British Science (And a Screaming Zero) in Cartoon, 1865

JF Ptak Science Books   Post 1728

This fine cartoon appeared in the 23 September 1865 issue (page 114) of the London Punch magazine, poking a little fun at the recent meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, which had just finished its 35th meeting in Birmingham.  Its attendees and contributors read like a "who's who" of the heights of mid-19th century British sciences (across fields of geology, physics, physiology, chemistry, mathematics, statistics (and economics)):  attending and contributing were JC Adams, Airy, Hooker, Thomas Graham, Wheatstone, Nasmyth, Fairbairn, Murchison, Lyell, Huxley, Thomson, Maxwell, Tyndall and of course numerous others (also including foreign members). 

Of the figures I can identify in this image are Thomas Huxley and the not-beautiful Richard Owen at top left, discussing the principles of evolution in front of a small audience of skeletal/fossilized monkeys, and standing to their immediate right waving an instrument over chemical elements may be JAR Newlands. I am not sure who is presiding over the numerals at bottom left, but what attracts me the most is the zero is running away, screaming, from the other numbers seated calmly on tiny stools.  Seated serenely at center juggling earth/spheres in the geologist Roderick Murchison, who appears prominently in the Punch report--I'm less sure about the two other geologists (one placing the Earth-chunk back into the globe, and the other placing a short-handled shovel into another globe, both in front of an audience of geologist's hammers...are they Charles Lyell and John Phillips?)  Above them may be John Tyndall, working with an optical viewer in front of an audience of dividers and a telescope.  And above the maybe-Tyndall is a steam hammer demonstrating itself to a set of jackknives and cutlery. 

The text is pretty interesting in itself, not the least of which is another visit to the squaring of the circle (having just written about this two days ago), which goes like this:

"A few words on Squaring a Beadle who was arguing in a vicious circle.  Illustrated pugilistically. (A portmanteau to itself, including gloves and change of linen."

I should be able to idenbtify these men though I'm afraid I can't; perhaps I'll have a little help with them. 

Notes (including the contents of the volume published in 1866 of this Birmingham 1865 meeting):

Mathematics and Physics: Glaisher, Mr.— Lunar Committee; Williamson, Prof.— Electrical Standards; 
Glaisher, Mr. — Luminous Meteors and Aerolites: Sykes, Col.— Balloon Experiments; Robinson, Dr. — Sound under water;
 Glaisher, Mr.— British Rainfall;  Airy, Mr. — Reduction of Riimker Observations.

Chemistry: Fairlcy, Mr. — Polycyanides of Organic Radicals; Matthiessen, Dr.— Chemical Constitution of Cast Iron 

Geology:  Lyell, Sir C— Kent's Hole Investigation; Mitchell, Mr.— Alum Bay Fossil Leaf Bed; Wright, Dr. E. P.— Kilkenny Coal-field; Busk, 
Professor. — Maltese Caverns Explorations; Murchison, Sir R. — Palestine Explorations; Salter, Mr. J. W.— Lingnla Elags at St. David's; 
Bryce, Mr. J. — Researches on Earthquakes in Scotland. 

Zoology, Botany, and Physiology: Wright, Dr. E. P.— Irish Annelida; Newton, Mr. — Didine Birds of Mascareen Islands; 
Jeffreys, Mr.— Hebrides Coast Dredging; Jeffreys, Mr. — Marine Fanna and Flora (Devon and Cornwall); Jeffreys,
 Mr.— Aberdeen and Banffshire Coast Dredging; Scott, Mr.— Oyster Culture in the West of England; Jeffreys, Mr. — Mersey Dredging; 
Gray, Dr. J. E.— Oyster Culture; Davis, Dr. Barnard.— Catalogue of Crania; Norris, Dr. Richard. — Observations on Rigor Mortis; 
Richardson, Dr. B. W. — Amyl Compounds. 

Geography and Ethnology: Lubbock, Sir J.— Typical Crania (renewed).

Statistics and Economic Science: Bowring, Sir J. — Metrical Committee. 

Mechanics: Webster, Mr.— Patent Laws (renewed); Russell, J. Scott, Mr. — Resistance of Water to Floating Bodies.

Comments

[Teleskopos.wordpress.com]

I love this image, and used it in my book. I think the one with the numbers can be identified as JJ Thomson and the one holding up a piece of the Earth is Charles Lyell. The elderly man with tartan trousers, demonstrating his invention of the stereoscope, is David Brewster. I hadn't identified the chemist before, so thanks for the suggestion.

[John F. Ptak]

Thank you! I think you're right on the Brewster, and also for Lyell. Thomson though was born in 1856--I ws thinking about JJ Sylvester for the numbers guy, but I don't understand the significance of the (very Asian) fish he is holding up or why the zero is running away in the first place.

[John F. Ptak]

Also I think I'm probably wrong with Newlands for the chemistry guy--it was just my best guess.

[Teleskopos.wordpress.com]

Oops - wrong JJ! I did, of course, mean Sylvester. But it looks like I might be wrong - I found everyone identified in the Science in the Nineteenth-Century Periodical index (scroll down a bit here: http://www.sciper.org/browse/display.jsp?mode=sciper&file=PU1-49.html&reveal=issue_PU1-49-1263&section=PU1-49-12-1). They give the mathematician as Babbage and the chemist as Tyndall. I'm convinced by the beard for Tyndall, but thought this mathematician a bit too young for Babbage?

[Peter Rowlett]

The zero business seems strange. It seems to me we're too late for concerns about zero itself, and too early for set theory. And the fish is odd. Or perhaps we are looking at its price.

I was looking through the report of the 1865 meeting
http://www.archive.org/details/reportofbritisha66brit

Very hard to tell from a cartoon but Babbage was 74 and, really, doesn't appear to look like that in the pictures I've seen. Was he at the meeting? He's listed in the report as a member and former member of Council, but not as giving a talk.

Sylvester - all the pictures I've seen have him with a beard. Might he have been as pictured in 1865? His talk was on probability. There is a quote from Sylvester to do with fish (and oratory):
"An eloquent mathematician must, from the nature of things, ever remain as rare a phenomenon as a talking fish, and it is certain that the more anyone gives himself up to the study of oratorial effect, the less he will find himself in a fit state of mind to mathematicize."
Although I think this is quoted from a commencement address at Johns Hopkins in 1877:
http://mathdl.maa.org/mathDL/?pa=historicalEvent&sa=browseFrontEnd&month=1&day=22

From the report of the meeting:

H. J. Stephen Smith presented a report on the theory of numbers. Could it be that he talked about zero and its place in the number system?
Although this picture claims to be c. 1860 and has him with a beard:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:HenryJohnStephenSmith2.jpg

Francis Galton presented on vision in amphibious animals, which is extremely tenuous to the price of fish and in any case apparently by the early 1860s he had lost his hair:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Francis_Galton_1850s.jpg

Really, I don't know.

[John F. Ptak]

Thanks Peter Rowlett for that response. I doubt that the amth person can be Sylvester of Babbage as well. But it must be somebody, as these sorts of things in Punch do reference living people. I just don't know enough faces to have but half of these make sense.

[Popinga]

May I translate this article in Italian and publish it on my blog (obviously with citation and link to the original)?

[John F. Ptak]

Dear Popinga--please do!

[Kees Popinga]

And if the "beadle" was Rev. Robert Harley? In 1865 he could not have even grown a beard, but facial features and hairstyle with fringe right can in my opinion justify this hypothesis.

http://www.le.ac.uk/litandphil/presidents/1870.html