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data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddington_experiment-0.md

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+---
+title: "Eddington experiment"
+chunk: 1/5
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddington_experiment"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:10:59.485048+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+The Eddington experiment was an observational test of general relativity, organised by the British astronomers Frank Watson Dyson and Arthur Stanley Eddington in 1919. Observations of the total solar eclipse of 29 May 1919 were carried out by two expeditions, one to the West African island of Príncipe, and the other to the Brazilian town of Sobral. The aim of the expeditions was to measure the gravitational deflection of starlight passing near the Sun. The amount of deflection was predicted by Albert Einstein in a 1911 paper; however, his initial prediction proved inaccurate because it was based on an incomplete theory of general relativity. Einstein improved his prediction after finalizing his theory in 1915 and obtaining the solution to his equations by Karl Schwarzschild. Following the return of the expeditions, the results were presented by Eddington to a joint meeting of the Royal Society and Royal Astronomical Society in London and, after some deliberation, were accepted. Widespread newspaper coverage of the results led to worldwide fame for Einstein and his theories.
+
+== Background ==
+
+One of the first considerations of gravitational deflection of light was published in 1801, when Johann Georg von Soldner pointed out that Newtonian gravity predicts that starlight will be deflected when it passes near a massive object. Initially, in a paper published in 1911, Einstein had incorrectly calculated that the amount of light deflection was the same as the Newtonian value, that is 0.83 seconds of arc for a star that would be just on the limb of the Sun in the absence of gravity.
+In October 1911, responding to Einstein's encouragement, German astronomer Erwin Freundlich contacted solar eclipse expert Charles D. Perrine in Berlin to inquire as to the suitability of existing solar eclipse photographs to prove Einstein's prediction of light deflection. Perrine, the director of the Argentine National Observatory at Cordoba, had participated in four solar eclipse expeditions while at the Lick Observatory in 1900, 1901, 1905, and 1908. He did not believe existing eclipse photos would be useful. In 1912 Freundlich asked if Perrine would include observation of light deflection as part of the Argentine Observatory's program for the solar eclipse of 10 October 1912 in Brazil. W. W. Campbell, director of the Lick Observatory, loaned Perrine its intramercurial camera lenses. Perrine and the Cordoba team were the only eclipse expedition to construct specialized equipment dedicated to observe light deflection. Unfortunately all the expeditions suffered from torrential rains which prevented any observations. Nevertheless, Perrine was the first astronomer to make a dedicated attempt to observe light deflection to test Einstein's prediction. Eddington had taken part in a British expedition to Brazil to observe the 1912 eclipse but was interested in different measurements. Eddington and Perrine spent several days together in Brazil and may have discussed their observation programs including Einstein's prediction of light deflection.
+In 1914 three eclipse expeditions, from Argentina, Germany, and the US, were committed to testing Einstein's theory by observing for light deflection. The three directors were Erwin Finlay-Freundlich, from the Berlin Observatory, the US astronomer William Wallace Campbell, director of the Lick Observatory, and Charles D. Perrine, director of the Argentine National Observatory at Cordoba. The three expeditions travelled to the Crimea in the Russian Empire to observe the eclipse of 21 August. However, the First World War started in July of that year, and Germany declared war on Russia on 1 August. The German astronomers were either forced to return home or were taken prisoner by the Russians. Although the US and Argentine astronomers were not detained, clouds prevented clear observations being made during the eclipse. Perrine's photographs, although not clear enough to prove Einstein's prediction, were the first obtained in an attempt to test Einstein's prediction of light deflection.
+A second attempt by American astronomers to measure the effect during the 1918 eclipse was foiled by clouds in one location and by ambiguous results due to the lack of the correct equipment in another.
+Einstein's 1911 paper predicted deflection of star light on the limb of the Sun to be 0.83 seconds of arc and encouraged astronomers to test this prediction by observing stars near the Sun during a solar eclipse. It is fortunate for Einstein that the weather precluded results by Perrine in 1912 and Perrine, Freundlich, and Campbell in 1914. If results had been obtained they may have disproved the 1911 prediction setting back Einstein's reputation. In any case, Einstein corrected his prediction in his 1915 paper on General Relativity to 1.75 seconds of arc for a star on the limb. Einstein and subsequent astronomers both benefitted from this correction.
+Eddington's interest in general relativity began in 1916, during World War I, when he read papers by Einstein (presented in Berlin, Germany, in 1915), which had been sent by the neutral Dutch physicist Willem de Sitter to the Royal Astronomical Society in Britain. Eddington, later said to be one of the few people at the time to understand the theory, realised its significance and lectured on relativity at a meeting at the British Association in 1916. He emphasised the importance of testing the theory by methods such as eclipse observations of light deflection, and the Astronomer Royal, Frank Watson Dyson, began to make plans for the eclipse of May 1919, which would be particularly suitable for such a test. Eddington also produced a major report on general relativity for the Physical Society, published as Report on the Relativity Theory of Gravitation (1918). Eddington also lectured on relativity at Cambridge University, where he had been professor of astronomy since 1913.
