Author: JF Ptak

A Note on the History of Simultaneity

JF Ptak Science Books

There is a great, unifying factor drawing together Aztec glyphs, Little Nemo in Slumberland, Marcel Duchamp, the Renaissance Sienese Sassetta, Guillaume Appolinaire, William S. Porter—they all display disparate chronological sense to a single story.

The concept of displaying the passage of time, relating multiple events taking place at the same (or different) times, is really quite a lot older than the what is generally considered to be its recent modernist beginning. Duchamp’s Nude Descending, which is a masterpiece of modernism displaying unfolding time and multiple perspective views across time of the same object, is the direct descendant of centuries-old artworks. The Egyptians and the Aztecs certainly made use of this idea of multiple stories at multiple times in their stone storyboards. Closer to the present is the genre of early Renaissance painting like Sassetta’s The Meeting of St Anthony Abbot and St Paul the Hermit (painted circa 1440), which shows several aspects of the story over time, and depicted on the same canvas. (We see the beginning of St. Anthony’s journey at top left, heading out on his journey as a younger man, winding his way through dark wood and along a curving trail; we see him a second time as an old man, and then lastly at bottom, elderly, finally meeting the other monk.)

The rollout of the Sassetta masterpiece (hanging happily at the National Gallery in D.C.) reminds me a lot of the great hallmark of storytelling at the beginning of the twentieth century—no, not Barzun or Cendars, but Little Nemo (who predates all of the other greats who were to come in the next ten years or so). Winsor McCay’s (1871-1934) Little Nemo in Slumberland (appearing in the Hearst newspapers beginning in 1902)—better yet, the comic strip in general—adopts a platform for storytelling that is nothing short of revolutionary. By breaking out the development of the narrative in front of the reader and on one single sheet of paper gives the author fantastic maneuverability. This is also seen in the early motion pictures of Edwin S. Porter (like The Ex Convict, 1905) and D.W. Griffith (The Lonely Villa, 1909) who both use a new concept of contrasting editing—cutaways from the main action and pace of the.

film and incorporating vignettes of actions that are related and happening elsewhere, sometimes all of it happening at once. The story is able to develop multiple themes that are occurring at the same time but in disparate locations—the artwork of futurists Balla and Boccioni and the unclassifiable Duchamp reach for the same end, and so to (again) with Apollinaire and Cendars and the rest…and all of them coming into view in 1912/1913 or so.

There’s a lot to talk about on the tech end of this too, not the least of which is the work of Etienne Marey who made highly successful photographic investigations (in the 1870’s and 1880’s)
of all manner of locomotion, some of the results of which look like the x-ray of Duchamp’s Nude. Perhaps the greatest early enablers of technological simultaneity are the telegraph and (more impressively) the telephone, both of which allowed people to be in two different places at the same time (so to speak).

Again, this is just a note, thinking out loud, about the concept of simultaneity, and I doubt that I’ve even broken the surface…I’ve not even considered the math and physical aspects of it all, not even a whisper about Einstein and Schroedinger. I’ve just done a search and found two works by eminent historians of science on this topic which I should think would demand reading: Max Jammer’s Concept of Simultaneity (2005) and Peter Galison’s Einstein’s Clocks, Poincare’s Maps and the Empire of Time (2003). I’d like to return to this post when I think I might have an idea of what I’m talking about…

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Anticipation, History of — Art — Art History
Videos: von Neumann, Gell-Mann, Bethe, Feynman, Oppenheimer…

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A few videos of some of the big folks to start the week…

John von Neumann in 1956:

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Physics
A Girl and her Submarine, 1918

JF Ptak Science Books

I could hardly resist this 1918 image: the young girl, her hands in her pockets, ribbons on her chest, her submarine fashioned over a tricycle with the two flags (Stars and Stripes and the Union Jack).

The sun is low, rising or setting, and it is catching the girl in the face, the home-fashioned hardboard visor of her home-grown officer’s headgear doing nohing to shade her eyes. She’s in her dress whites, maybe proud of someone else’s handiwork on her ten foot long submarine.

