Discoveries in the Physics & Astronomy shop | Science, curiosities, and surprises
Sometimes you could really use a book that covers the physics behind musical instruments. We’ve all been there, right?
And who can resist grabbing a title off the shelf – Vibration and Sound by Philip M. Morse, of course – that looks like it’s been resting patiently for quite some time? Last pre-digital checkout, May 20th, 2004; prior to that, April 28th, 1997.
First one marked: April 12th, 1950. The 2004 event was the 15th time the book was checked out. Does that make us the sweet sixteen?
Some years ago, back in 1887, the University received a lovely Clark & Sons refracting telescope, complete with a clock drive to track the stars against the Earth’s rotation. When a shiny new toy scientific apparatus arrives on your doorstep, it’s very important to confirm that it works as intended. Here, in an old notebook, we see the original data on the clock drive’s variance from the ideal sidereal tracking rate.
“Observations for Determining Sidereal Clock’s Rate Nov. 8, 1889”
Then follows a table of stars with known right ascension and declination, then a repeated set of measurements 20 days later. “Rate of Loss per day .268 sec.” Considering the frequency with which proper polar alignment and tracking proves a nuisance more than a century later, that seems pretty good. The clock drive is long gone, of course, so we can only guess at how accurate it was and stayed throughout the decades.
It looks like these entries were by a J. D. Minick, Class of ’88. Best guess is a John David Minick, graduate of Bucknell in 1888, listed as Prof. John D. Minick of Lenoir, N.C. in the Memorials of Bucknell University, 1846 – 1896. Astronomer, apparently. Mathematician? Physicist? At this point, we’re content with the mystery.
Around the same time, Bucknell was also the home of one Jacob Henry Minick, Class of 1891. He’s listed in the link above as from Orrstown, PA, in Franklin County. Any relation?
His name lives on at the university in the form of an endowed scholarship:
“The Jacob H. Minick Fund was established by a bequest from Jacob H. Minick, Class of 1891, the income of which is to be given each year to students who, because of some physical difficulty, are forced to use crutches during all of their college work.”
There’s a story there, no doubt.
As one would imagine, university buildings have tons of books in them. Shelves upon shelves, editions going back well over a century. See above, The American Ephemeris and Nautical Almanac, 1887. Is it useful? Not particularly these days. Does it look cool on the shelf in line with year after year of its subsequent volumes? Of course!
Note the volume near the middle of the image, with the well-worn spine. It’s a duplicate of the book to the right, the 1922 edition, save for one key detail. A bookplate:
Ex Libris Harry Scheidy Everett. Listed in L’Agenda 1925 as Associate Professor of Mathematics and Astronomy and Director of the Observatory, he was already a Bucknell alumnus, having received his Master of Arts on Wednesday, June 18th, 1913, according to the Bucknell Catalogue of 1912-13. (He also played the violoncello.)
Astronomy now lives under the Physics umbrella, rather than Mathematics, although we’re all stacked on top of each other here in Olin Science.
Have a look at that bookplate, and imagine that self-described philomath Dr. Everett was having a grand old time drawing that up. In case you can’t read it, the inscription above the doors reads: “Let none ignorant of Geometry enter here“
Bet he was a unique individual, that Dr. Everett.
It’s not uncommon for any place to collect things and never quite discard them, and it only grows worse when there’s no single person in charge of them. On some old shelves at the Observatory, we have no shortage of 19th-century astronomical observations from all around the world. A few select favorites recently spotted: Havana, Cuba; Hyderabad, India; Tachkent (now Tashkent), Uzbekistan.
Oldest so far spotted: Washington Astronomical Observations, 1848.
Part of the library collection since 1856. Wonder if the library knows? (We’ve put in a call to the proper folks, so no worries.)
“Library of University Lewisbg. Dec. 1856″
Neat!
It’s no surprise that there are books everywhere. This is a university, after all. Books are one of the biggest threads connecting every department and avenue of study.
Sometimes it’s fun to flip open some of the old tomes gathering dust on mostly-forgotten shelves. This was, presumably, a useful reference when acquired in 1973 or so. Flipping open the front cover, it’s not hard to imagine that someone got at least $5 worth of use out of this.
That said, this is not the most compelling cover-to-cover read, unless you’re really into data tables for the sake of data tables. Front to back, it’s tables of lunar positions and times over a span of 2,652 years. From what seems like an arbitrary start – 1,001 is a pretty fine number – to around the death of Johannes Kepler (November 1630) makes for a lot of potential eclipses and other lunar phenomena that would get the attention of ancient writers.
Folks around here are already talking seriously about the solar eclipse in April of 2024. Syzygies are a big deal.
Syzygy. Y-Y-Y. Great word.