Browsing by Author "Saridakis, Voula"

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    Converging Elements in the Development of Late Seventeenth-Century Disciplinary Astronomy: Instrumentation, Education, and the Hevelius-Hooke Controversy
    Saridakis, Voula (Virginia Tech, 2001-09-24)
    In this dissertation, I examine astronomical practice in the second half of the seventeenth century by analyzing the nature of observation and instrumentation within an institutional and social context. I argue that astronomical practice was transformed by the convergence of several overlapping factors including the deployment of new instruments, the mathematical and astronomical education of practitioners, the gradual assimilation of new ideas, and the rise of scientific societies and networks. More specifically, I argue that the 1670's controversy between Johannes Hevelius and Robert Hooke and the ensuing debate that involved a larger circle of practitioners, helped establish a new foundation for the discipline of astronomy. In forcing practitioners to take sides, the controversy prompted them to define the precise nature of astronomical practice as well as the necessary qualifications for its practitioners. In Chapter 1, I discuss sixteenth and seventeenth-century astronomical instruments, and I provide a history of instrumentation from the use of positional measuring instruments in the late sixteenth century to the more widespread use of micrometers and telescopically-mounted positional measuring instruments in the late seventeenth century. Proceeding from the instruments to the people involved, in Chapters 2 and 3 I discuss the mathematical and astronomical community of the late sixteenth to late seventeenth centuries. The "community" included those individuals working both within and outside the universities. In Chapter 4, I discuss the Hevelius-Hooke controversy over the relative merits of naked-eye versus telescopic sights as the watershed in positional astronomy that defined the role of astronomers, shaped their methods of observation, and directed future research. In the final chapter of this study, Chapter 5, I discuss the work of Cassini at the Paris Observatory and Flamsteed at the Greenwich Observatory, and how their efforts were shaped by the Hevelius-Hooke controversy.
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    Scientific controversy and the new astronomy: the intellectual and social contexts of the Hevelius-Hooke dispute
    Saridakis, Voula (Virginia Tech, 1993)
    During the seventeenth century, science, and especially astronomy, underwent significant changes in which the emphasis on instrumentation shifted from a more qualitative approach to precise quantitative measurement. These changes were further encouraged by the formation of scientific societies, such as the Royal Society in London and the Royal Academy of Sciences in Paris, where members worked together as a collective to validate knowledge. Because members could freely dissent within the community, a prescribed behavior for participants in disputes was proposed, although seldom followed. Furthermore, disputes were not influenced by intellectual issues alone -- social factors also guided and influenced the course of controversies. This study is an analysis of one scientific controversy in which the participants deviated from the prescribed code of behavior in scientific disputes, and, although the controversy was guided primarily by social factors, intellectual factors ultimately determined its outcome. In the Introduction, I discuss two sociological theses (Merton, Shapin and Schaffer) which are relevant to scientific controversies. In Chapter 1, I describe the changing nature of astronomy and instrumentation in the seventeenth century with special emphasis on micrometers and telescopic sights. In Chapter 2, I explore the nature of scientific controversy vis-à-vis the Royal Society, and two particular controversies which did not deviate from the expected rules of behavior. A descriptive account of the Hevelius-Hooke dispute follows in Chapter 3, and in Chapter 4, I provide concluding remarks on the dispute. Finally, in the Conclusion, I discuss the intellectual and social contexts of the Hevelius-Hooke dispute.