The Philosophical Breakfast Club (65 page)
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Authors: Laura J. Snyder
Maxwell is also known for the “Maxwell Distribution” describing the motion of gas molecules. In 1866 he formulated (independently of Ludwig Boltzmann in Austria, who was doing similar work at the same time) what is now known as the Maxwell-Boltzmann kinetic theory of gases. Maxwell approached kinetic theory, in which temperature and heat involve nothing but molecular movement, armed with Quetelet’s notion of a statistical law, which Maxwell had learned from reading Herschel’s review of a book by the Belgian astronomer and statistician. Maxwell’s distribution law gives the fraction of gas molecules moving at a specified velocity at any given temperature. Maxwell noted that the velocities of different molecules of a gas, even if equal at the start, would diverge in consequence of collisions with their neighbors. He thus employed a statistical method of treating the problem: the total number of molecules was divided into a series of groups, in which the velocities of all of the members of the group were the same within narrow limits. By taking the average velocity of each group into account, Maxwell was able to determine an important relationship between this velocity and the number of molecules in the group. This approach generalized the previously
established laws of thermodynamics and explained existing observations and experiments better than they had been explained previously. It was another example of a newly consilient theory.
Maxwell’s discoveries mark the moment when expressing the fundamental laws of nature began to require mathematical language too difficult for the nonspecialist to comprehend. John Couch Adams’s mathematical predictions of Neptune were already too difficult for many to follow in 1846; now, less than three decades later, physicists reached the point of no return. Unlike Faraday, whose understanding of the laws of electromagnetism could be expressed in terms of images of the behavior of magnetic field lines—images that were easy for him to draw and for his audiences to imagine—Maxwell found that he was forced to describe the deeper meaning of Faraday’s discoveries in the language of complex mathematical relations.
12
Both his work on electromagnetic theory and on the kinetic theory of gases transformed the vision of the physical world and provided the groundwork for Einstein’s relativity theories. But because of their extreme complexity, Maxwell’s theories also contributed to severing the relationship between the general educated public and those making the newest and most important scientific discoveries.
A
ND THUS, WITH
the hoped-for transformation of the man of science, came some changes that the members of the Philosophical Breakfast Club had not anticipated, and would have regretted deeply. Only ten years after Whewell’s death, Maxwell himself bemoaned the fact that science was becoming overly specialized.
13
No longer could a member of the Geology Section in the British Association be expected to understand, and contribute to, discussions about current research in physics or chemistry. It would soon become difficult even for a worker in one esoteric realm of physics to grasp fully what a fellow laborer in a different part of the field was doing. No longer is there a place for—or even the possibility of—a mathematician-mineralogist-architectural historian-linguist-classicist-physicist-geologist-historian-philosopher-theologian-mountainclimbing-poet such as Whewell, or a trilingual-mathematician-chemist-physicist-astronomer-photographer-musician-translator such as Herschel. Trained in a particular science at Cambridge or elsewhere, admitted as a member to the appropriate section of an organization like the British Association, conducting experiments in that science, reading only specialized journals
in the field—how can a modern scientist be expected to know, and understand, what is going on in all the sciences? The amateur—who could geologize during a vacation, and perform experiments with an electric battery in his basement room at night, while working out how to determine the geometrical properties of crystals in between examining Smith’s Prize candidates in mathematics—could follow wherever his interests led him; it was a freer, more interdisciplinary life, one with more chances for the seemingly unconnected bit of knowledge in one discipline to lead serendipitously to discoveries in another.
Even worse, from the point of view of our four friends, was the erection of the wall between science and the humanistic fields, what C. P. Snow would later characterize as the divide between “two cultures.” In 1959, precisely one hundred years after the publication of Darwin’s
Origin of Species
, Snow delivered a lecture in the Senate House of Cambridge—where Whewell had invented the word
scientist
—in which he argued that the breakdown in communication between science and the humanities was a major stumbling block of the modern world. Although part of Snow’s point was the Cold War–specific one that the democracies needed to modernize underdeveloped countries or else the Communist countries would do so, and that more-widespread science training was necessary in the West to counter Soviet power, Snow’s essay can also be taken as making another, more timeless claim: that something has been lost, some bit of humanization in our overly technical world. When artists and writers are disengaged with science, and science ignores art and literature, culture pays a price. The sense of wonder in the natural world, so well expressed by poets and artists, is somehow lost to the scientists themselves who examine that world; and when scientists cannot express that wonder to others, even nonspecialists, fewer children will dream of leading a scientific life, and that life will continue to become more and more detached from the lives of people, and the practical problems that need solving.
