scholarly journals Dorothy Mary Moyle Needham. 22 September 1896 – 22 December 1987

2003 ◽  
Vol 49 ◽  
pp. 351-365 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mikuláš Teich
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
The Third ◽  
Biographical Memoir ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject

In July 1994 I was approached by The Royal Society asking whether I would be willing to help in putting together a biographical memoir for Dr Dorothy Moyle Needham, who died in December 1987. For a variety of reasons, the Fellow of The Royal Society who originally undertook to write the memoir had been unable to deliver it before his death. After responding that I would be happy to assist, I was informed that I would, no doubt, be contacted by the writer who undertook to complete the task. As it turned out, I heard nothing more and, while occasionally wondering at the unusual delay in the publication of the memoir, I left it at that. That is, until in the spring of 2000 when I noticed that there was still no memoir on ‘Dophi’, as she was known to friends and colleagues. I found this very strange in view of the fact that almost 111/2 years had elapsed since her death and that she was among the first 10 elected female Fellows of The Royal Society. After some hesitation, I wrote on 7 May 2000 to The Lord Lewis of Newnham FRS (then Warden of Robinson College, Cambridge), alerting him to the situation. He was more than surprised and, following his enquiries, in July 2000 I became the third author invited to prepare Dr D.M. Needhams biographical memoir. As in private duty bound, I accepted the invitation, although not without anxiety over predicaments perceived beforehand. For one thing, though I had been collaborating with Dorothy Needham since 1972, the subject was history of biochemistry. Usually a biographical memoir is prepared by a person acquainted at first hand with the experimental/theoretical features of the work of the deceased Fellow. For another thing, I realized that I would be able to work on the memoir only intermittently because of other commitments, including prolonged stays abroad. All this has something to do with the delay in preparing this memoir, including the format.

XXIII. On the water-barometer erected in the hall of the Royal Society

1832 ◽  
Vol 122 ◽  
pp. 539-574 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Physical Science ◽  
The Other ◽  
Metallic Tube ◽  
French Academy ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Common ◽  
Academy Of Sciences ◽  
Made In

I have for some time entertained an opinion, in common with some others who have turned their attention tot he subject, that a good series of observations with a Water-Barometer, accurately constructed, might throw some light upon several important points of physical science: amongst others, upon the tides of the atmosphere; the horary oscillations of the counterpoising column; the ascending and descending rate of its greater oscillations; and the tension of vapour at different atmospheric temperatures. I have sought in vain in various scientific works, and in the Transactions of Philosophical Societies, for the record of any such observations, or for a description of an instrument calculated to afford the required information with anything approaching to precision. In the first volume of the History of the French Academy of Sciences, a cursory reference is made, in the following words, to some experiments of M. Mariotte upon the subject, of which no particulars appear to have been preserved. “Le même M. Mariotte fit aussi à l’observatoire des experiences sur le baromètre ordinaire à mercure comparé au baromètre à eau. Dans l’un le mercure s’eléva à 28 polices, et dans Fautre l’eau fut a 31 pieds Cequi donne le rapport du mercure à l’eau de 13½ à 1.” Histoire de I'Acadérmie, tom. i. p. 234. It also appears that Otto Guricke constructed a philosophical toy for the amusement of himself and friends, upon the principle of the water-barometer; but the column of water probably in this, as in all the other instances which I have met with, was raised by the imperfect rarefaction of the air in the tube above it, or by filling with water a metallic tube, of sufficient length, cemented to a glass one at its upper extremity, and fitted with a stop-cock at each end; so that when full the upper one might be closed and the lower opened, when the water would fall till it afforded an equipoise to the pressure of the atmo­sphere. The imperfections of such an instrument, it is quite clear, would render it totally unfit for the delicate investigations required in the present state of science; as, to render the observations of any value, it is absolutely necessary that the water should be thoroughly purged of air, by boiling, and its insinuation or reabsorption effectually guarded against. I was convinced that the only chance of securing these two necessary ends, was to form the whole length of tube of one piece of glass, and to boil the water in it, as is done with mercury in the common barometer. The practical difficulties which opposed themselves to such a construction long appeared to me insurmount­able; but I at length contrived a plan for the purpose, which, having been honoured with the approval of the late Meteorological Committee of this Society, was ordered to be carried into execution by the President and Council.

