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to 19th Century Introduction Page~~~~~~19th Century Science 1820-1894
Science of the 19th Century experienced some great expansion. New branches of science, such as anthropology, archeology and cell biology, were created. The science of Geology continued its growth and maturity as well, especially in the area of fossils and the movement of the Earth. Even the size of science expanded. The occupation of “scientist” became a paid position. Research labs became attached to universities and scientists became professors. The funding provided by universities and sometimes the government, allowed the public to conduct research and experiments instead of just the wealthy. With the university stage, it seems logical that scientists would get together to hear each other tell of their discoveries and that is exactly what happened. In Germany, scientists started the national scientific congresses in 1822. This would lead to international congresses by the middle of the century.
Science also varied greatly from country to country. In Germany, pure science remained as the main pursuit. German scientists continued to do research and experimentation. In England, scientists searched for the answer to practical problems. The Industrial Revolution had strengthened the need for better machines and devices to help the common man and English scientists were trying to provide this information. The universities of Oxford and Cambridge also strengthened the science of England, but even they were hindered by the connection to the Church of England. The church required that the instructors be clergymen and that dissections were not performed. In the United States, very little attention was given to true research and experimental science, but technological advancements were accelerated. With the expansion and immigration into the United States, most of the technology of the area had to be created by the people that lived in that area. Many of the devices created were centered on minimizing the amount of labor needed. Because of this need, some of America’s most famous scientists were known for their inventions. To this day, Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, George Eastman and George Westinghouse are still recognized names.
As science became more known by the general public, it often faced more public ridicule, especially by those who held certain religious beliefs. Prior to this era, science was condemned by the Church. The institutional persecution of Galileo and the Bishop George Berkeley’s criticism of Halley and Newton were replaced by a general public response. Often, newspapers ran cartoons persecuting various science ideas and public meetings on scientific ideas were well attended. One of the first issues to receive such a response was the age of the Earth. Geologists offered good evidence that the Earth was much older than the 6000 years believed by most Christians, Jews and Moslems. This opposition was minor compared to the reaction against Charles Darwin, Alfred Wallace, and the Theory of Evolution and Natural Selection. This battle continues on even today.
Charles Darwin may easily be called the greatest biologist of all time. His Theory of Evolution and ideas of Natural Selection set the scientific world on fire, even though the idea of an evolution of animals was not entirely new. Darwin’s book, On the origin of species by means of natural selection or the preservation of favored races in the struggle for life, was published on November 24, 1859 and convinced many scientists of its validity through many examples. We will examine evolution more thoroughly during a PowerPoint presentation.
We have previously discussed Margaret “Mad Madge” Cavendish and her struggles to be accepted into the Royal Society. During the 19th Century, women continued to struggle to be accepted into the science “circles”. Male scientists have often been unwilling to accept women. As early as Aristotle, we have seen this reluctance to accept women. Aristotle viewed women as passive, while men were active. Aristotle even claimed that women were mutilated men. Charles Darwin viewed women as inferior due to their smaller brains. Paul Broca, a scientist who studied the human brain, claimed that Darwin was correct. In fact, he stated that a woman had a brain closer in size to a gorilla, and that a woman was more closely related to a child or savage. Broca went on to talk about the lobes within the brain. Male scientists had claimed that the site of intelligence would most likely be located within the frontal lobe of the brain. Some scientists even classified males as Homo frontalis and women as Homo parietalis. It was later discovered that women have larger frontal lobes than men, so what was the male response. Intelligence must be located in the parietal lobe then. What was later discovered that brain size has nothing to do with intelligence. Women are often smaller than men, so their brains are smaller. This does not make them any less intelligent. We will start to see the contributions of women more in more in the scientific arena.
1. How did universities impact the study of science?
2. How did men rationalize that they were smarter than women?
The study of our solar system became the major area of interest in the science of astronomy. The discovery of Uranus made other astronomers wonder what else was out there. They began looking for other planets and using mathematics to help them figure out where to look.
In 1821, astronomers began to realize that Uranus was not traveling in its predicted orbit. By 1828, Uranus had traveled way out of its orbit. So much that astronomers began looking for another planet, the same way that they had found Uranus. Astronomers realized the Uranus had slowed down in its orbit. Using the Titius-Bode Law the calculated that the new planet should be 38 times farther from the Sun than the Earth. Astronomers could now focus their telescopes on this location. In 1845, John Couch Adams from England and Jean Le Verrier from Paris hypothesized where the new planet could be found. On September 23, 1846, Johann Galle discovered the planet Neptune. Later that year, Neptune’s moon named Triton was found. The end of this era would find Percival Lowell beginning to search for a 9th planet.