What we have lost, in a sense, is the romantic image of the man of science, the sense that nature should be grasped by men and women who are artists as well as scientists. Whewell captured this image so well in a letter to Jones about his upcoming trip to the Lake District in 1821: “You have no idea of the variety of different uses to which I shall turn a mountain. After perhaps sketching it from the bottom I shall climb to the top and measure its height by the barometer, knock off a piece of rock with a
geological hammer to see what it is made of, and then evolve some quotation from Wordsworth into the still air above it.”
14
Herschel, too, described himself as an artist as well as a scientist—indeed, more of an artist than a scientist—content to “loiter on the shores of the ocean of science and pick up such shells and pebbles as take my fancy for the pleasure of arranging them and seeing them look pretty.”
15
In some ways this wall between the artist and the scientist, between the admirer of the wonders of nature and the professional scientist, can be seen as being constructed, brick by brick, ever since 1833, when Coleridge stood in the very same room demanding a new word to distinguish the workers in science from the “natural philosophers,” and Whewell suggested the name
scientist
, “by analogy with”—and therefore separate from—“artist.” There would be justice in looking back at the members of the Philosophical Breakfast Club for guidance on how to knit the two cultures back together again—to help us find a way to bring humanity back into science, and scientific wonder back into our everyday experience of the world.
T
HERE IS
, in the National Portrait Gallery of London, a famous photograph of Herschel taken by his former protégée, Julia Margaret Cameron, in 1867. By this time Whewell and Jones were dead, and Babbage and Herschel were soon to follow them. Herschel’s face, grizzled and framed by white hair, is half in darkness, half in light, like the celestial bodies he had spent so much time gazing upon. He looks ahead, a bit stunned by what he seems to see. Perhaps even Herschel was surprised at how much he and his friends had accomplished: they had truly transformed science and helped create the modern world.
CKNOWLEDGMENTS
I
AM GRATEFUL
to the many people who shared my excitement about these men and their times and who were willing to answer my queries, large and small, or to listen to my musings at crucial moments: Herbert Breger on Leibniz’s calculator; Bob Bruen on the Lucasian chair; Aaron Cobb on Babbage and Herschel’s replication of Arago’s experiment; Paul Croce on science and religion; Steffen Ducheyne on the tides; Lisa Hellerstein on math, codes, and computing; Noah Heringman on Wordsworth; Amy King and Jim Kloppenberg for introductions to other sources of information; Pam Kirk Rappaport for Annie Dillard; Claude LeBrun on math; Jim Lennox on Darwin and Asa Gray; John McCaskey on Bacon (and everything else); Ed Miller on Jones’s time in Ferring; Helen Moorwood on her Whewell relations; Eric Schliesser on Adam Smith; Jim Secord on the Great Moon Hoax; John Wolff on science and religion; and Richard Yeo for a helpful discussion during a chance meeting at the British Library.
For aid of a more tangible kind, I appreciate Paul Gaffney for his support as chair of the Philosophy Department of St. John’s; Katalin Torok for the house and car in London; and the American Philosophical Society for the Sabbatical Fellowship in 2004, which funded my early work on Whewell’s life.
I thank Richard Horton, Babbage Project engineer at the Science Museum in London, who generously spent a morning with me discussing Babbage’s Difference Engine Number 2, which he helped to build—even taking it out of its glass case and demonstrating it—and patiently answered my detailed questions about it months later.
I am grateful for the efforts of my “circle of ideal readers,” who made valuable suggestions on parts of the manuscript: Lisa Hellerstein, John Hogan, Jim Lennox, Jonathan Smith, Abigail Wolff, and, especially, John McCaskey, who read the entire manuscript—in some parts, numerous
drafts of it—and whose astute comments greatly improved the book. I alone am responsible, of course, for any errors or infelicities that may remain.
