Recreations in Mathematics and Natural Philosophy, Plate I
Description:
“Plate I” has six figures which illustrate experiments and problems on the nature of light. Figure 1 is a diagram of light reflecting off a polished surface. Figures 2 and 3 illustrate light refraction through water or oil, which is also diagrammed geometrically in Figure 4. Figure 5 demonstrates the inversion of an image of an external object through a lens in a darkened room, or a diagram of how light travels through a camera obscura. Figure 6 is an illustration of a portable camera obscura, the basic construction and uses of which are explicated in the text.
Copyright:
Copyright 2009, Department of Special Collections, Memorial Library, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI
Primary Works:
Recreations in Mathematics and Natural Philosophy in Four Volumes
Accession Number:
CA 8397
Height (in centimeters):
22
Width (in centimeters):
14
Marks Description
Inscr. top left with “Vol. II”; top right with “Optics Pl. I”; and lower right with “Mutlow, Sc Russell Co.”Printing Context
“Plate I” appears in Charles Hutton’s translation and revision of Jacques Ozanam’s Recreations in Mathematics and Natural Philosophy in Four Volumes (1803).Associated Events
Charles Hutton, LL.D. and F.R.S. (1737–1823), British, received the Copley Medal from the Royal Society of London in 1778 for his papers on the physics of velocity. He resigned from the Royal Society in 1784 over a dispute about the role of mathematics in the organization.Associated Places
Charles Hutton taught at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, England and was elected a member of the Royal Society of London on June 16, 1773. Jacques Ozanam was elected a member of the Académie des Sciences in 1701.Associated Texts
Ozanam’s original Recreations in Mathematics and Natural Philosophy in Four Volumes was published in Paris 1694. In addition to Hutton’s translation and revision of the text in 1803, which was reissued in 1814, Montucla’s revised and expanded editions were published in Paris in 1778 and 1709, and E. Riddle published yet another edition, entitled Recreations in Science and Natural Philosophy, in London in 1844.Subject
Recreations in Mathematics and Natural Philosophy is an example of the popularization of rational recreations texts in the Romantic period, particularly for use in the home. The ability not only to enjoy the illusions produced by camera obscuras, magic lanterns, and other optical devices, but, importantly, to distinguish the illusory from the real was paramount to the rational recreations agenda. The camera obscura shown here is a portable device, which increases the range of amusing recreations possible to perform with it in and around the home.Theme
Experiments in physical science; optical instruments and their effectsSignificance
As discussed by Barbara Maria Stafford, Hutton’s translated text aligns with the increased interest in rational recreations, popular leisure pursuits which were intended to simultaneously entertain and intellectually edify young people. Recreations in Mathematics and Natural Philosophy is an example of the rapid popularization of these recreational texts in the Romantic period, particularly for use in the domestic space. As noted by Helen Groth, in the nineteenth century the domestic arena “becomes a space of productive labor, where the mind of the child is actively shaped by the rationalizing energies of the family dedicated to the principles of useful knowledge” (H. Groth, “Domestic Phantasmagoria” 161). The ability not only to enjoy the illusions produced by camera obscuras, magic lanterns, and other optical devices, but, importantly, to distinguish the illusory from the real was paramount to the rational recreations agenda. As evidenced in the sustained revision, expansion, and republication of Ozanam’s original work on recreational experiments from the late seventeenth century well into the nineteenth, optical technologies and rational experiments preoccupied the Romantic visual imagination and reinforced the emphasis on edification and self-improvement through efforts at “practical education” in the domestic sphere (H. Groth, “Domestic Phantasmagoria” 161).Function
A text on how to create optical instruments and understand their effects on recreational scientific experiments.Bibliography
Crary, Jonathan. Techniques of the Observer: On Vision and Modernity in the Nineteenth Century. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990.Long Title
Jacques Ozanam, Recreations in Mathematics and Natural Philosophy in Four Volumes, Plate I: Problems on the Nature of Light, engraving, 21.8 x 13.5 cm, inscr. top left with “Vol. II,” top right with “Optics Pl. I,” and lower right with “Mutlow, Sc Russell Co.,” UW Department of Special Collections.Featured in Exhibit:
Image Date:
1803