Danny Robb

Convincing Peasants to Fly in the Soviet Union - JSTOR Daily With air-minded films, poems, and demonstrations, Soviet leaders sought to lift peasants out of their “backward” lives and into the world of the modern proletariat.

The airplane was an ideal tool for Soviet propaganda. They targeted peasants with stories and films, and Red Army vets took them into the air on demonstration flights. In these narratives and "air-baptisms," we see Soviet visions of the future.

daily.jstor.org/convincing-p...

#HistSTM 🗃️ #aviation

Christiaan Huygens and the Scientific Secrets of Saturn - JSTOR Daily Seventeenth-century science was so competitive that Christiaan Huygens used a cipher to conceal his Saturn observations when sharing them with interlocutors.

Huygens hid the discovery of Saturn's rings with an anagram in his 1656 pamphlet on Titan:

"aaaaaaacccccdeeeeehiiiiiiillllmmnnnnnnnnnooooppqrrstttttuuuuu"

He had done the same with Titan itself, and first revealed the solutions to a select few.

daily.jstor.org/christiaan-h...

#Histsci 🗃️🔭 #space

Christiaan Huygens and the Scientific Secrets of Saturn - JSTOR Daily Seventeenth-century science was so competitive that Christiaan Huygens used a cipher to conceal his Saturn observations when sharing them with interlocutors.

Huygens hid the discovery of Saturn's rings with an anagram in his 1656 pamphlet on Titan:

"aaaaaaacccccdeeeeehiiiiiiillllmmnnnnnnnnnooooppqrrstttttuuuuu"

He had done the same with Titan itself, and first revealed the solutions to a select few.

daily.jstor.org/christiaan-h...

#Histsci 🗃️🔭 #space

Phantoscopes, Radiovision, and the Dawn of TV - JSTOR Daily After creating a projector called the Phantoscope in 1895, C. Francis Jenkins successfully tackled the problem of transmitting motion pictures through radio.

In 1925, Science magazine announced a spectacular new invention they called “Radio Movies.” Can you imagine watching a movie “by radio”? bit.ly/45Nv0fn

PS. Also happens to be the 100th anniversary of another key media technology, as @inverting-vision.bsky.social highlights for today's JSTOR Daily:

daily.jstor.org/phantoscopes...

Phantoscopes, Radiovision, and the Dawn of TV - JSTOR Daily After creating a projector called the Phantoscope in 1895, C. Francis Jenkins successfully tackled the problem of transmitting motion pictures through radio.

TV pioneer C. Francis Jenkins invented a way to transmit images by radio in the 1920s, calling it "radiovision." He published instructions on how to create your own receiver, and described a prescient vision of TV's future.

daily.jstor.org/phantoscopes...

#HistSTM 🗃️ #television

Holy shit.

One of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory's first-look images.

This image is 3,840×2,160 but the original image is 40,000×21,047 px.

Virtually every pixel is a star or a galaxy.

VIRTUALLY EVERY PIXEL

Phantoscopes, Radiovision, and the Dawn of TV - JSTOR Daily After creating a projector called the Phantoscope in 1895, C. Francis Jenkins successfully tackled the problem of transmitting motion pictures through radio.

TV pioneer C. Francis Jenkins invented a way to transmit images by radio in the 1920s, calling it "radiovision." He published instructions on how to create your own receiver, and described a prescient vision of TV's future.

daily.jstor.org/phantoscopes...

#HistSTM 🗃️ #television

Grace Murray Hopper at the UNIVAC keyboard, c. 1960. Grace Brewster Murray: American mathematician and rear admiral in the U.S. Navy who was a pioneer in developing computer technology, helping to devise UNIVAC I. the first commercial electronic computer, and naval applications for COBOL (common-business-oriented language). In this black‑and‑white image, Admiral Grace Hopper sits at the UNIVAC I operator console, surrounded by three colleagues. She is positioned center‑right, with her hands likely resting on the machine's keyboard or control panel. Two men lean in from either side—one seated beside her and another standing behind—suggesting a collaborative atmosphere around the sizable, angled console. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/37/Grace_Hopper_and_UNIVAC.jpg

Talking with Machines: Computer Programming as Language

The proliferation of different types of computing machines in the 1950s enabled—or perhaps forced—the creation of programming languages.

