This book describes how advances in recording and printing technologies influenced the research and teaching styles of succeeding generations of physicists, chemists, and astronomers, particularly from the boom of spectrum analysis in the 1860s until the advent of quantum mechanics in 1925. Seemingly disparate strands in the history of the spectrum, such as spectrochemistry and cartography, instrument design, and science education, are interlaced in one of the most fascinating and influential research-technologies of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The emphasis is on the material cultu ... More

This book describes how advances in recording and printing technologies influenced the research and teaching styles of succeeding generations of physicists, chemists, and astronomers, particularly from the boom of spectrum analysis in the 1860s until the advent of quantum mechanics in 1925. Seemingly disparate strands in the history of the spectrum, such as spectrochemistry and cartography, instrument design, and science education, are interlaced in one of the most fascinating and influential research-technologies of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The emphasis is on the material culture of spectroscopy, including the impact of lithography and photography on research and its interplay with photochemistry. Well-documented case studies on MIT and Wellesley College, Harvard University and the Ecole Polytechnique cover teaching aspects. A bibliography of c. 2500 entries and a tabular survey of all the major terrestrial and stellar spectrum maps 1835-1949 complete the volume.