The astronomy of this era started with the Church lifting its ban on the teaching of the Copernican System, in 1821. They also removed Galileo’s book from the list of banned books. The banishment lasted for 190 years.
Astronomers spent a majority of their efforts to explain what they witnessed within our own solar system. This began with the 2nd return of Halley’s Comet in 1835. A solar eclipse followed this in 1836. While observing the solar eclipse, Francis Bailey saw bright spots along the moon’s edge. These would come to be known as Bailey’s Beads. The next year, Johann Enke saw a gap in Saturn’s outer ring, much like the gap that Cassini saw which divided the rings. This gap in the outer ring was named after Enke. During the previous era, we had discussed the discovery of the first asteroids. In 1845, Karl Hencke discovered the 5th and 6th asteroids, Astrea and Hebe. There still was some question as to what asteroids were. By 1860, the only thing astronomers were relative sure of was that asteroids were not a broken planet. Astronomy also experienced one of the first contributions by a woman. In 1847, Maria Mitchell discovered a comet on October 1st. This discovery called attention to the contributions of women in science.
Another major advancement in the field of astronomy was that of spectrometry. One of the ideas about light changing and using light to determine what stars are made of came in 1848. Hippolyte Fizeau suggested that light moving away from us would be shifted to the red. He would call this the red shift. Edwin Hubble would later use this idea to determine that the universe was expanding since the lights from stars were shifting to the red. By 1854, astronomer David Alter conducted a series of experiments that helped him determine that each element could be identified by its light spectrum. These experiments were similar to the burning of the magnesium strips that we did in class. Astronomers would later do a spectrograph of the sun. By 1863, astronomers had determined that the elements that made up the Sun were the same elements that could be found on the Earth. This disproved the Greek idea that stars were made of something different than what was found on Earth. Until this time, there was no scientific evidence to disprove the Greek idea. During the studies of the Sun, it was also realized that the Sun did not rotate as a single unit. Instead, the region around the equator rotates every 27.5 days while the regions near the poles rotate every 25 days.
In 1877, Asaph Hall found two new moons of Mars, which he named Phobos (fear) and Deimos (terror) after the two sons of Ares, the Greek equivalent to the Roman God, Mars. This discovery intrigued Giovanni Schiaparelli and he began taking a closer look at Mars. Schiaparelli thought that he saw “canals” or “channels” on the surface of Mars. He believed that these canals were used to bring water down from the polar ice caps. Others would take this discovery to enhance the belief that there was life on Mars, a belief that would remain for the next 100 years. In fact, Percival Lowell would be a lead advocate for Martian life.
In 1872, an astronomer from Le Roy, Michigan made his contribution to astronomy. Forrest Ray Moulton, along with Thomas Chowder Chamberlin, suggested that the solar system was formed by planetesimals. Planetesimals are small bodies in space that would collide and join together. The collisions would occur over and over causing larger planetesimals, which would eventually form planets.
In 1873, most astronomers were willing to suggest that the craters on the moon were formed by impacts with asteroids or other celestial objects. Prior to this, the belief was that the craters were formed by volcanic activity. By switching to the idea of impact craters, astronomers were also willing to suggest that the moon did not form on its own, but instead came from another source. By 1879, the most common idea of where the moon came from was that the moon was formed from Earth material that had been thrown from the Earth while it was spinning rapidly. This idea remained the most common idea until the 1960’s.
1826—Hans Olbers creates what is known is Olbers' Paradox. This paradox wonders
why the immeasurable number of stars don’t produce enough light to light up the
entire night sky. This idea was first presented by Edgar Allan Poe.