By: Danny Robb

daily.jstor.org/talking-with...

#science #technology #computer_programming

For those of us who made the poor choice to have our life’s work governed by orbital mechanics, 4 years can change a project from “some really interesting science to do towards the end of my career”into “won’t happen in my lifetime”

(Looking at you Uranus orbiter)

Science in War, Science in Peace: The Origins of the NSF - JSTOR Daily The 1950 establishment of a federal agency devoted to space, physics, and more belied a cross-party consensus that such disciplines were vital to national interest.

"The Government should accept new responsibilities for promoting the flow of new scientific knowledge & the development of scientific talent in our youth." -Vannevar Bush

Today's #histSTM lunchtime read: @inverting-vision.bsky.social's @jstordaily.bsky.social essay on the origins of the #NSF. 🗃️📜🧪

A chart showing 19 active space missions that will be cut because of the new budgets. This is just a subset of the overall active missions that will be cut including astronomy. At the top are the words "These projects reflect more than $12 billion of investment by US taxpayers and 180 of combined years to build".

Here's another shocking infographic made by @planetarysociety.bsky.social that shows the impact of the 2025 presidential budget cuts on almost 20 successful space missions. The scale of US tax-payer-funded investment waste is really unprecedented.

Science in War, Science in Peace: The Origins of the NSF - JSTOR Daily The 1950 establishment of a federal agency devoted to space, physics, and more belied a cross-party consensus that such disciplines were vital to national interest.

Vannevar Bush was instrumental in making science a top priority on the national agenda after World War II. Find out more about who he was and what he did to make the National Science Foundation—now embattled under the current administration—a reality. bit.ly/3FhSjTJ

Science in War, Science in Peace: The Origins of the NSF - JSTOR Daily The 1950 establishment of a federal agency devoted to space, physics, and more belied a cross-party consensus that such disciplines were vital to national interest.

He wrote this five years after the NSF bill passed Congress. It's a fascinating document. You can find the whole thing in the links at the bottom of my JSTOR Daily piece on the history of the NSF:

daily.jstor.org/science-in-w...

"The great question...is whether this madness of ours is a passing phase, or whether it will grow until the free world transforms itself into a replica of the captive word it opposes. If the latter is the outcome, the struggle will be over, for it will then not matter which tyranny prevails..."

"Among scientific groups today there is sadness and discouragement. They work assiduously, but they do not have the enthusiasm and confidence they once had..."

"The enemy's actions in the cold war have been uncommonly successful. Their impact has been most sever on the scientific community...In this country the scientist is under attack, viewed with suspicion...We had better reverse this trend if we wish to compete on even terms with the enemy..."

"...The test in this country is whether we can truly maintain our freedoms and guard our way of life against threats from without, against subversion within, and against our own errors and aberrations. Our recent performance in this regard is not encouraging..."

"But let us not try to conjure away our fears by propitiatory witch hunts or by fatuous acceptance of the promises of political messiahs or the dazzling spectacle of the man on a white horse. We need alert yet sober leaders who can and will think their way through the problems that confront us..."

"Our nerves will become increasingly taut, and we shall be tempted to seek the delusive relief offered by totalitarian government, authoritarianism, obscurantism, thought control. We shall be ever threatened by the panic of fear..."

"Science and Progress?" (1955) by Vannevar Bush was fascinating to read, with insights into the experience of scientists during the Red Scare/Cold War. A few quotes that stood out:

"The world will remain for a time evenly divided, its halves poised for mutual annihilation..."