For help and encouragement at the very early stages of this project, I thank Robert Friedman and Barry Strauss; to Barry I also owe the introduction to my agent, Howard Morhaim, and so I am doubly grateful to him. Howard believed in this project from the start, and was every writer’s greatest first reader: tough, patient, and optimistic. He has become more than that: a real friend. Gerry Howard at Doubleday is the publishing world’s version of a nineteenth-century polymath, and I am thankful that he chose to acquire the book. Working with my editor at Broadway Books, Vanessa Mobley, has been a writer’s dream; she has been by far the finest critical reader I’ve ever had the fortune to have, and the book (and its readers) are the beneficiaries of her expertise. I also thank Vanessa’s assistant, Jenna Ciongoli, for her help in bringing this book to press, and my excellent copyeditor, David Wade Smith.
No project of this kind could be successful without the wisdom and assistance of librarians and archivists. I am infinitely indebted to Jonathan Smith at the Wren Library, Cambridge, with whom I have been fortunate to work for years now. I thank as well Nicola Court at the Royal Society; Jonathan Harrison and Kathryn McKee at St. John’s College, Cambridge; Katy Allen of the Science Museum’s archives in Swindon; Arvid Nelson and Stephanie Horowitz Crowe at the Babbage Collection of the University of Minnesota; David Tilsley of the Lancashire Record Office; Richard Workman of the Harry Ransom Center; Deborah Jones at the Science and Society Picture Library; and the anonymous but still appreciated librarians at the British Library, the New York Public Library, the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh, and St. John’s University Library.
For permission to quote from the Whewell papers at the Wren Library, I thank the Masters and Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge; for permission to quote from the John Herschel papers and Isaac Todhunter papers at St. John’s College, Cambridge, I thank the Masters and Fellows of the College; for permission to quote from the John Herschel papers at the Royal Society, I thank the Fellows of the Royal Society; for permission to quote from the Babbage collection, I thank the British Library; I thank the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, the University of Texas at Austin, for permission to quote from items in its collection.
My greatest debt is to those friends whose love and support made it
possible for me to complete this book under trying circumstances. Heartfelt thanks go to Dolores Augustine, Lucille Hartman, Lisa Hellerstein, Kevin Kennedy, Pam Kirk Rappaport, Jim Lennox, Michael Mariani, John McCaskey, Marilyn Musial Trainor, Larry Trainor, Dan Wackerman, and Abigail Wolff.
The book is dedicated to my son, Leo, who reminds me every day how joyful the process of discovery can be, and how much wonder there is in the world.
OTES
P
ROLOGUE:
I
NVENTING THE
S
CIENTIST
1
Quoted in Lockyer, “Presidential Address,” p. 4.
2
On the BAAS meeting in Cambridge, see Morrell and Thackray,
Gentlemen of Science: Early Years
, pp. 165–75.
3
Whewell, “Address.”
4
Whewell, “Mrs. Somerville on the Connexion of the Sciences,” pp. 59–60.
5
See Ross, “Scientist: The Story of a Word,” p. 73.
HAPTER 1
. W
ATERWORKS
1
Robinson, “Lancaster’s Sail-Cloth Trade in the Eighteenth Century.”
2
For the Bridgewater Canal, and canal building in general, see Uglow,
Lunar Men
, pp. 107–21.
3
“His people”; information from Helen Moorwood, a relation of the Whewell family.
4
William Whewell to John Whewell, May 19, 1811, in Stair Douglas,
The Life and Selections from the Correspondence of William Whewell
, p. 7.
5
Redding,
The Pictorial History of the County of Lancaster
, p. 301.
6
Owen says he was six years old then, making the date 1810, but this is not possible, as by 1810 Whewell was already in Heversham.
7
A number of websites are dedicated to describing and preserving the Lancashire dialect. See, for example,
www.mykp.co.uk/my_thoughts/learn_Lancastrian_accent/
.