1. What planet was discovered during this era?
2. Who is Forest Ray Moulton?
3. What did Giovanni Schiaparelli discover?
4. Edwin Hubble discovered that the universe was __________________________.
The biology of this time was obviously led by Darwin and Wallace’s idea of evolution. Evolution had its roots reach as deep as the Greek era, but was first strongly proposed during the 1800’s. The impetus for evolution began when Darwin joined the crew of the H.M.S. Beagle for its trip to the Galapagos Islands. The trip began in 1831 and was supposed to last two years, but ended up taking 5 years. Darwin’s role was that of scientific officer. By 1835, Darwin had noticed that the finches of these islands seemed to have developed from a common ancestor on the South American mainland. A year later, a lungfish was found and was believed to be a link between fish and amphibians. This fish had muscular fins, lungs and gills, and was able to traverse across the land for short periods of time. We will see an example of this fish during the Season in the Sun video. In 1839, Darwin wrote a book entitled Journal of researches into the geology and natural history of the various countries visited by the HMS Beagle 1832-36. This book was an account of Darwin’s work on fossils, plants and animals and the geology discovered during his voyage and would also be the first book of many to have an extremely long title. In 1842, Darwin would write a 35-page paper that would later become his theory of evolution. In 1844, Robert Chambers wrote Vestiges of the natural history of creation. This book was published anonymously and was greatly influential to both Darwin and Wallace. The book contained many errors and provided no mechanism for evolution, but promoted the idea of evolution and many examples. Finally, by 1858, Darwin and Wallace were ready to present their theory of evolution to the Linnaean Society and to the public in 1859. Darwin’s book, On the origin of the species by means of natural selection of the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life presented this idea of evolution to the public. All 1,250 copies sold the first day. In this book, Darwin presents two distinct ideas. First, all species of life on Earth have arisen by evolution from other pre-existing species. Obviously, the Christian dogma would have a problem with this since it went against the idea that all species had their own origin and remain fixed in form. The second idea was that the process that drives evolution is called natural selection. Obviously, the union of Darwin and Wallace was an important one in the history of science. Sadly, one person Darwin never met was Austrian monk Gregor Mendel. In 1865, Mendel was working with pea plants and crossbreeding them. He was able to distinguish various characteristics through inheritance. It was the idea of inheritance and genetics that would provide the mechanism on which natural selection would function. However, at the time, Mendel’s work was not appreciated and would not be for 35 years. Some scientists actually disagreed with Darwin and his ideas of evolution. Louis Agassiz would attack Darwin’s ideas and say that all species were created separately. Thomas Huxley and Bishop Wilberforce would have one of the most historical debates in 1860 at the British Association for the Advancement of Science. Darwin preferred to stay behind the scenes and continued to write. In 1862, he wrote The various contrivances by which orchids are fertilized by insects. This book detailed how varieties of orchids had evolved to increase pollination by insects. Darwin continued to rewrite the Origin of the species to include new information and in 1871, decided to take a look at human evolution. His book, The decent of man and selection in relation to sex discussed the ideas of humans evolving from lower forms of life and introducing the idea of sexual selection. To Darwin, sexual selection explained hairlessness of humans and our lack of natural weapons.
More than Evolution
While Darwin and his ideas dominated natural science, they were not the only things going on in biology. Jean Baptiste Lamarck wrote the first book on vertebrates and invertebrates in 1822. This was the first book to divide animals into these two groups. In 1827, Karl Ernst von Baer made a discovery that set the biological world on fire. Baer discovered mammalian eggs. Prior to this, the female was largely considered just a “holding vessel” for mammalian offspring. Mammal eggs, being microscopic in size and retained within the female were difficult to discover. Karl Ernst von Baer first discovered these eggs in a dog belonging to the head of his department. This discovery proved that the female had just as an important role as males in mammalian reproduction. It also discarded the theory of pre-formation, which believed that the sperm contained a pre-formed human larva that simply grew inside the female. Botany, or the study of plants, also made some amazing discoveries. In 1837, Henri Dutrochet discovered that only the parts of the plant that contain chlorophyll are able to absorb CO2 and that they can do this only in the presence of light. In 1865, Julius von Sachs would back Dutrochet’s discovery when he claimed that chlorophyll was the key compound to turn CO2 and water into starch while releasing oxygen. He also discovered that the entire plant was not green with chlorophyll, but rather the chlorophyll was contained in small bodies, which would later be called chloroplasts. In 1840, another botanist discovered that plants are able to obtain nitrogen from the soil.
As mentioned earlier, not all scientists were willing to accept evolution. One such scientist was Richard Owen. Owen is probably most famous for coining the term “dinosaur” which means terrible lizard. Owen based this name on the recently discovered fossils of giant reptiles. He realized that these “dinosaurs” were different from modern reptiles and deserved their own classification. What is peculiar about this is the fact that many of Owen’s contemporaries considered Owen to be “a terrible monster”. Charles Darwin claimed that Owen was “not only ambitious, envious and arrogant, but also untruthful and dishonest.” Much of the dislike for Owen came from the fact that William Buckland was one of the first to discover dinosaurs, but Owen beat him to the classifying of them. Owen also was very anti-evolution. He viewed Darwin’s work as worthless and believed the idea of evolution would be gone in 10 years.
1826—Ernst Heinrich Weber conducts his experiments in which he determines that two
points on the skin that are close together can be perceived as a single point. We
will do a demonstration on this in class.
