Boston Electric

2020 ◽  
pp. 169-199
Author(s):  
Sara J. Schechner
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Benjamin Franklin ◽  
Scientific Instruments ◽  
Know How ◽  
Polite Society ◽  
Experimental Apparatus

Electricity was a new and developing field of research during the eighteenth century. With a focus on the experimental apparatus employed and the sociable exchange of ideas, this chapter examines how electricity was taught to Harvard students and members of polite society in the Boston area over the course of the century. Without local instrument makers or suppliers of glass and brass parts, colonial American experimenters had to import equipment and repair parts from London. When time and money discouraged imports, they became bricoleurs, incorporating recycled, traded, and ready-to-hand materials into their apparatus. Benjamin Franklin was an important intermediary in getting scientific instruments from London to Boston and Cambridge, and he shared instructional know-how so that locals could assemble their own Leyden jars and other electrical instruments.

Ambiguity and Group Consensus

2011 ◽  
pp. 43-50
Author(s):  
Morgan M. Shepherd ◽  
Jr Martz ◽  
Vijay Raghavan
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Work Environment ◽  
Virtual Environment ◽  
Virtual Work ◽  
Benjamin Franklin ◽  
Constitutional Convention ◽  
Business World ◽  
Know How ◽  
Virtual Work Environment ◽  
To Come

When you assemble a number of people to have advantage of their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those people all their prejudices, their passions, their errors or opinion, their local interests, and their selfish views. From such an assembly, can a perfect production be expected? ~ Benjamin Franklin, Constitutional Convention, September 15, 1787 Franklin’s eighteenth century question foreshadows a basic concern for today’s team-dominated business world. First, while individuals are still important, groups are becoming the de-facto unit of work for organizations today. Working cooperatively is becoming a necessity; working collaboratively is becoming paramount to career success. Second, as the work environment changes into a virtual work environment, it is important to know how groups deal with making decisions. In this light, before we ask groups to come to consensus in a virtual environment, we must be clear on how well they understand consensus itself.

Part 1: Chapter 2 Outline History of Geological Research

1997 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. Brian Harland
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Know How ◽  
Hydrographic Survey ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
History Of ◽  
Arctic Exploration ◽  
The Many ◽  
Geological Work ◽  
Geological Research ◽  
Selection Of

Useful records of observations perhaps began in 1596 with Barents' voyage and resulting chart. The many expeditions until the middle of the eighteenth century were primarily for whaling with minor additions to the charts. In 1758 A. R. Martin led a Swedish voyage and in 1773 C. J. Phipps commanded a British naval expedition, the first of several, to seek a northeast passage to the Pacific. They penetrated no further than Spitsbergen and made useful observations. At that time and for many years the British Admiralty was concerned with extensive Arctic exploration. The elaborate nature of these expeditions was not so much designed for scientific purposes as for useful employment for enterprising officers, with ships in numbers no longer needed in the period of naval supremacy after 1805. Hydrographic survey was often the principal achievement. In terms of efficiency and Arctic know-how the early whalers such as Scoresby were superior.1827 may be considered as the year when geological work began, with expeditions from Norway (B. M. Keilhau 1831) and Britain (Capt. Parry, e.g. Horner 1860; Salter 1860). Keilhau, a geologist, visited Edgeoya and Bjornoya. Admiral Parry, Hydrographer of the Navy, wintered on HMS Hecla in Sorgfjorden where further specimens were collected. In 1837 an early Swedish expedition was directed by Loven. Then, 1838 to 1840, the French voyage of La Recherche took place under the Commission Scientifique du Nord (e.g. Robert 1840).Only a selection of the many expeditions in the second half of the century are noted here.

The first archaeological evidence for death by spearing in Australia

Antiquity ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 81 (314) ◽  
pp. 877-885 ◽  
Author(s):  
Josephine J. McDonald ◽  
Denise Donlon ◽  
Judith H. Field ◽  
Richard L.K. Fullagar ◽  
Joan Brenner Coltrain ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Contact Period ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Know How ◽  
Made In

An Aboriginal man done to death on the dunes 4000 years ago was recently discovered during excavations beneath a bus shelter in Narrabeen on Sydney's northern beaches. The presence of backed microliths and the evidence for trauma in the bones showed that he had been killed with stone-tipped spears. Now we know how these backed points were used. A punishment ritual is implied by analogies with contact-period observations made in the eighteenth century AD.

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