JF Ptak Science Books Quick Post
I was working my way through an edition of Nature for 1884 (23 October, page 606) when I found a review of F.W. Cory's How to Foretell the Weather with the Pocket Spectroscope (1884). The title was enough, and the review even more so--I knew this was an obscure work, but not so much anymore, as the entire book is located online! Sometimes I get used to the sci-fi aspect of the intertubes, but when I make discoveries like this I am reminded all over again how magnificent all of this is.
[Source: University of California Libraries via Internet Archive, here.]
It's fascinating stuff. But I couldn't decide, just from reading it, whether it was real science or pseudoscience. There's a good essay here - Spectrum of rain, Ben Smith, History of Science Society, January 2008 Newsletter, Vol. 37, No.1 ( http://www.hssonline.org/publications/Newsletter2008/NewsletterJanuary2008Smith.html ) - that suggests it was somewhere in between: the basic concept was sound, but the effect wasn't realistically measurable with small (heavily hyped) pocket spectrometers. The controversy looks interesting in itself.
Posted by: Ray Girvan | 03 September 2013 at 12:46 PM