Gillin, EJ;
(2020)
Mechanics and mathematicians: George Biddell Airy and the social tensions in constructing time at Parliament, 1845-1860.
History of Science
, 58
(3)
pp. 301-325.
10.1177/0073275319879279.
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Abstract
In mid-Victorian Britain, reconciling elite mathematical expertise with practical mechanical experience presented both engineering and social challenges. Nowhere was this more apparent than in the construction of the Westminster Clock at Britain’s Houses of Parliament. Realizing this scheme engendered the collaboration between Cambridge mathematicians George Biddell Airy and Edmund Beckett Denison, and the clockmaker Edward John Dent. Transforming theoretical mathematical drawings into physical apparatus challenged existing relations between conveyors of privileged scientific knowledge and those with practical experience of what was, and what was not, mechanically possible. My article demonstrates how, within this project, physical models and devices provided material solutions to ambiguities over authority and social disorder in Victorian Britain.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Mechanics and mathematicians: George Biddell Airy and the social tensions in constructing time at Parliament, 1845-1860 |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1177/0073275319879279 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1177/0073275319879279 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions. |
| Keywords: | Mathematics, mechanics, horology, George Biddell Airy, models, Victorian science, Westminster Clock, social class, Greenwich time, clockmaking |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10142030 |
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