8
Stair Douglas,
Life and Selections
, pp. 2–3.
9
Ibid., p. 5.
10
Wright,
Alma Mater
, vol. 1, p. 171n.
11
William Whewell to John Whewell, October 17, 1812, in Stair Douglas,
Life and Selections
, p. 8.
12
Distad,
Guessing at Truth
, p. 23.
13
For costs at Cambridge, see Rothblatt,
The Revolution of the Dons
, pp. 66–68.
14
See Mitchell,
Daily Life in Victorian England
, pp. 18–19.
15
O’Brien, “British Incomes and Property,” p. 267. While the number is certainly likely to be suppressed by families trying to avoid paying, O’Brien thinks that, in general, the figure is confirmed by other evidence such as the amount people were able to spend on housing during this time. But even if the true
figure is higher, it seems unlikely that a carpenter would earn in the top 20 or 25 percent of income in the country.
16
The price of room and board at the school six years later was 25 guineas. Rothblatt,
The Revolution of the Dons
, pp. 34–35.
17
Stair Douglas,
Life and Selections
, p. 5.
18
Wordsworth,
The Excursion
, book vii.
19
Stair Douglas,
Life and Selections
, p. 6.
HAPTER 2
. P
HILOSOPHICAL
B
REAKFASTS
1
Letter from T. Forster to William Whewell, December 24, 1841, in Todhunter,
William Whewell
, vol. 1, p. 6. In the letter, Forster gives the year of these breakfasts; Todhunter transcribes it as 1815, but given the handwriting it could be 1813, and that is much more likely. Herschel graduated in the spring of 1813 and Babbage in the spring of 1814; Herschel came back briefly in 1814, and then again in 1815, but Babbage did not return until years later.
2
So named for the followers of Aphrodite on the island of Cyprus, apparently known for their licentious behavior.
3
See Winstanley,
Early Victorian Cambridge
, pp. 59–60.
4
Wright,
Alma Mater
, vol. 1, pp. 190–91.
5
See Trevelyan,
Trinity College
, pp. 17–19.
6
Ibid., p. 90.
7
Wright,
Alma Mater
, vol. 1, pp. 11–12.
8
Clark, “William Whewell, In Memoriam,” p. 545.
9
Anonymous, “William Whewell.”
10
William Whewell to John Whewell, February 17, 1813, in Stair Douglas,
Life and Selections
, 9–10.
11
William Whewell to Mrs. Lyons, December 2, 1812, WP Add. ms. c. 191 f. 6.
12
Trevelyan,
Trinity College
, p. 86.
13
William Whewell to Mrs. Lyons, December 1812, in Stair Douglas,
Life and Selections
, p. 9.
14
William Whewell to John Whewell, February 17, 1813, in Stair Douglas,
Life and Selections
, p. 10.
15
William Whewell to John Whewell, January 18, 1814, in Stair Douglas,
Life and Selections
, p. 11.
16
See Julius Hare to William Whewell, July 26, 1818, WP Add. ms. a. 215 f. 2.
17
Trevelyan,
Trinity College
, p. 75n.
18
On Bath Spa, see Flanders,
Consuming Passions
, pp. 231–34.
19
Clerke,
The Herschels and Modern Astronomy
, p. 38.
20
Written in 1777, with a libretto by Carlo Goldoni, this opera was performed at the Hayden Planetarium of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City in February 2010.
21
See Geiringer,
Haydn: A Creative Life
, p. 127. Herschel wrote twenty-four symphonies and three oboe concertos, as well as numerous chamber and voice pieces. Some of his music has been recorded and can be found today.
22
Clerke,
The Herschels and Modern Astronomy
, p. 42.
23
Mitchell, “Reminiscences of the Herschels.”
24
Quoted in Buttmann,
The Shadow of the Telescope
, p. 9.
25
Ibid.
26
Pat Wilson to John Herschel, June 6, 1811, RS: HS 18.422.
27
Hyman,
Charles Babbage, Pioneer of the Computer
, pp. 5–6.
28
See Flanders,
Consuming Passions
, p. 253.
