The Hive and the Pendulum: Universal Metrology and Baroque Science
Early modern scholars and statesmen were acutely aware of the need for improved standards of measurement, albeit for differing reasons. The variety of man-made units across territories and histories was, by the seventeenth century, already a sceptical com
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The Hive and the Pendulum: Universal Metrology and Baroque Science Nicholas Dew
Abstract Early modern scholars and statesmen were acutely aware of the need for improved standards of measurement, albeit for differing reasons. The variety of man-made units across territories and histories was, by the seventeenth century, already a sceptical commonplace, and was understood in terms of the mutability of human institutions. The late seventeenth century saw many scholars advance possible candidates for a universal standard. The most promising of these was the use of a seconds pendulum as a standard for length, a project which was actively pursued by the French Académie Royale des Sciences in the 1670s and 1680s, and remained a goal cherished by savants through the eighteenth century. This paper’s first section places the Académie’s early metrological projects in the context of the scholarly community’s ideal of a universal measurement standard, which was often expressed in ways combining political, theological, and humanistic concerns. Melchisédech Thévenot’s ludic proposal that honeycombs might be a length standard is explored as one example. The second section examines the Académie’s attempts to test the seconds pendulum as a universal length standard, by taking the missions to Uraniborg (1671) and to London (1679) as case studies in the practice of metrological work.
The Hive: Universal Measurement in Baroque Theory Towards the end of May 1680, London was hit by a hailstorm. Even in the “little ice age” of the seventeenth century, this was uncommon for the time of year. The curious virtuosi rushed into the streets to measure the dimensions of the hailstones. One of these virtuosi was John Locke, who sent news of this strange event to his French
N. Dew (*) Department of History and Classical Studies, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada e-mail: [email protected] O. Gal and R. Chen-Morris (eds.), Science in the Age of Baroque, International Archives of the History of Ideas 208, DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-4807-1_10, © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013
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friend, Nicolas Toinard: “Last Tuesday hailstones of enormous size fell all over the city here. I myself measured one lump of ice … which had a circumference of 420 grys…” (Locke 1976–1989, 2: 175–6 [Locke to Toinard, 20 May 1680]).1 Toinard read the letter to the group of Locke’s friends in Paris, a group which included François Bernier, Jean Picard, Eusèbe Renaudot, Henri Justel, and Melchisédech Thévenot, among others. The French curieux marvelled at Locke’s news—after all, a hailstorm in late May was a strange fact—but were more concerned about interpreting the measurement. The hailstones, Locke said, had a circumference of 420 grys—which sounded rather large—but none of the French knew what this strange English unit, the gry, was. Toinard had asked his friends who knew some English (like Thévenot and Adrien Auzout), but none of them were familiar with the term. Toinard therefore begged Locke to explain the mystery (Locke 1976–198
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