Italian physicist Alessandro Volta (1745-1827), demonstrating his pile (battery) to Napoleon in Paris, 1801. From Le Petit Journal 1901. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:La_pile_de_Volta_(Le_Petit_journal).jpg

Electric Fish and the First Battery

Allesandro Volta invented the voltaic pile, the earliest electric battery, in part because of his investigations into the torpedo, an electric ray fish.

By: Danny Robb

daily.jstor.org/electric-fis...

Volta at PG:
www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/searc...

#science

Graphs showing 25 years of budgets for the National Institute of Health, NASA, and the NSF. In all cases, the proposed budget for next year is far, far below any year of the previous quarter century.

There are 2 previous historical cases of countries destroying their science and universities, crippling them for decades: Lysenkoism in the USSR and Nazi Germany. The Trump administration will be the 3rd.
It's not just budgets but research, institutions, expertise, and training the next generation.

Science in War, Science in Peace: The Origins of the NSF - JSTOR Daily The 1950 establishment of a federal agency devoted to space, physics, and more belied a cross-party consensus that such disciplines were vital to national interest.

The NSF was an effort to unleash the scientific energies of the US harnessed to win WWII.

Despite congressional battles, debates over presidential power, Red Scare - the agency's importance was rarely doubted. Vannevar Bush had made sure of that in 1945.

daily.jstor.org/science-in-w...

#HistSci 🗃️

Electric Fish and the First Battery - JSTOR Daily Allesandro Volta invented the voltaic pile, the earliest electric battery, in part because of his investigations into the torpedo, an electric ray fish.

The electric organ of the torpedo fish inspired the first electric battery: the "voltaic pile." Alessandro Volta used it as a demonstration device as he argued against the "animal electricity" theory made popular by Galvani.

daily.jstor.org/electric-fis...

#histSTM 🗃️

Science in War, Science in Peace: The Origins of the NSF - JSTOR Daily The 1950 establishment of a federal agency devoted to space, physics, and more belied a cross-party consensus that such disciplines were vital to national interest.

The NSF was an effort to unleash the scientific energies of the US harnessed to win WWII.

Despite congressional battles, debates over presidential power, Red Scare - the agency's importance was rarely doubted. Vannevar Bush had made sure of that in 1945.

daily.jstor.org/science-in-w...

#HistSci 🗃️

Electric Fish and the First Battery - JSTOR Daily Allesandro Volta invented the voltaic pile, the earliest electric battery, in part because of his investigations into the torpedo, an electric ray fish.

The electric organ of the torpedo fish inspired the first electric battery: the "voltaic pile." Alessandro Volta used it as a demonstration device as he argued against the "animal electricity" theory made popular by Galvani.

daily.jstor.org/electric-fis...

#histSTM 🗃️

On the left, xenon plasma emits a blue glow from an electric Hall thruster identical to those that will propel NASA's Psyche spacecraft to the main asteroid belt. On the right is a similar non-operating thruster. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Source: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/solar-electric-propulsion-makes-nasas-psyche-spacecraft-go/

NASA engineers are troubleshooting an issue with the solar electric Hall-effect thrusters on the Psyche spacecraft, which have shut down due to a drop in pressure in the line that feeds xenon gas to the thrusters. A backup fuel line is avail if needed.
More @ fosstodon.org/@AkaSci/1144...
#PlanetSci

Venera 8, restored diagram of surface operations.

Cross section of the Venera 8 descent module

And with a Soviet Venera about to make an unscheduled return to Earth, I thought these 2 Soviet diagrams of Venera 8 I restored might be timely.

Was Carl Linnaeus Bad at Drawing? - JSTOR Daily Linnaeus has often been thought of as a poor artist, but visualization was a core element of his analytical tool set.

Historians have debated if Carl Linnaeus was bad at drawing, and how much he valued illustration. But Linnaeus used illustration and visual thinking at every stage in his career, even if some of his own sketches were a little... rough-and-ready.

daily.jstor.org/was-carl-lin...

#histsci #biology 🗃️