29
Babbage,
Passages from the Life of a Philosopher
, p. 12.
30
See Garland,
Cambridge Before Darwin
, pp. 29–30.
31
On Peterhouse, see Winstanley,
Early Victorian Cambridge
, p. 385.
32
See Becher, “Woodhouse, Babbage, Peacock and Modern Algebra” and “William Whewell and Cambridge Mathematics”; Fisch, “The Emergency Which Has Arrived.”
33
See Buxton,
Memoirs of the Life and Labors of the Late Charles Babbage, Esq.
, pp. 348–49.
34
On this point, see Guicciardini,
The Development of Newtonian Calculus in Britain
, p. 141.
35
Winstanley,
Early Victorian Cambridge
, pp. 157–58.
36
See Franksen,
Mr. Babbage’s Secret
, p. 64.
37
Winstanley,
Early Victorian Cambridge
, pp. 18–25.
38
See, for example, Colley,
Britons: Forging the Nation
, p. 19.
39
Babbage,
Passages
, pp. 20–21.
40
Ibid., p. 21.
41
See Wright,
Alma Mater
, vol. 1, p. 212.
42
Babbage and Herschel,
Memoirs of the Analytical Society
, p. iv.
43
Flanders,
Consuming Passions
, pp. 4–5.
44
Fougeret de Montbron, cited in Porter,
English Society in the Eighteenth Century
, p. 7.
45
Babbage,
Passages
, p. 21.
46
Frederick Maule to Charles Babbage, BL Add. ms. 37,182, f. 3, quoted in Hyman,
Charles Babbage, Pioneer of the Computer
, p. 25.
47
Babbage, cited in Franksen,
Mr. Babbage’s Secret
, p. 64.
48
Herschel to Babbage, July 1, 1812, RS: HS 2.2; Babbage to Herschel, July 10, 1812, RS: HS 2.3; Herschel to Babbage, [n.d.] 1812, RS: HS 2.4.
49
Buttmann,
The Shadow of the Telescope
, p. 13.
50
Babbage,
Passages
, p. 30.
51
See Warwick,
Masters of Theory
, pp. 108ff.
52
Jones to Whewell, [n.d.], WP Add. ms. c. 52 f. 1.
53
Reinhart, “The Life of Richard Jones,” p. 22.
54
Thomas Hedley to Whewell, August 1854, quoted in Winstanley,
Early Victorian Cambridge
, p. 394.
55
See Maria Edgeworth to C. Sneyd Edgeworth, May 1, 1813, in Edgeworth,
Life and Letters
, vol. 1, p. 91; and Wright,
Alma Mater
, vol. 1, p. 83.
56
Whewell, “Prefatory Notice,”
Literary Remains
. See also Whewell to Jones, June 19, 1818, WP Add. ms. c. 51 f. 2.
57
See Farrington,
Francis Bacon, Philosopher of Industrial Science
, pp. 38, 44–45.
58
Bacon noted that investigators using a faulty method “have not collected
sufficient quantity of particulars, nor them in sufficient certainty and subtlety, nor of several kinds,” Bacon,
Works
, vol. 3, p. 247.
59
Descartes,
Principles of Philosophy
, vol. 2, p. 36; quoted in Garber,
Descartes’ Metaphysical Physics
, p. 200. For an excellent discussion of this topic, see Garber, p. 55 and ch. 9.
60
As Garber puts it, without this metaphysical grounding in God, “there could be no Cartesian physics”
(Descartes’ Metaphysical Physics
, p. 293).
61
Bacon,
Works
, vol. 4, p. 19.
62
Bacon,
Advancement of Learning
, book 1, in
Works
, vol. 6.
63
Ibid.
64
Quoted in Buttmann,
The Shadow of the Telescope
, p. 10.
HAPTER 3
. E
XPERIMENTAL
L
IVES
1
Herschel’s Experimental Notebooks, Science Museum, MS. 478, vol. 1, p. 3.
2
See Golinski,
Science as Public Culture
, p. 262.
3
James, “Introduction.”
4
Cited in Golinski,
Science as Public Culture
, p. 206.
5
Ibid., pp. 218–35.
