Kerry's loft

Originally posted at ouhos.org, the now-discontinued blog of the OU History of Science Collections. Neither this post nor any of its content should be taken as an official communication of the University of Oklahoma.

Free public presentations at 7 p.m. on the 2nd Thursdays each month, each followed by a public skywatch on the Sam Noble Museum lawn hosted by the Lunar Sooners and Astronomy Prof. Muk Kilic. This OU Speakers Series features faculty expertise and student participation in Galileo’s World on the OU campus.

• January 14: The Story behind the Leaning Tower of Pisa replica. Panel presentation, College of Engineering.
• February 11: The Story behind “The Quest for Other Worlds” exhibit. Dr. Jared Buss, Department of the History of Science.
• March 10: “Celestial Spheres and Torrid Zones: Medieval and Renaissance Views of the Cosmos,” Dr. Peter Barker and Dr. Kathleen Crowther, Department of the History of Science.
• April 14: “The telescope and the scientific revolution: Looking at the world with new eyes,” Dr. Rienk Vermij, Department of the History of Science.

Consult the exhibit website, Galileo’s World Events, for more information.

Originally posted at ouhos.org, the now-discontinued blog of the OU History of Science Collections. Neither this post nor any of its content should be taken as an official communication of the University of Oklahoma.

Hold the date:

Changing of exhibits:

• Dec 17: OU-Tulsa exhibit closes: “The Scientific Revolution” (Schusterman Library).
• Jan 4: Sam Noble exhibit opens: “First Folio! The Book that Gave Us Shakespeare.”
• Jan 17: Sam Noble exhibit closes: “The Academy of the Lynx and the Natural History of the Americas.”
• Jan 21: Fred Jones exhibit opens: “An Artful Observation of the Cosmos.” Public lecture by Eileen Reeves at 7 p.m., followed by an opening reception.
• Feb 2: Opening reception for two new exhibits at the NWC: “Galileo and Kepler,” and “Space Science after Galileo.”
• Feb ?: Health Sciences Campus exhibit, “Galileo and Anatomy” closes; “Galileo and Health Care” opens (Bird Library).
• Feb 6: Sam Noble exhibit opens: “Galileo and Microscopy.”
• April 3: Fred Jones exhibits close.
• April 15: Health Sciences Campus exhibit closes; Headington Hall “Galileo and Sports” exhibit closes.

Galileo’s World Speakers Series at the Sam Noble
(7 p.m. on 2nd Thursdays each month, with Skywatch afterward hosted by the Lunar Sooners):

• January 14: The Story behind the Tower of Pisa exhibit, College of Engineering.
• February 11: The Story behind “The Quest for Other Worlds” exhibit, Jared Buss.
• March 10: “Celestial Spheres and Torrid Zones: Medieval and Renaissance Views of the Cosmos,” Peter Barker and Kathleen Crowther.
• April 14: “The telescope and the scientific revolution. Looking at the world with new eyes,” Rienk Vermij.

Galileo’s World Speakers Series at the National Weather Center
(7 p.m. on 1st Tuesdays each month, featuring JPL scientists, with food and reception at 6:30 p.m.):

• Dec 10: “Mars in the Age of Space Exploration,” by Richard Zurek, Chief Scientist of the Mars Program Office, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology.
• Spring: tba

Special events:

• Galileo’s World Symposium, Feb 25, 2016: 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. (free lunch included with RSVP)
  • Paolo Galluzzi (Museo Galileo): The Galileo//thec@ Digital research library
  • Bro. Guy Consolmagno (Vatican Observatory), Galileo as Scientist
  • Theresa Marks (OU College of Engineering), The OU Leaning Tower of Pisa replica project
  • Nick Wilding (Georgia State University), “Forging the Moon: or, How to Spot a Fake Galileo”
  • Tony Hey (VP of Microsoft Research Connections, a division of Microsoft Research, until 2014), The Nature of Innovation

• Oklahoma Scholar-Leadership Enrichment Program OSLEP Seminar March 14-18, 2016: Mark Peterson, “Galileo, Renaissance Science, and the Arts” (author of Galileo’s Muse: Renaissance Mathematics and the Arts).

• Midwest Junto for the History of Science, April 1-3, 2016.

Galileo’s World reprise exhibits:
September 2016 through May 2017 (Bizzell Library, 5th floor).

Events subject to change. Consult the Galileo’s World Events (exhibit website) for more information.