1852—James Gana formulated his theory of cephalization. The more an organism has
evolved, the more specialized its head region has become.
1860—Archaeopteryx is discovered in Germany. This fossil has characteristics of both birds and reptiles and is believed to be a link between the two types of organisms.
1883—The last known quagga dies in an Amsterdam zoo. The quagga is related to the
zebra.
1. What two scientists created the theory of evolution?
2. What two organisms did Darwin concentrate his studies while on the Galapagos
Islands?
3. Who discovered mammal eggs? Why did it take so long to discover these eggs?
Ecology
In 1863, John Tyndall proposed an idea that has only recently come into full view. Remember that this era is directly following the industrial revolution. During that era, we saw a dramatic increase in the pollution created by man. Tyndall performed many experiments on gases and their abilities to transmit and absorb heat. Tyndall realized that if the amounts of gases that retained heat were to increase, the temperature of our earth would increase as well. This phenomena came to be known as the “greenhouse effect”. Tyndall also explained that the sky was blue because large molecules in the atmosphere scatter blue light more than others. He went on to describe why we see red skies at night. The sunlight has to travel through more atmosphere, scattering the colors and leaving only red light. This is known as the Tyndall Effect.
The science of Geology branched out with the study of Anthropology and Archeology. Paleontology, or the study of fossils, continued to grow, especially with the discovery of some human fossils. Scientists started to classify the age of the earth and the fossils found by creating a Geological Time Scale. Lastly, a greater understanding and interest in volcanoes and earthquakes arose during this era. Much of this interest stemmed from the fact that human populations had expanded and now volcanoes and earthquakes were caused high human death totals.
The sciences of anthropology and archaeology got their start during this era. With the discovery of the city of Pompeii and the Rosetta Stone in Egypt, scientists quickly realized the links to scientific discoveries and information of the past. These links were strengthened as scientists continued to discover Egyptian ruins, Mesopotamian writings, and ancient ruins of the American southwest.
Just after the halfway point of the century, a human skeleton was found in a cave near the Neander Valley. Hermann Schaaffhausen was the first to describe the eyebrow ridges and thick walled bones. Finally in 1863, after studying the skeleton for quite some time, it was determined that this skeleton was actually an ancestor of humans that would come to be known as the Neanderthals. These skeletons were a subspecies of Homo sapiens believed to have flourished during the ice ages. In 1860, a paleontologist made a discovery that affected the ideas of fossil records. A mammoth tooth was found with an engraving of a mammoth on the tooth. This indicated that whoever engraved the tooth actually saw a live mammoth. By 1868, a new skeleton, actually 5 skeletons had been found. Workmen building a road in France found 5 human skeletons in a cave named Cro-Magnon. Found alongside these skeletons were the skeletons of extinct animals. It was believed that these skeletons were about 35,000 years old and were believed to be early versions of Homo sapiens. Eleven years later, another discovery was made in a cave, but this one had unique circumstances. Maria Sautuola was exploring a cave with her father. She became the first person to discover cave paintings done by Cro-Magnon Man. Because she was smaller than her father, Maria was able to stand upright in the caves where her father had to crawl. This allowed her to see paintings on the cave’s ceiling of bison that are believed to be 10,000 years old. There were still some questions as to the validity and accuracy of these discoveries. This changed when a second Neanderthal skeleton was discovered in 1886. Another link in the chain of human evolution was discovered in 1894 on the island of Java. This discovery was made by Marie Eugene Dubois and turned out to be an entire new species of humans, which would later be called Homo erectus. This discovery started with the finding of a fossil tooth. He would later find part of a skull and a thighbone. His discoveries stopped there and the future of Java Man would not happen until the next era.
Once the discovery of different human species occurred, scientists wanted to know where these fossils fit into “time” as a whole. In order to do this, and to incorporate all other fossils, scientists created the geological time scale. The various fossils that could be found within the layers decided the divisions within the scale. Every time there was a major change in the types of fossils or in some cases, human tools were found, a new dividing line was created. With the interest in human fossils, scientists named various ages as the Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age to show the tools used by humans. What do you think paleontologists of the future would classify our current age as? The various divisions in the geological time scale will be discussed later in a PowerPoint Presentation.
As stated earlier, volcanoes and earthquakes began to effect human civilizations during this era. These catastrophes led many scientists to believe that the pursuit of geology should be to confirm biblical accounts such as Noah’s Flood. A geologist named William Buckland led this charge. Buckland wrote a book in 1823 that argued the time of Noah’s Flood was around 5000 to 6000 years prior to present day. Georges Cuvier would follow the assertions of Buckland with his own catastrophe theory. According to Cuvier, great catastrophes had caused the extinction of large groups of animals and altered the geology of the Earth. Cuvier was willing to include Noah’s Flood along with the Ice Ages. Later, scientists would include various asteroids striking the Earth. Another scientist named Jean Baptiste Fourier would be the first to claim that human activities could affect the climate and possibly cause catastrophes as well.
