea, between Crete and Peloponnese. (On the map, below, Crete is the large island 30 km/20 mi to the SE below Antikythera.) The island of Antikythera, is narrow, 10km/6 miles long with a port for occasional ferry traffic. There are only about 50 residents, who are joined during the summer by 300-400 others. Many come to dive on the site of the famous wreck.
The device is thought to have been used to predict eclipses and other astronomical events. Only a third of the device survived, leaving us wondering how it worked and what it looked like. The back of the device was solved by earlier research, but the complex gearing system at the front has remained a mystery. Researchers from University College in London think they have finally figured it out using 3D computer modelling. They have recreated the entire front panel and hope to build a full-scale replica of the Antikythera device using modern materials. In mid-March, 2021, they published a new display of the gear system that showed its fine details and complex parts (image).
"The Sun, Moon and planets are displayed in an impressive tour de force of ancient Greek brilliance," the paper's lead author, Professor Tony Freeth, said. "Ours is the first model that conforms to all the physical evidence and matches the descriptions in the scientific inscriptions on the mechanism". The device has been described as an astronomical calculator as well as the world's first analogue computer. It is made of bronze and has dozens of gears. The back cover features a description of the cosmos display, showing the motion of the five planets known at the time. But only 82 fragments - about a third of the device - have survived and have to be assembled. This meant scientists have had to piece together the full picture using X-Ray data.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Extrusive Igneous Rock - a ready-made movie set
Devils Tower is a butte A butte was, countless ages ago, much larger and possibly part of a "concordant coastline", a range of elevated land along a sea. Today, Devils Tower is a strikingly symmetrical, awe-inspiring tower of igneous rock (that is, originally molten lava spewed from a volcano. The National Park Service section on Devils Towers says:
"Although much of the Tower’s geologic story is agreed upon, theories differ on certain details. The simplest explanation is that Devils Tower is a stock— a small intrusive body formed by magma which cooled underground and was later exposed by erosion. Other ideas have suggested that Devils Tower is a volcanic plug or that it is the neck of an extinct volcano, but the limited evidence of volcanic activity (volcanic ash, lava flows, or volcanic debris) in the area creates doubt that the Tower was part of a volcanic system. It is possible that this material may simply have eroded away. The concept of erosion exposing the Tower is common to all of its modern formation theories [empasis added]. Ironically, the erosion which exposed the Tower also erased the evidence needed to determine which theory of Devils Tower’s formation is the correct one."Speaking of which, the 1977 movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind used Devils Tower as a plot element -- the flat summit was the runway for an alien star-ship landing on Earth in the climax of the film. That film caused a large increase in visitors and climbers to the monument. Ray Bradbury, famed science fiction writer and master story teller, called the film the "greatest science-fiction film ever made". When Ray Bradbury says something, I tend to listen, but I don't agree with his assessment. It was a fine film, but harmless, more of a fairy tale for adults. There was nothing in it that frightened me. I admit to liking dystopian films. "Blade Runner" still scares me. Even Bradbury's own Fahrenheit 451 (both his novel and the film) --as dystopian as they come-- scares me. We saw a real-life prequel in Nazi book-burnings.
But you can still enjoy it. This magnificent tower is in the U.S.A., in the Black Hills, near Hulett and Sundance in north-eastern Wyoming. It rises above the Belle Fourche River and stands 265 meters (867 feet) from summit to base. The summit is 1,559 m (5,112 ft) above sea level. Devils Tower was the first national monument in the U.S., established on September 24, 1906 by President Theodore Roosevelt. The monument has an area of 1,347 acres (545 hectares). The name "Devil's Tower" comes from 1875 when explorers misinterpreted a native name to mean "Bad God's Tower". All signs in that area omit the apostrophe. It is now simply "Devils Tower". The oldest rocks visible in the National Monument were laid down about 250 million years ago in the Triassic period of the Mezosoic era. That was the one before the Jurassic period, a term familiar to movie-goers.
So there are not many Devils Towers in the world, but there are a number of examples of extrusive igneous rock that are fascinating and inevitably draw comments such as "those blocks look like they were put in place -- that can't be natural." For example, "The Giant's Causeway" on the north coast of Northern Ireland (image,left)--40,000 interlocking basalt columns, the result of an ancient volcanic fissure eruption. The 40,000 tops of the columns create the illusion of a road surface --"The Giant's Causeway"-- like paving stones of a Roman road, cut and laid into place. But it's just exstrusive igneous rock doing what it does very well -- fool you. In Italy we have the Cyclopean Isles (Italian: Isole Ciclopi) off of Sicily, noted for their rows of basaltic columns piled one above another, some set back from others, staggered, looking like intentionally built terraces. They lie not far from Mount Etna off the eastern coast of Sicily in the Mediterranean Sea. Formed about 500,000 years ago, the Cyclopean Isles are of volcanic origin and may at one time have been attached to Sicily. They all look like they were built. Certainly the Cyclopean Isles play a role in mythology and literature. Homer tells us when Ulysses and his crew on their Odyssey, fled from the one-eyed monsters, the Cyclopes, and escape back to their ship, when...
"The monster suddenly hoisted a boulder --far larger--
and heaved it, putting his weight behind it,
massive strength, and the boulder crashed close,
landing just in the wake of our own dark stern..."
(transl. Robert Fagles)
You can see the site of all this action from Capo Mulini
above: View of the Cyclopean Isles as seen from Capo Mulini
A few of other places in Italy that have the same extrusive igneous rock "constructed" look in Italy are the Alcantara River Gorges in Sicily; Lake Bolsena in Lazio; Cuccureddu de Zeppara in Sardinia; and Seiser Alm in South Tyrol.
to all portals to top of this page
© 2002 - 2023