Originally posted at ouhos.org, the now-discontinued blog of the OU History of Science Collections. Neither this post nor any of its content should be taken as an official communication of the University of Oklahoma.

The Carl Albert Center of the University of Oklahoma has launched a new exhibition, “Rockets’ Red Glare: Robert Kerr and the Space.”

View the exhibit both online and in person at Monnett Hall on the north oval of the OU campus. A website, Oklahoma and the Space Race, also displays a collection of Kerr’s Space and Aeronautics Memorabilia along with speeches and other archival material. Special thanks to Nathan Gerth and the archives staff for their creation of this exhibit, and to Mike Crespin and Cindy Rosenthal for including the Carl Albert Center in the Galileo’s World initiative.

The Carl Albert exhibit is a perfect complement to the Oklahomans and Space exhibit curated by Bill Moore, now open at the National Weather Center. Aviators, astronauts, scientists and engineers from Oklahoma have participated in aerospace activities throughout the history of the state. This special exhibit explores how the pioneering spirit that brought space scientists to Oklahoma also inspired them to explore the new frontier of space. It is based on the book by Bill Moore, Oklahomans and Space (Oklahoma Historical Society, 2011).

Originally posted at ouhos.org, the now-discontinued blog of the OU History of Science Collections. Neither this post nor any of its content should be taken as an official communication of the University of Oklahoma.

Galileo’s World is upon us… The first Galileo’s World exhibit opened Saturday, August 1st, at the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History!

The joint-exhibit, Through the Eyes of the Lynx: Galileo, Natural History and the Americas, will run Aug. 1 – Jan. 18, 2016.

This exhibit explores the question: “How did the natural knowledge of Native Americans shape European science in the age of Galileo?”

The focal point of this exhibit is the natural history of Mexico by Francisco Hernandez, published by Galileo and his colleagues in the Academy of the Lynx. Through this work, Native American knowledge of plants and animals became part of mainstream European biology. Galileo’s world extended far beyond Italy to include the western hemisphere. Natural history became transformed into a global endeavor.

Check out “FRANCISCO HERNANDEZ: THE COOLEST EXPLORER YOU’VE NEVER HEARD OF”, a report of this exhibit by Cara Giaimo on the Atlas Obscura news site (a “definitive guide to the world’s wondrous and curious places”).

Background

The king of Spain commissioned a physician, Francisco Hernandez, to compile Native American plant and animal knowledge. Beginning in 1571, Hernandez worked closely with Aztec artists and physicians in central Mexico. This work resulted in a massive, multi-volume set of notes, with painted illustrations, describing thousands of animals and plants unknown to most of the world.

An Italian nobleman, Federigo Cesi, founded the Academy of the Lynx (Accademia dei Lincei), one of the earliest scientific societies. Publishing a definitive edition of the manuscript of Hernandez comprised the central, albeit elusive, goal of Cesi and the Academy of the Lynx. Galileo joined the ranks of the Lynx in 1611, bringing wide-ranging expertise in mathematics, engineering, literature, art and medicine. Soon he became their star member. Other members included some of the leading naturalists of the day. They worked together to publish a monumental natural history of the Americas based upon the manuscript Hernandez prepared for the king of Spain. The landmark project, finally accomplished in 1651, more than 70 years after Hernandez’ sojourn in central Mexico, symbolizes the transformation of natural history into a global endeavor.

In antiquity, the lynx was renowned for possessing sharp eyesight at night. Cesi believed that the eyes of the Academy of the Lynx would peer more deeply into the secrets of nature than ever before. Because of their work to publish Hernandez’ natural history of Mexico, the keen eyes of the Academy of the Lynx stretched the boundaries of European thought in the life sciences just as with Galileo’s discoveries in the physical sciences.

What you will see

The Lynx edition of Hernandez is on display in this exhibit, alongside specimens from the Sam Noble Museum and the Robert Bebb Herbarium of the OU Department of Biology.

Three Galileo first editions: The first edition of Galileo’s masterwork in physics, the Discourse on Two New Sciences (1636), finds its place in the exhibit because of its critique of giant tales, which provided a scientific constraint for assessing reports of strange creatures. This prized Galileo first edition is included alongside a little-known work of literary criticism by Galileo, Considerations on Tasso (first published in 1793). A third Galileo first edition is a pamphlet of letters to Cesi about the Academy of the Lynx.