The image comes from my small archive of 200 or so WWI news service photos, this one no doubt intended to stir some home fires to help raise money or spirits. I have no idea of the image was ever published.

And of course the details:

And this of the stern flag, the Union Jack:

And this, with the hand-sewn eagle on the hand-made jacket, with all of the trimmings a creation of mom, or someone else as kind:

And you can purchase the original: World War I news service photo, made 1918. 8×6 inches. Good condition. $350

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Photography — World War I
Nuggets of Atomic Bombiana: Atomic Book & Magazine Covers

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I’m introducing some of the images from my 3,500-item Pinterest collection. The following is a subset of the Department of Atomic Bomb Hopes and Fears. The original sources for the images can be found in the links in the Pinterests categories.

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Atomic and Nuclear weapons
Everything John Brown Owned in 1842

JF Ptak Science Books Post 2235

Long before John Brown led his armed Abolitionist revolt, he was–like many people on the inner edge of the frontier–trying to make his way in the world at a host of different businesses, some of which did well, some not. He had a farm, operated a tannery, raised sheep and cattle, a bit of this and that, a man with a big family (he would have 20 children in his life) who absolutely had to make some money one way or the other. Some of these enterprises involved loans, which when combined with the Panic of 1837 and the Crisis of 1839 put the man under water. He was so deeply done that by 1842–at the age of 42–John Brown was bankrupt.

I’m writing about this now because Rebecca Onion published (in her excellent Slate Vault blog) a list of all of the worldly possessions of Brown and his family, collected and listed out by order of federal bankruptcy laws. The resulting list is heartbreaking and hopefully, and probably representative of a broad-spectrum slice of American semi-pioneer daily life about what the working family owned at mid-century somewhere along the speedily disappearing frontier.

What appeared to me first was the worn and worn out material, all listed in workman-like observational undertones, especially in the housewares and daily life category: “6 feather beds old and poor”, “3 tables old”, “5 chests old”, “6 pots cracked”, “6 bedsteads old”, “4 wooden pails old”, “2 earthen ware crocks broke”. There was the broken stuff, and then just the inexpensive: the 75-cent writing desk, 50-cent washtub, the pepper mill for a quarter, three soup bowls for a quarter, the pot hook for a skinny dime, and so on.

Most of the value of the family was in the livestock and food stores, mostly because there was so much that could be done with that, and by every/anyone. Though even there are found some shriveling disappointments: the 75-cent nail hammer, the 12-cent inkstand, and the 25-cent pitchfork (“work needed to be done on same”).

The listing of possessions was complete–also found here under guided supervision was the clothing of the family in their house as well as what everyone was wearing; and for a large family, there wasn’t much at home that wasn’t already being worn. “2 overcoats – 5 coats – 10 vests – 12 pairs Pantaloons – 26 Shirts 10 Womens & Girls dresses – 3 Skirts – 2 Cloaks – 4 Shawls – 8 Womens and childrens aprons – 5 pairs of Boots – 3 pairs of Shoes – 13 pairs of Socks & Stockings – 7 Stocks & Handkerchiefs – 4 Bonnets – 1 Hat 5 Palmleaf Hats – 8 mens & Boys cloth caps – 1 Fur cap – & 1 Wool cap.”

It is the children’s clothing that is really hard to read about.

Photographs of the original documents as well as transcriptions are available h ere

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American History: Western Exploration & Native Americans — Photography
Dancing at the Edge: Yosemite, 1890’s

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These are remarkable photos of folks standing at the edge of the world in Yosemite National Park. They were made by George Fiske, a New Hampshire boy who left for San Francisco and moved to Yosemite at age 44 in 1879. He worked there for decades, producing beautiful and iconic work before running out of steam after the turn of the century, and in the end committing suicide in 1918 because as he said he lost interest in being alive.