6
See Young,
The Bakerian Lecture
.
7
See Buttmann,
The Shadow of the Telescope
, p. 13.
8
Herschel to Whittaker, January 10, 1814, St. John’s College.
9
See Herschel’s Experimental Notebooks, Science Museum, MS. 478, vol. 1.
10
See Herschel to Babbage, November 9, 1818, RS: HS 2.97; March 25, 1819, Ransom Center, TXU: H/E0051.4, Reel 1054.
11
See Buttmann,
The Shadow of the Telescope
, p. 27.
12
Ibid., pp. 24–25.
13
It is now known that the thickness of the layers of mother-of-pearl is 500 nanometers, or 50
–7
meters, while the wavelength of visible light varies from 380 nanometers (38
–7
meters) to 740 nanometers (74
–7
meters).
14
Whewell to Herschel, June 19, 1818, in Todhunter,
William Whewell
, vol. 2, p. 24.
15
Babbage to Herschel, November 11, 1817, RS: HS 2.88.
16
Wollaston is most likely the unnamed “profoundest of English Chemists” referred to in
The Chemist
2 (1824–25), p. 44, cited in Golinski,
Science as Public Culture
, p. 263.
17
Babbage and Wollaston,
Sketch of the Philosophical Characters of Dr. Wollaston and Sir Humphry Davy
, pp. 9–10. See also Schaaf,
Out of the Shadows
, p. 5 and 5n.
18
See Babbage and Herschel, “Account of the Repetition of M. Arago’s Experiments.”
19
Cited in Golinski,
Science as Public Culture
, pp. 198–99.
20
See Whewell to Jones, June 25, 1825, WP Add. ms. c. 51 f. 22.
21
Herschel to Babbage, October [n.d.] 1813; RS: HS 2.19.
22
Candidates for vacant professorships at Cambridge were selected by a group of electors dictated by the statutes of the university.
23
See Buttmann,
The Shadow of the Telescope
, p. 17.
24
Quoted in ibid., p. 18.
25
Herschel to Babbage, October 10, 1816, RS: HS 2.68.
26
See Buttmann,
The Shadow of the Telescope
, pp. 22, 30–31, 32–33.
27
Keats, “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer” (1816), in
The Poetical Works and Other Writings of John Keats
, vol. 1, pp. 77–79.
28
Evans et al.,
Herschel at the Cape
, p. xvi; Somerville,
Personal Recollections
, p. 134.
29
Todhunter,
William Whewell
, vol. 2, p. 35.
30
Cited in Swade,
The Difference Engine
, p. 19.
31
Herschel to Whittaker, May 22, 1813, St. John’s College.
32
See Babbage to Herschel, August 1, 1814, RS: HS 2:25; Herschel to Babbage, August 7, 1814, RS: HS 2:28; Babbage to Herschel, August 10, 1814, RS: HS 2:29.
33
Babbage to Herschel, August 10, 1814, RS: HS 2:29.
34
Other biographers have the date as July 2. But Charles and Georgiana’s marriage license is dated July 25, and his letter to Herschel on August 1 refers to events “of the last few days.”
35
See Swade,
The Difference Engine
, p. 50.
36
See Laudermilk and Hamlin,
The Regency Companion
, p. 3.
37
Ibid.
38
William Whewell to John Whewell, June 2, 1814, in Stair Douglas,
Life and Selections
, p. 12.
39
See the recollections of Richard Owen, in Stair Douglas,
Life and Selections
, p. 4.
40
See “The City of Cambridge: Public Health,” in Roach,
The City and the University of Cambridge
, pp. 101–8.
41
Whewell to Morland, August 10, 1815, in Todhunter,
William Whewell
, vol. 2, pp. 8–9, and William Whewell to John Whewell, March 22, 1815, in Stair Douglas,
Life and Selections
, p. 15.
42
Herschel to Whittaker, August [n.d.], 1812, St. John’s College.
43
William Whewell to John Whewell, January 19, 1816, in Stair Douglas,
Life and Selections
, pp. 20–21.
44
See Wright,
Alma Mater
, vol. 2, pp. 90–96.
