JF Ptak Science Books   Post 1823

In his fabulous four-volume work, Nouvelles recreations physiques et mathematicques (published from 1769-1770), Edme Gilles Guyot (1706 – 1786) writes about applied math and physics and optics and the associated over a very wide landscape and dives deep into their distracting, entertainment value–polite intellectual diversions, optical illusions, and artistic magic.  And not “magic” as in the supernatural/paranormal flavors–but performance magic, the art of magic, that employs elements of the sciences to trick the audience–and reveals its secrets to his readers.

[Source, with full text, here.]

This engraving, above, illustrates an object he describes called “the magic painter”, a performance trick using a good story line, nice props, and a relatively not-yet-widely-understood-or-experienced property, the magnet.   The box seen by the audience was the box (seen at top left) illustrating an artist at his easel–an artist with such great sense of anticipation that he could determine what sort of painting his customers would like to have painted.  And in this case the audience of the magician would chose what they wanted to see “painted” here from among the four scenes shown at bottom….