I came to Fiske today because of the dancing ladies, hanging out at the edge of the overhanging lock, a photo made by him in the 1890’s at Glacier Point in Yosemite. That led me to another photo that Fiske made of his co-author Galen Clark, made at the same place some years later at the same famous spot, in 1910.

Detail of the dancing ladies, 1890’s:

And the full image:

And a clearer image Galen Clark:

[Image source: wikipedia ]

Notes:

James Mason Hutchings, In the Heart of the Sierras (1888), with many illustrations including a number of photos by Fiske. Great digital copy at yosemite.ca.us here.

Galen Clark, The Yosemite Valley (1910) with more photographs by Fiske.

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American History: Western Exploration & Native Americans — Photography, history
Nuggets of Atomic Bombiana: Atomic Stuff

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I have a pinterest account with 50 categories and over 3,500 images–the images below form a subset of the Department of Atomic Hope and Fears: Atomic Stuff (with 150 or so atomic/nuclear images overall). The source for each can be found on the Pinterest site.

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Atomic and Nuclear weapons
A Cosmological Map of the Descending Dead (1855) & a Surprise Death-Cosmo Guest Image
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Oh my! The book Spirit-Rapping Unveiled (1855, see below for the long and potentially boring and extensive title¹) in the midst of much dizzying introductions and elucidations, refutations and condemnation, praise and pain, is this almost one-of-a-kind map, showing the descent of the dead onto the Earth.
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[Source: https://archive.org/stream/spiritrappingunv00matt#page/n3/mode/2up]
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I say “almost” because there is also this highly unlikely image-though-not-map which I wrote about in a 2008 post with the hyperbolic title “Extra-Earth Humano-Alien Souls From Outer Space Repopulate Earth-Hell!!(??), in which the title accurately tells the contents of its text and the front cover depicts the descending alien dead:

So there are at least two such map/images depicting Earth-bound dead descenders, and both are magnificent in their own _________ way.

The text of Spirit-Rapping explains the deathly cosmogram:

“In accordance with the theory already described and illustrated, it is assumed by our modern necromancers that the spirits of the dead descend to the earth or ” rudimental sphere” at pleasure, and thus communicate from time to time, and in various ways, with certain favored mortals called ” mediums.” At the same time they belong each to his own sphere, respectively, according to the time he has been ” progressing,” and his head is large or small according to the sphere to which he has attained. Indeed the earth, seen in the center of the cut, is a small affair compared with the heads of some of the sixth and seventh sphere progressives.” —from page 21

WHo would/could or want to say more?
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Absurdist, Unintentional — Outsider Logic
The Gaping Mouth of Hell, ca. 1475

JF Ptak Science Books Post 2233

“If a man were a porter of hell gates, he should have old turning the key.” Shakespeare’s Macbeth.

This woodblock, printed ca. 1475, appears in a Medieval/Renaissance classic, Speculum Humanae Salvationis, which appeared in hundreds of manuscripts beginning in the early 14th century and then through 16 editions as a printed work to the year 1500. It was a very popular work, very highly illustrated, a best-seller even, a famous work dedicated to showing the presaging relationships of the Old Testament to the New.

This image presented here depicts the Fall of Lucifer, overseen by Jesus and Angels, and falling into the gaping mouth of Hell. It is a wicked image no doubt used to scare the pants off of its readers, in the general tradition of the depiction of the massive wickedness that awaits those who stray from the teachings of that which is necessary to enter Heaven¹.

Gaping mouths of Hell appear quite frequently in the history of Christian art, particularly in the representation of the place in the harrowing of hell, when after his execution Christ descends into the pits to bring to salvation all of those who were worthy of it who died before his appearance on earth. It is a very common seen, with hell appearing as a cave, or a hole in a mountain, and of course as ferocious monster mouth. In a way the stunted, black hole in a mountain, lonely and dark and just about non-existent, looked more frightening in its way, its terror implied rather than overtly visualized by horrible teeth and jaws.

For example, Fra Angelico presents the scene in 1437(-46), and shows Christ in what looks like coldness reaching for the hand of the person usually depicted the first among the saved, Adam:

[Image source, here]

It doesn’t have the flavor of fear that other entrances to Hell have, though it is forbidding, with the long line of dead stretching far back into the interior.

