JF Ptak Science Books

Uncommon Photo of the Surrender of the German Fleet, 1918

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This is a photograph of the surrender of the German high seas fleet at the Firth of Forth (Scotland), 21 November 1918. The image was undoubtedly made from an airship, and centers on the German battleship "Seyditz" with the British non-rigid airship "N.S. 8" (that's "North Sea" #8) observing overhead. On that day Germany surrendered 4 battleships, 3 battleship cruisers, 3 light cruisers, and 50+ destroyers. I can find only one reproduction of this image online, and that in Spencer Tucker's WWI: the Definitive Encyclopedia..., p. 961 (identifying that German battleship as the "Seyditz"), so I thought I'd share this fuller version. 

The photo (measuring 8"x10") has a pasted bit of paper on the back identifying the scene: "First Photo of Surrender of German Armada" and "British airship flying over a German battleship during the proceedings" with the maker/distributor identified as "Photograph by Central News Photo Service, N.Y."  [ A note on WWI imagery from photo news services: WWI photographs were made by pools of photographers working for several different photographic news agencies. The content of the images were generally secured and approved by the Committee for Public Information (CPI), which came into existence by executive order under President Woodrow Wilson on April 13, 1917, and which was charged with the task of wining the hearts and minds of the people of the U.S., to gain public support for the war and for American participation. The way that many newspapers obtained the war images that they published in their papers was via a semi-centralized pool of war images.  The newspaper would request, say, a photo of German prisoners, and would contact one of these photographic agencies—for example, say, the Central News Photo Service of 26-28 Beaver Street, NYC—and purchase the rights for republication, and then print it in the newspaper along with the story.  In almost every case the photo would be accompanied by a caption mimeographed onto an attached piece of cheap paper, or have the information stamped on the reverse.] 

Patriotic Snow Parade, 1917/1918

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This news photo service image--stamped "Hearst-Pathe News Agency" on the back--is from the winter of 1917/1918 and shows a patriotic snow parade somewhere in the United States.  The snow looks prodigious, judging from the piles in the foreground and also the accumulated snow on the windowsills, and I imagine that all of the snow floats were sculpted mainly out of exiting snow in the street.  It is a delightful scene, to me, and hosts a variety of smaller, lovely images in vignette. For example:

The man in shadow and sleeping/relaxed figure (boy) in the buggy complement the white-mustachioed bowler-wearing man to the left; the men looking on in the foreground are interesting, too--plus there's that laundry in the background.  Given that the laundry is out (and wasn't just left out during the storm) and that no one seems to be particularly bundled up against cold, I'm going to guess that there was a break in the weather that pushed the temperature higher than normal, with almost everyone taking advantage of the warm snap, as people do everywhere, all the time. (Or maybe not this at all, and that they're northern folks, and are used to the cold.) 

I also like the tiny American flag on the tall pole at left.

Words, Deeds, and Henry Ford (1927)

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 So, the Dearborn Independent was owned and published by Ford beginning in 1920 and rose to a circulation of 900,000 issues a day, the second-leading circulation in the country. It was partially put over this hallmark via incentive quotas in every Ford dealership. As no doubt is familiar to everyone in our modern world, the paper--which also published "The International Jew"-- was a happy host to many anti-Semitic articles in its pages over the years. . It was bad stuff. Anyway, boycotts against the Ford company were lodged and a lawsuit emerged in 1927 concerning the paper's ridiculous anti-Semitic stance. Ford  responded to the accusations in June 1927 saying that he had no idea that the paper had published this sort of garbage since 1920, and that he was shocked by it, and repelled. He recanted, though it seems from historical sources that the published letter of apology wasn't written or signed by Ford. The response on the other side by Louis Marshall, president of the American Jewish Congress, was reserved, and hoped that the paper no longer published the anti-Semitic filth. Ford closed the paper by the end of 1927. In 1938, Ford accepted the Nazi award of the Grand Cross of the German Eagle, the highest medal offered by the Nazis to a foreign. Hitler had been in power for five years by this point, and his war against the Jews was years old.
So: words and deeds...

Notes:

(FORD, Henry) "Statement by Henry Ford Regarding Charges Against Jews Made in his Publications, The Dearborn Independent, and a Series of Pamphlets Entitled "The International Jew", together with an Explanatory Statement by Louis Marshall, President of the American Jewish Committee and his Reply to Mr. Ford. Published by the American Jewish Committee, 1927. WorldCat locates ONE print copy, University of Michigan. (There are 5 other copies located, all overseas, Australia, NZ,2 UK, Canada) though they all seem to be only online copies.)

The Beauty of a Hexadecimal Tonal System (1863)

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John Nystrom's  “A New System of Arithmetic and Metrology, called the Tonal System”¹ (1863) is a very early entry in the history of the application of the hexadecimal system.  Nystrom's plan included converting to a hex arithmetical system, and then expanded the idea to the calendar, musical notation, geography, time—an overall shift in metrology. His idea did not extend to calculators, and his name does not seem to be referenced by any of the modern compsci folks (with the major exception of Donald Knuth). Probably base-16 was not employed in programming until, I guess, around the early 1960's. All that said, this is still a remarkable paper. ALSO: the paper is illustrated with a beautiful color-highlighted folding plate of divider-like instruments that translated hex to denary.