Many scientists were not willing to accept the idea of a “young Earth”. Charles Lyell wrote a book entitled The principles of geology in 1830. This text became the leading geology text for quite some time and many considered Lyell to be the “Darwin of Geology”. In fact, Darwin would use Lyell’s text on his maiden voyage on the Beagle. The reverse of this admiration did not occur. Lyell disputed Darwin’s early idea of evolution, but would later accept evolution based on the arguments made by T.H. Huxley. Lyell had begun a massive study that showed that the Earth must be several hundred million years old. Lyell would also be the first to identify the Recent, Pliocene, Miocene, and Eocene periods in Earth’s history. Louis Agassiz also felt the Earth was relatively older and discussed the idea of an Ice Age with glaciers covering a majority of Europe during the year of 1837. Agassiz received a medical degree before becoming interested in fossil fishes. He would describe over 1,700 new species. Later, Agassiz would turn his attention to glaciers. By studying boulder deposits and scratches on rocks, he theorized that the glaciers had covered a majority of North America and Asia. By 1840, Agassiz was able to describe the motions and deposits of glaciers, which confirmed his theories of the ice ages. Geologist Thomas Chamberlin would later argue that there were several ice ages, not just one. Arnold Escher von der Linth used the ideas of Agassiz when he began his studies of the Alps later that year. Linth identified structures in the Alps, which appeared to be tens of kilometers of rock layers that had been folded over one another like a napkin. Linth called these “nappes”.
In 1856, William Thomas Blanford discovered that the conglomerate rocks found in India were due to glaciations. This led to the realization that the ice ages occurred many times and both hemispheres were affected. Finally, at the end of the century, Arthur Holmes used radioactivity to date various rock formations. Using radioactivity, Holmes established that the Earth was about 4.6 billion years old.
Idea of Tectonic Plates
During this era, it is safe to say that scientists were not ready to propose an idea of tectonic plates, but they were gaining an understanding of how the Earth worked. Even Darwin had taken an interest in volcanoes and geology during his voyages on the Beagle. A major discovery toward the idea of tectonic plates arrived when Matthew Fontaine Maury completed his chart of the Atlantic Ocean. Maury was able to show that the center of the ocean is actually shallower than nearer to the edges. Scientists would later discover the Mid-Atlantic ridge. This ridge is actually the edge of two tectonic plates were new ocean floor is being formed by the spreading of these plates. In 1859, Harry Reid developed the elastic rebound theory. This theory discussed the idea of one fault rubbing up against another and this was the cause of earthquakes. This was a change from the past. Prior, it was believed that faults were the result of an earthquake happening. Now, it is known that earthquakes take place along fault lines that already exist. Basically, this says that the fault came before the earthquake and not the other way around. To better understand the cause of earthquakes and to hopefully lean towards the prediction of them, John Milne invented the first modern seismograph.
Another scientist, Eduard Suess would use the idea of moving plates to help him with his ideas of mountain formation. By studying rock formations, Suess was able to link the Appalachian Mountains with the hills of Scotland and Scandinavia. All you would need to do is remove the Atlantic Ocean through tectonic motion.
Though the study of physics continued during this era, there was not much that can be applied to what we are studying. Most of the applications were centered on the discovery of electricity and the uses of electricity. Two discoveries in physics during this era are of importance to us. One was previously discussed in the astronomy section when we talked about the red shift. The second deals with a change in energy forms. We have previously discussed some forms of energy. In 1853, William Rankine introduced the idea of potential energy, or energy of position. According to Rankine, you could change the energy of an object by changing where it was located. Picture it this way: a ball on the ground will not move, but raise a ball off the ground and let it go and it will fall downward. The only thing that had changed was the position of the ball.
1820—An expedition reaches Antarctica
1831—An expedition reaches the North Pole
1832—England makes it legal to sell bodies for dissection. This is done in an attempt to
stop grave robbing.
1840—The oldest existing photograph is taken
1872—CrackerJacks invented.
1876—Telephone invented by Alexander Graham Bell. Lewis Latimer, an African-American, who would later work with Thomas Edison and the invention of the light bulb, drew the design.
1882—Women were admitted into Cavendish Labs.
1883—It is discovered that the Great Pyramid is located almost exactly on North-South
Lines.