The “Wonderful Properties of Glass”: Liebig’s<i>Kaliapparat</i>and the Practice of Chemistry in Glass

Jackson, Catherine M.

doi:10.1086/681036

Cited by 24 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…3 ). Organic chemistry surged in this period, as facilitated by advances in analytical techniques 14 , 15 . The growth of organic chemistry is observed in the increasing number and diversity of compounds containing organogenic elements such as H, C, N and O (Fig.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The six stages of the convergence of the periodic system to its final structure

et al. 2023

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The periodic system encodes order and similarity among chemical elements arising from known substances at a given time that constitute the chemical space. Although the system has incorporated new elements, the connection with the remaining space is still to be analysed, which leads to the question of how the exponentially growing space has affected the periodic system. Here we show, by analysing the space between 1800 and 2021, that the system has converged towards its current stable structure through six stages, respectively characterised by the finding of elements (1800–1826), the emergence of the core structure of the system (1826–1860), its organic chemistry bias (1860–1900) and its further stabilisation (1900–1948), World War 2 new chemistry (1948–1980) and the system final stabilisation (1980–). Given the self-reinforced low diversity of the space and the limited chemical possibilities of the elements to be synthesised, we hypothesise that the periodic system will remain largely untouched.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The six stages of the convergence of the periodic system to its final structure

et al. 2023

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“…Catherine Jackson has shown that in this period "chemists began using glass in distinctly new ways and that their appropriation of glassblowing skill had profoundly important effects on the emerging discipline of chemistry." 9 This new practice of chemistry in glass-which Jackson calls "the glassware revolution"-transformed not merely the material culture of chemistry but also, as she argues, its geography and pedagogy. Central to this new practice of chemistry was the glass tube; chemists such as Michael Faraday advocated the use of small pieces of home-blown glassware, which enabled a greater number and variety of people to participate in the science of chemistry and even to challenge chemists working in Paris, the metropolitan center of chemistry in the early nineteenth century, where they had access to expensive equipment and specialized instrument dealers.…”

Section: T H E K I T C H E N a N D T H E L A B O R A T O R Ymentioning

confidence: 99%

The Nature of Glass: Technologies of Transparency, Materials on the Move

Dupré

2023

Isis

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Scientific instruments such as telescopes and distillation columns have played a prominent role in the history of science, but the key material of which these instruments were made has received scant attention. Focusing on the glass used to make scientific instruments and on the supply chains on which its production relied-allows us to see that "glass" covers a variety of materials and that the nature of glass depends on the material knowledge and environmental expertise invested in its manufacture. Between the seventeenth and the twentieth centuries, glassware moved back and forth between a dependence on processing locally sourced materials and reusing household items and a reliance on intraregional supply chains of specialty materials. G alileo's telescope is an iconic scientific instrument, and the telescopic discoveries he published in Sidereus Nuncius are arguably among the most famous episodes in the history of science. Yet the material of which Galileo's telescope lenses were made has remained remarkably invisible to historians of science. To see this optical glass, and the materials and the knowledge invested in its production, we need to turn our attention from this epoch-making book to the astronomer's shopping list. (See Figure 1.)In the autumn of 1609, Galileo jotted down on the back of a letter a list of items that he wished to buy on a shopping trip to Venice. 1 This list includes soap, oranges, sugar and spices, raisins, rice, slippers, and a small hat for his son Vincenzo, as well as more technical items such as German ground glass, pieces of mirror, and tripoli-and an address where these things might be found: the mirror-maker shop at the Sign of the King. Clearly, Galileo hoped to equip his optical workshop with the material substances, tools, and abrasives he needed to improve his telescope lenses. Venice was the ideal place to buy such things: the nearby island of Murano was home to the world's center of luxury glass production, and Venetian mirrors, made of cristallo glass, were widely acclaimed as the best. Galileo's shopping list reveals his knowledge of the quality of glass materials and the way in which mirrors were manufactured. Glass made according to the "German" method, which produced flat sheets by cutting and reheating a cylinder of glass, was preferable to glass made by the crown method, which resulted in much less even, irregular pieces. Galileo ground his lenses starting

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“…Historians of the laboratory from the early modern period to the industrial age, such as Simon Werrett and Catherine M. Jackson, have extended the earlier themes of Kohler, Cahan, and Galison to bolster the case for a material history of the laboratory, propelling such analysis even closer to environmental histories of recycling and material flows. 111 Histories of scientific museums, for their part, have long been attuned to their material contexts and objects, although historians of scientific practice in museums have made analytical moves more recently to move closer to environmental history. 112 Such work on laboratories and museums is vital to fulfilling the promise of a more comprehensive environmental history of science that encompasses all of scientific practice, not just field science.…”

Section: Emerging Themesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Shared ground: Between environmental history and the history of science

Hersey

Vetter

2019

Hist Sci

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Recent years have witnessed a significant expansion in the number of studies positioned at the intersection of the history of science and environmental history. Although these studies continue to navigate lingering methodological tensions, collectively they underscore the promise of a disciplinary cross-fertilization that proved largely latent for the first quarter century or more following environmental history’s emergence as a discrete discipline. This article situates this recent scholarship in the historiographical landscape from which it has emerged. To that end, it (a) summarizes the fields’ early intersections; (b) examines the ways in which disciplinary tensions made the intersection fraught; (c) traces shifts in both fields that made that intersection more conducive to cross-disciplinary work; and (d) sketches the trajectories of some of the prominent threads of the recent scholarship deliberately situated at the nexus of the disciplines.

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The “Wonderful Properties of Glass”: Liebig’sKaliapparatand the Practice of Chemistry in Glass

Cited by 24 publications

References 21 publications

The six stages of the convergence of the periodic system to its final structure

The six stages of the convergence of the periodic system to its final structure

The Nature of Glass: Technologies of Transparency, Materials on the Move

Shared ground: Between environmental history and the history of science

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