The History of the Rechabites— an Initial Commentary

1997 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 413-436
Author(s):  
Chris H. Knights
Keyword(s):  
Greek Text ◽  
Original Language ◽  
The Third ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Way

AbstractThis article is the third in a series of studies on The History of the Rechabites. The first, "The Story of Zosimus or The History of the Rechabites?,"1 established the independent identity of this text within the Christian monastic work, The Story of Zosimus, and was a sort of prolegomena to the study of this text. The second, "Towards a Critical-Introduction to The History of the Rechabites,"2 sought to address the standard introductory issues, such as date, original language, provenance and purpose. The present paper seeks to examine the text verse-by-verse, and to offer a commentary on it. Or, rather, an initial commentary. No commentary of any sort has ever been offered on the Greek text of HistRech before, and it would be foolhardy to claim that any one scholar could perceive all the allusions and meanings in a particular text at a first attempt. This commentary, then, is offered in the same spirit as my two previous studies on HistRech: as a step along the way towards unravelling the meaning of this pseudepigraphon about the Rechabites, not as the last word on the subject.

XIV. Researches into the molecular constitution of the organic bases

1851 ◽  
Vol 141 ◽  
pp. 357-398 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Physical Properties ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
General Outline ◽  
Organic Bases ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Molecular Constitution

About twelve months ago I had the honour of presenting to the Royal Society an account of a series of researches into the molecular constitution of the volatile organic bases: at present I beg to submit to the consideration of the Society the history of a new group of alkaloids, which, although intimately connected with the former by their origin, differ from them altogether by their properties, and especially in not being volatile . The members of this new group of alkaloids are so numerous, their deportment is so singular, and their derivatives ramify in so many directions, that I have not as yet been able to complete the study of these substances in all their bearings; nor is it my intention to go fully into the chemistry of the subject in the present com­munication, my object being merely to establish the existence of these bodies, and to give a general outline of their connection with the volatile bases, and of their most prominent chemical and physical properties, reserving a detailed description of their salts and derivatives to a future memoir.

scholarly journals The Adverb; by Sayid Hasan Al-chourri (1322 AH)

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 33
Author(s):  
Taha S. Amin
Keyword(s):  
Arabic Language ◽  
The Third ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Research Plan ◽  
Manuscript Description

There are many manuscripts in the science of the Arabic language, which were writing by Kurdish scholars through the ages, and they were located in the House of local and international manuscripts, waiting for expert achievers to revive the manuscripts by achievement, and publication as wanted by the authors.We have chosen a grammatical manuscript from among those manuscripts,called the (Risalat Al-Zarf):its about ( The Adverb) by the Kurdish scholar: (Sayid Hasan al-chourri, who died in 1322 AH), and we have seen that it deserves achievement, in order to serve this heritage and its author because they represent the history of the Kurdish scientific, intellectual, and civilization.That the Kurdish scholars had a prominent role in the grammatical lesson along the history of the Arabic language.This grammatical letter dealt with the subject of ( The Adverb) in Arabic grammar, in short and concise manner, the most important collection of ( The Adverb), which is not found in this wonderful form, in solid and clear terms in presenting its articles, examples and explanations. The research plan is as follows: Introduction, Preface, Three parts, and Conclusion. Preface: In order to provide an overview of the issue of (The Adverb) in Arabic grammar, The first part: The biography of (Al-Chourriy) and its scientific literature.The second part: Achievement of the manuscript: description of copies, and our work in the achievement, and describe the topics of the (The Adverb).And the third part: The text achieved, and finally the conclusion of the most important results, and then sources and references.

scholarly journals IV. Notice as to the supposed identity of the large mass meteoric iron now in the British Museum, with the celebrated Otumpa iron described by Rubin de Celis in the Philosophical Transactions for 1786. Communicated in a letter from Woodbine Parish, Esq. F. R. S. to Charles König, Esq. Foreign Secretary of the Royal Society

1834 ◽  
Vol 124 ◽  
pp. 53-54
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
British Museum ◽  
Large Mass ◽  
The Real ◽  
Gran Chaco ◽  
Native Iron ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Humphry Davy