45
William Whewell to John Whewell, January 19, 1816, in Stair Douglas,
Life and Selections
, p. 21.
46
Todhunter,
William Whewell
, vol. 1, pp. 6–7.
47
Translation by John McCaskey.
48
Wright,
Alma Mater
, vol. 2, pp. 96–104.
49
Printed flyleaf, preserved in Whewell Papers.
50
Whewell to Morland, November [n.d.] 1816, in Stair Douglas,
Life and Selections
, pp. 24–25.
51
Whewell to Herschel, [n.d.] 1817, in Todhunter,
William Whewell
, vol. 2, p. 15.
52
Letter from Mr. Whitcombe to Whewell, April 29, 1817, cited in Todhunter,
William Whewell
, vol. 1, p. 9.
53
Whittaker to Herschel, July 20, 1816, RS: HS 18.243.
54
See William Whewell to Ann Whewell, August 14, 1816, in Stair Douglas,
Life and Selections
, pp. 23–24.
55
William Whewell to John Whewell, June 6, 1816, in Stair Douglas,
Life and Selections
, p. 23.
56
See Hyman,
Charles Babbage, Pioneer of the Computer
, pp. 37–38.
57
On hairstyles, see Laudermilk and Hamlin,
The Regency Companion
, p. 68. On dons, heads of colleges, and wigs, see Clark,
Cambridge, Historical and Picturesque
, p. 278.
58
For the description of the incident and quotations, see Whewell to Hugh James Rose, March 25, 1817, WP R.2.99 f. 1; Distad,
Guessing at Truth
, pp. 29–31; and Winstanley,
Early Victorian Cambridge
, pp. 26–27.
59
The will of John Whewell, Lancaster Record Office, W RW/A 1816.
60
See Garland,
Cambridge Before Darwin
.
61
Distad,
Guessing at Truth
, p. 56.
62
William Whewell to Ann Whewell, June 5, 1817, in Stair Douglas,
Life and Selections
, p. 27.
63
Whewell to Rose, October 8, 1817, WP 2.99 f. 9.
64
Whewell to Herschel, November 1, 1818, in Todhunter,
William Whewell
, vol. 2, p. 30.
65
See Todhunter,
William Whewell
, vol. 1, p. 13.
66
Reported in ibid., vol. 1, p. 7.
67
Whewell, Notebook, WP R.18.16 f. 1.
68
Whewell to Jones, August 21, 1818, in Todhunter,
William Whewell
, vol. 2, p. 27.
69
Jones to Herschel, September 17, 1816, RS: HS 10:345.
70
See Evans,
The Contentious Tithe
, pp. 29–32.
71
Distad,
Guessing at Truth
, pp. 123–25.
72
Macaulay,
History of England
, vol. 1, quoted in Evans,
The Contentious Tithe
, p. 3.
73
Information about Jones’s time in Ferring is from Ed Miller of the Ferring Historical Society.
74
Herschel to Whewell, August 19–20, 1818, RS: HS 20:56.
75
See letter of Maria Edgeworth, who accompanied Mary Herschel on this visit, to her sister Mrs. Butler, March 29, 1831, in Edgeworth,
Letters from England
, p. 499.
76
Mary Herschel to John Herschel, May 6, 1821, Ransom Center, TXU: H/M-0620.1, Reel 1086.
77
Mary Herschel to Charles Babbage, July 9, 1821, RS: HS 20.121.
78
See Laudermilk and Hamlin,
The Regency Companion
, pp. 90–91.
79
See Babbage to Mary Herschel, July [n.d.] 1821, copy, Ransom Center, TXU: H/M-0968, Reel 1083.
80
See Laudermilk and Hamlin,
The Regency Companion
, pp. 211–12.
81
Ibid., pp. 223–25.
82
Whewell, Travel Notebook, WP Add. ms. a. 80 f. 2, p. 1b.
83
See Buttmann,
The Shadow of the Telescope
, pp. 37–39; Schaaf,
Out of the Shadows
, p. 7.
84
See Babbage and Herschel, “Barometric Observations Made at the Fall of the Staubbach.”