The Costs of Television Sets, 1946

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• Q: "What kinds of programs will there be on television?
• A:  "All kinds" ("The commercials will be unlike radio.")

I was initially attracted to this oversized pamphlet for its A-Bomb cover--using this sort of imagery was a thing in advertising in the Cold War years...pervasive, even. It was not uncommon to see this sort of image used to sell bubble gum, kids' toys, motel rooms, laundry cleaners, and just about everything else (plus, of course, firecrackers).  This pamphlet though was a bit different from the others, as I expected that given its contents it would've been published around 1950. Wrong!  This work hit the streets in 1946, about a year after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and very early on in the history of public television. Television (and facsimile transmission) exited around the edges of public awareness for a few decades, but television as a relatively common form of amusement with not-terrible accessibility was very new in 1946.  So I wanted to share a few of the useful bits that I found in this short (24pp) and oversized pamphlet, the primary one being a survey of costs of television sets listed by manufacturer.

 

As you can see, the tv was not a purchase to be taken lightly by the average US citizen in 1946.  There's only a couple of sets listed here under $200,  with the average cost (not including the relatively substantial fee for the aerial and aerial placement) coming in at more than 10% of the average yearly income. (The average income in 1946 was about $2600, or about $39k adjusted for inflation using the Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator as a base.) The average salary in 2020 was about $56,000, or about $7k in 1946 dollars. That isn't as rosy as it might seem, given that the average person could expect to spend about double their income on a house--a standard that does not carry forward to today. Toss in healthcare and education, and that 7k comes rambling down. Hm. Another way of looking at this relative costliness of a tv set in 1946 is that it was about 10% of the cost of the average new car--given that the new car cost today in 2021 has jumped over the $50,000 mark (?!), 10% of that would buy a boatload of television sets.  

And there you have it--a little peep into the history of the future of television. (I should mention one interesting paragraph in which David Sarnoff reveals the remote-controlled bomber, outfitted with "television eyes" that would only be used in not-peacetime.)

Statements by the Editor of Nature on Equality in the Sciences (1910).

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This is a short note on an interesting series of reports in the venerable journal Nature (1911) regarding the status of women in the sciences.  These are three short articles (about 1750 words total) on the recent elections to a seat at the French Academy of Sciences in which Mme. Curie--one of two candidates--was not elected, her candidacy lost by vote to Edouard Branly. (Branly is an important figure in the history of wireless communications and inventor of the Branly coherer, but Curie was, well, far advanced of that.) The editorial staff of Nature took exception, reporting on the issue and the vote's unfortunate outcome. Being fairly familiar and having worked in Nature (for the 1869-1950 period) I was a little surprised by the summation of this short note in the 26 January issue. It is a strong message, at least so far as scientific and other intellectual endeavors are concerned. (Women will not get the full vote in G.B. Until 1928, achieving partial victory in 1918, though the vote was limited then to women 30+ with adequate property.) Still, I take this as a significant statement from Nature, even if it is limited to a short article in the "Notes" section of the weekly. I cannot recall other early pro-equality stances like this outside of a few articles here and there in support of women being able to attend classes at major universities, though not being able to receive academic credit for them. All caveats included, I find the Nature article to be a remarkable statement for the time. Perhaps someone out there with experience in this field will be able say whether these statements are actually as early as I think they are.  

Here's the conclusion of the 26 January article:

"As scientific work must ultimately be judged by its merit,

and not by the nationality or sex of its author, we believe
that the opposition to the election of women into scientific
societies will soon be seen to be unjust and detrimental
to the progress of natural knowledge. By no pedantic
reasoning can the rejection of a candidate for member-
ship of a scientific society be justified if the work done
places the candidate in the leading position among other
competitors. Science knows no nationality, and should
recognise no distinction of sex, colour, or creed among
those who are contributing to its advancement. Believing
that this is the conclusion to which consideration of the
question must inevitably lead, we have confidence that the
doors of all scientific societies will eventually be open to
Women on equal terms with men."

By the way, Curie was never elected to the French Academy of Science, though she did receive membership to the Academie Nationale de Medicine...in 1922. She had already received the Nobel Prize in physics in 1903, and would be awarded the prize again in chemistry a few months after she lost this 1911 vote to the Academy. (Perhaps the "creed" part of the "sex. colour, or creed" pronouncement above referenced certain elements circulating the story that Curie was Jewish?)

Notes:

Three issues of  Nature, London, Macmillan & Co., 1910, volume 85.  Including: "The Admission of Women to the French Academies", pg 342 (full column, about 800 words), 12 January, in the issue #2150, pp 329-362. WITH: "The Admission of Women to the Paris Academy of Sciences", in 19 January, pp 372-373 pp 363-396, issue 2151. AND WITH: [Women's Rights], a 400-word contribution to the "Notes" section of 26 January issue no. 2152 pg 412-413 in the issue of pp 397-430. It is in the third contribution, the "Notes" section, that contains the strongest statement by the editor of Nature on the equality (at least in the sciences and intellectual pursuit) of sex, race, and religion.