As the identity of the large mass of meteoric iron in the British Museum with the celebrated Otumpa iron, described by Rubin de Celis in the Philosophical Transactions for 1786, has been the subject of frequent inquiry, the following short historical notice, relating to that mass, is communicated by Woodbine Parish, Esq. F. R. S., by whom, when His Majesty’s Chargé d’Affaires at Buenos Ayres, it was sent to England. -C. K. “Dear Sir, “Agreeably to my promise, I have taken some trouble to ascertain the precise history of the large mass of native iron which I sent home to Sir Humphry Davy from Buenos Ayres, and which is deposited in the British Museum. There is no doubt of its coming from the same place as that described by Rubin de Celis, though whether it be a fragment of that particular mass upon which he made his report, or a smaller one in its immediate vicinity, I am not able to say, for there certainly is an impression at Buenos Ayres that there is not only one, but that several masses of this iron are to be found in that part of the Gran Chaco referred to by Rubin de Celis. I was under the impression that it had been sent for in order to be forwarded to Madrid; but in this I was led into error; and I have only lately ascertained through Mr. Moreno, the Buenos Ayrean Minister, that the real history of its being at Buenos Ayres is as follows.

A Bibliography of the Tectonics of England and Wales

1932 ◽  
Vol 69 (5) ◽  
pp. 233-237
Author(s):  
R. H. Rastall
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
British Isles ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
The Third ◽  
Tectonic History ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject

FOR more than twenty-five years the compiler of this bibliography has been deeply interested in the tectonic history of the British Isles: for the greater part of this time he has also been struck by the absence of any adequate and annotated treatment of the subject, since the appearance of the third edition of Jukes-Browne's Building of the British Isles, 1911. (The so-called 4th edition of this work, dated 1922, appears to be merely an unrevised reprint of the 3rd edition.) In 1929 this want was in part supplied by the publication of The Physiographical Evolution of Britain, by Dr. L. J. Wills. Even in this admirable work, however, the stress is on physiography rather than on tectonics, and many of the more important writings on this side of the subject are not referred to. In the Handbook of the Geology of Great Britain, which appeared in the same year, the exiguous section on “Morphology” includes no bibliography, while the whole scheme of treatment is in the main palaeontological, and little help on the tectonic aspect is to be obtained from the text of most of the sections. The present publication may in a sense be regarded as a supplement to that work.

scholarly journals II. The convolutional pattern of the brains of identical twins: a study on hereditary resemblance in the furrows of the cerebral hemispheres

1918 ◽  
Vol 208 (348-359) ◽  
pp. 37-61 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Identical Twins ◽  
Laboratory Research ◽  
Scientific Interest ◽  
Correct Description ◽  
Research Committee ◽  
Points Of Interest ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Scientific Value

The study of the similarity of the convolutional pattern of the brains of relatives has been the subject of considerable attention in the Pathological Laboratory at Claybury, under the direction of Dr. F. W. Mott. At his request Dr. Fisher has been forwarding to the Laboratory a number of fœtuses and children born dead that have occurred in his practice at Shoreditch Infirmary. It has thus happened that full term identical twins came into Dr. Mott’s possession. Realising the scientific value of a correct description of the similarity of the convolutional pattern in the brains of these twins, he has handed them to me and I have carefully studied the same on the lines previously adopted by Schuster in his description of the brains of relatives dying in the London Asylums. I have also made a study of the nervous plexuses and other morphological points of interest. I have been able to give my whole attention to laboratory research owing to the liberal grant made by the Medical Research Committee, and this study is a small part of the work which I have accomplished during the last year. But it was thought by the Director to be of sufficient scientific interest to present to the Royal Society, especially having regard to its being a morphological contribution to the important observations of the late Sir Francis Galton on the history of twins.

Euroscepticism and the culture of the discipline of history

2006 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 309-328 ◽  
Author(s):  
OLIVER J. DADDOW
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Study ◽  
The Political ◽  
Rhetorical Strategies ◽  
Daily Mail ◽  
The Third ◽  
History Of ◽  
Methodological Problems ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Tabloid Press ◽  
Essentially Contested Concept

This article explores the uses of history in contemporary Eurosceptic discourse in Britain. It does so in the knowledge that studying an essentially contested concept such as Euroscepticism poses severe methodological problems, and in the first section I situate my article in the emerging scholarly literature on the subject. Having explained why I limit my research to popular Euroscepticism in the tabloid press, in the second section I critically analyse the rhetorical strategies employed by the Sun and the Daily Mail to garner support for their line on Europe, suggesting that the appeal of their discourse resides in its recourse to national history of the school textbook variety. In the third part I use this finding to argue that the discipline of history has been an unwitting accomplice in making Euroscepticism so popular amongst the British public, press and politicians. This has considerable ramifications both for the theoretical study of Euroscepticism and the political efforts to counter its popularity, and I consider all of these in the conclusion.

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