Other original books include the first published edition of Aristotle’s biological works (1476); the natural histories of Aldrovandi and Topsell; early hand-colored printed herbals of Fuchs and Gerard, and other works in natural history by members of the Academy of the Lynx.

Join the conversation on Twitter

#galileosworld
#oulynx

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Co-curators: James Burnes, Carolyn Scearce, Jackson Pope, Tom Luczycki, Katrina Menard, Melissa Rickman, Kerry Magruder.

Originally posted at ouhos.org, the now-discontinued blog of the OU History of Science Collections. Neither this post nor any of its content should be taken as an official communication of the University of Oklahoma.

Our thanks to Rob Reynolds and the NextThought team for their series on “The Power of Connections.” Here’s an excerpt from an interview on open access and “collaborative communities.” For more, see Rob’s Power of Connections blog.

Kerry Magruder and Rob Reynolds – Open Access from NextThought on Vimeo.

Kerry Magruder and Rob Reynolds discuss open access to learning materials

Originally posted at ouhos.org, the now-discontinued blog of the OU History of Science Collections. Neither this post nor any of its content should be taken as an official communication of the University of Oklahoma.

The Galileo’s World exhibition brings worlds together, connecting the world of Galileo with the world of OU during the University’s 125th anniversary.

Beginning in August, 2015, the Galileo’s World exhibition will offer a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to view a complete set of first editions of Galileo’s printed works. Four of the OU copies contain Galileo’s own handwriting. They will be joined by 300 matchless rare books and manuscripts and finely-crafted replicas of historical instruments, some provided by the Museo Galileo in Florence.

Consider these three stories of how Galileo’s World will bring worlds together:

Johann Schreck was a friend of Galileo’s who assisted him during his telescopic observations. A few years later, Schreck went to China, where he wrote a work on engineering in Chinese. The OU copy incorporates Japanese revisions as well. OU students will discover much more to this story in the gallery on Galileo and China, where they will connect Galileo’s world with Chinese and Asian aspects of University life today.

Just as Galileo’s World brings together the worlds of OU and east Asia, so with the Americas. In the most important early natural history of America to be printed in Europe, Francesco Hernandez reported the plant and medical knowledge of the Aztecs of central Mexico. This work was regarded with such interest that Galileo and his colleagues in the Academy of the Lynx worked to finally publish it in 1651. Every OU student in a STEM field today will appreciate discovering that European progress in the life sciences, as far back as the scientific revolution, directly depended upon the natural knowledge of Native Americans.

Just as Galileo’s World brings together the worlds of Asia and the Americas, so it reaches through time to the Middle Ages and includes the Middle East. Selenographia, a massive book by Johann Hevelius, the leading telescopic observer of the mid-17th century, was the first comprehensive lunar atlas, published less than 40 years after Galileo’s telescopic discoveries.

On the frontispiece, Hevelius celebrates science as the heritage of many cultures. Here, in one of the most impressive works of the scientific revolution, Hevelius portrays Galileo in Middle Eastern dress as a tribute to the tradition of medieval Islamic optics.

These three brief stories show how Galileo’s World brings together worlds as far removed as Asia, America and the Middle East.

Galileo’s World is an “exhibition without walls.” Beginning with Bizzell Memorial Library at the heart of the Norman campus, galleries in each major library, including the Bird Library and the Schusterman Library, will bring together the Norman, Oklahoma City, and Tulsa campuses.

Joint-exhibitions at the National Weather Center, the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art and the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History will engage visitors to these renowned museums and research centers.

Thanks to financial assistance provided by the OU Athletic Department, the University has acquired for the Galileo’s World exhibition an original Galileo-related manuscript by Oratio Grassi (1623), a beautiful work relating Renaissance art to Galileo and the telescope (Lorenzo Sirigatti, 1596), and the dialogue on ancient and modern music written by Galileo’s father, Vincenzo Galilei (1581). Coach Galileo will offer advice to the Sooners in a gallery located in Headington Hall, where athletes will strike the poses of the muscle men of Vesalius (1543) instead of only the Heisman trophy.

Galileo’s World will connect every academic program of the University, sustaining a multidisciplinary conversation that brings our worlds together across time and space. A portion of Tuscany was transplanted to the windswept plains of Oklahoma, and now the story of Galileo has become part of every student’s and researcher’s experience at OU. The interconnectedness of science and culture which characterized Galileo’s world, and which connects Galileo’s world to our own day, remains the common heritage of humanity which we explore across the University and beyond Oklahoma to the world.

See lynx-open-ed.org.