Princeton University Press. Used - Very Good. Very Good condition. Very Good dust jacket. A copy that may have a few cosmetic defects. May also contain light spine creasing or a few markings such as an owner’s name, short gifter’s inscription or light stamp. Princeton University Press ISBN 0691029970 9780691029979 [US]

ISBN10: 0691029970, ISBN13: 9780691029979, [publisher: Princeton University Press] Hardcover Ancien livre de bibliothèque. Edition 1995. Ammareal reverse jusqu'à 15% du prix net de cet article à des organisations caritatives. ENGLISH DESCRIPTION Book Condition: Used, Very good. Former library book. Edition 1995. Ammareal gives back up to 15% of this item's net price to charity organizations.
[Morangis, France] [Publication Year: 1995]

Princeton University Press, Date: 1995. Hardcover. Very Good. Former library book. Edition 1995. Ammareal gives back up to 15% of this item's net price to charity organizations. 1995. Princeton University Press ISBN 0691029970 9780691029979 [FR]

Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1995. Fine. Hardcover. 0691029970 . First edition 8vo 337 pages illustrated with black & white drawings. Fine cloth hard back with a fine dust jacket. No inscriptions or marks. "Thomas Hankins and Robert Silverman investigate an array of instruments from the seventeenth through the nineteenth century that seem at first to be marginal to science--magnetic clocks that were said to operate by the movements of sunflower seeds, magic lanterns, ocular harpsichords (machines that played different colored lights in harmonious mixtures) , Aeolian harps (a form of wind chime) , and other instruments of "natural magic" designed to produce wondrous effects. By looking at these and the first recording instruments, the stereoscope, and speaking machines, the authors show that "scientific instruments" first made their appearance as devices used to evoke wonder in the beholder, as in works of magic and the theater. The authors also demonstrate that these instruments, even though they were often "tricks, " were seen by their inventors as more than trickery. In the view of Athanasius Kircher, for instance, the sunflower clock was not merely a hoax, but an effort to demonstrate, however fraudulently, his truly held belief that the ability of a flower to follow the sun was due to the same cosmic magnetic influence as that which moved the planets and caused the rotation of the earth. The marvels ...

ISBN10: 0691029970, ISBN13: 9780691029979, [publisher: Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995.] Hardcover First Edition First Edition. xiv, 337, [1] pp; text figs. Original cloth. Near Fine, in near fine dust jacket. 'Magnetic clocks that were said to operate by the movements of sunflower seeds, magic lanterns, ocular harpsichords, Aeolian harps, and other instruments of "natural magic" are among the marvels revealed in this book by Thomas L. Hankins and Robert J. Silverman. When instruments were a novelty in natural philosophy and it was unclear how they should be used, decisions about which instruments were acceptable were crucial in defining the boundaries of acceptable science. This book raises and answers fascinating questions about the connections between natural science and natural magic, the meaning of demonstration, and the role of language and the senses in science' (Princeton University Press Web site). 'This is an important, welcome, and brilliantly executed book. . . . One of the best available discussions of the ways in which Renaissance magic was transformed into forms of natural philosophical reasoning' (Simon Schaffer, Cambridge University). 'This imaginative and intellectually stimulating book reminds us that artifacts have an intellectual context, as well as a social one, and that a thick vein of the irrational runs through all of technology' (George Basalla, Technology and Culture). TABLE OF CONTENTS: ...