An old friend from the National Gallery in D.C., Benevento di Giovanni (ca. 1493), shows a more dramatic entry of Christ, though the crushed devil evidently doesn’t stay crushed for that long, as Limbo and Hell do not actually perish once Christ leaves:

[Image source, here]

There are many such examples, and perhaps more still featuring the anthropomorphically-alive and toothy entrance–few are scarier though than the entrance to Hell that meets these two ideas sort of in the middle, that being the quietlky shivering contribution by Hieronymus Bosch, placing the entrance to Hell in the mouth of a dead human.

[Image source, here.]

Of course Bosch can and does make the entrance more hideous and obvious in other works, but this “understated” variety is very effective.

But it is the image from the Speculum that attracts me right now, found in a book on my shelf on deeply old engravings and woodblocks, Idee Generale d’Une Collection Complette d’Estamps...by Heinecken, printed in Leipzig in 1771.

“God, shown throughout this chapter as Jesus Christ, is surrounded by the blessed angels in Heaven. Below is the scene of the Fall of Lucifer and his followers into the gaping mouth of the Leviathan, of the book of Job XLI, which is commonly identified with the inferno. The fallen angels are represented with wings, horns and cocks’ feet. The Fall of the Angels is first found in Judeo-Greek literature of Alexandria in the two centuries before Christ.”–Source: Speculum Humanae Salvationis 1324–1500, by Adrian Wilson & Joyce Lancaster Wilson, U.C. Berkeley Press, 1985.

NOTES:

1. The heaven-helly Ambrose Bierce in what would become his Devil’s Dictionary, spunkily writes of heaven so: “HEAVEN, n.A place where the wicked cease from troubling you with talk of their personal affairs, and the good listen with attention while you expound your own.” Uncharacteristically, he did not make an entry for hell, which I am sure he was better able to discuss.

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The First (?) Electric Calculator, 1817

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One of the most unexpected monuments–to me at least–in the history of modern computation is the fantastic electrical calculating machine that shows up in the vast, dense, and bibliographically complicated work by Georg Heinrich Seiferheid (1757-1818), Sammulung Electrischer Spielwerke fur junge..., published over the years 1791 to 1817.

Mr. Seiferheid was an experimenter, innovator, inventor and writer, and wrapped up in one complicated ball, publishing his major and minor bits under the heading of this one large work over a period of least 16 years. And don’t let the title fool you: in the vein of Chandrasekhar’s Newton’s Principia for the Common Reader, there wasn’t all that much in these volumes by Seiferheid for kids, just like in the Chandrasekhar book, which ratcheted the phrase “Common Reader” way, way up. Even taking into account the level at which children were educated in the applied and natural sciences/philosophy, which demanded more from the 18th and 19th century kids than out grade school do now, Seiferheid’s work is obvious far removed from that. Perhaps it was because he had a large number of gadgety trinkets that hung through the work like plumb lines that the word junge was included–I really don’t know. The vastness of his reach though into all manner of mechanical and electrical objects is very impressive–Seiferheid evidently constructed electrically powered guns, clocks, and of course this fantastic calculating device. The calculator was much similar to the machine invented (although no version of it survived) by Wilhelm Schickard (1592-1635) in 1623, followed by that in 1643 of the overwhelming Blaise Pascal (with the “Pascaline”) and then again in 1675 of Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716) who produced the “Stepped Reckoner”—the Seiferheid machine was more complex, and of course, electric, a true and terrific innovation, creating for its maker the sobriquet of “grandfather” of the modern computer.

* I have found very little biographical data on this man; even the very reliable Poggendorff has only about 15 lines on him: he was born in Wurtemberg, was a professor of physics at the Gymnasium at Schwabisch Hall, and that’s about it for the personal data. He did write four other books in addition to this ten-volume magnum opus.

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Future, History of the — History of the Future — Technology, History of