+Wartime conscription in Britain was introduced in 1917. At the age of 34, Eddington was eligible to be drafted into the military, but his exemption from this was obtained by his university on the grounds of national interest. This exemption was later appealed by the War Ministry, and at a series of hearings in June and July 1918, Eddington, who was a Quaker, stated that he was a conscientious objector, based on religious grounds. At the final hearing, the Astronomer Royal, Frank Watson Dyson, supported the exemption by proposing that Eddington undertake an expedition to observe the total eclipse in May the following year to test Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. The appeal board granted a twelve-month extension for Eddington to do so. Although this extension was rendered moot by the signing of the Armistice in November, ending the war, the expedition went ahead as planned.

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+---
+title: "Eddington experiment"
+chunk: 2/5
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddington_experiment"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:10:59.485048+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+== Theory ==
+
+The theory behind the experiment concerns the predicted deflection of light by the Sun. The first observation of light deflection was performed by noting the change in position of stars as they passed near the Sun on the celestial sphere. The approximate angular deflection δφ for a massless particle coming in from infinity and going back out to infinity is given by the following formula:
+
+  
+    
+      
+        δ
+        φ
+        ≈
+        
+          
+            
+              2
+              
+                r
+                
+                  s
+                
+              
+            
+            b
+          
+        
+        =
+        
+          
+            
+              4
+              G
+              M
+            
+            
+              
+                c
+                
+                  2
+                
+              
+              b
+            
+          
+        
+        .
+      
+    
+    {\displaystyle \delta \varphi \approx {\frac {2r_{s}}{b}}={\frac {4GM}{c^{2}b}}.}
+  
+
+Here, b can be interpreted as the distance of closest approach. Although this formula is approximate, it is accurate for most measurements of gravitational lensing, due to the smallness of the ratio rs/b. For light grazing the surface of the Sun, the approximate angular deflection is roughly 1.75 arcseconds. This is twice the value predicted by calculations using the Newtonian theory of gravity. It was this difference in the deflection between the two theories that Eddington's expedition and other later eclipse observers would attempt to observe.
+
+== Expeditions and observations ==
+
+The aim of the expeditions was to take advantage of the shielding effect of the Moon during a total solar eclipse, and to use astrometry to measure the positions of the stars in the sky around the Sun during the eclipse. These stars, not normally visible in the daytime due to the brightness of the Sun, would become visible during the moment of totality when the Moon covered the solar disc. A difference in the observed position of the stars during the eclipse, compared to their normal position (measured some months earlier at night, when the Sun is not in the field of view), would indicate that the light from these stars had bent as it passed close to the Sun. Dyson, when planning the expedition in 1916, had chosen the 1919 eclipse because it would take place with the Sun in front of a bright group of stars called the Hyades. The brightness of these stars would make it easier to measure any changes in position.
+Two teams of two people were to be sent to make observations of the eclipse at two locations: the West African island of Príncipe and the Brazilian town of Sobral.
+The Príncipe expedition members were Eddington and Edwin Turner Cottingham, from the Cambridge Observatory, while the Sobral expedition members were Andrew Crommelin and Charles Rundle Davidson, from the Greenwich Observatory in London. Eddington was Director of the Cambridge Observatory, and Cottingham was a clockmaker who worked on the observatory's instruments. Similarly, Crommelin was an assistant at the Greenwich Observatory, while Davidson was one of the observatory's computers.
+The expeditions were organised by the Joint Permanent Eclipse Committee, a joint committee between the Royal Society and the Royal Astronomical Society, chaired by Dyson, the Astronomer Royal. The funding application for the expedition was made to the Government Grant Committee, asking for £100 for instruments and £1000 for travel and other costs.
+
+=== Sobral ===
+
+In mid-1918, researchers from the Brazilian National Observatory, determined that the city of Sobral, Ceará, was the best geographical position to observe the Solar Eclipse. Its director, Henrique Charles Morize, sent a report to worldwide scientific institutions on the subject, including the Royal Astronomical Society, London.
+The Greenwich Observatory team sent to Brazil consisted of Charles Davidson and Andrew Crommelin, with Frank Dyson coordinating everything from Europe and, later, being responsible for analyzing the team's data. The team arrived in Brazil on March 23, 1919, and its gear was waived without inspection as a courtesy from the Brazilian government. While Eddington took part in the Príncipe expedition, it is unknown why Dyson did not travel to Brazil.
+The gear was made by two astrographic telescopes coupled to mirror systems known as coelostats; a main telescope from the Royal Greenwich Observatory with a 13-inch aperture and mounted to a 16-inch coelostat and a small backup telescope with a 4-inch aperture borrowed from Aloysius Cortie.
+On April 30 the team arrived at Sobral. The eclipse day started cloudy, but the sky cleared and the Moon's disk began to obscure the Sun shortly before 8:56 am; the eclipse lasted 5 minutes 13 seconds. The team remained at Sobral until July to photograph the same star field at night.
+The main telescope recorded twelve stars, while the backup one recorded seven. The main telescope had blurred images, which were discarded from the final conclusion though its estimated deflections were closer to the Newtonian-based prediction, while the smaller one had the clearest images and was deemed the most trustworthy and had a estimated deflection slightly above the Einsteinian prediction. Daniel Kennefick defends that without the Sobral photographs, the results of the 1919 eclipse would have been inconclusive and that the expeditions during future eclipses failed to improve the data.
+The British team was joined by the Brazilian team led by Henrique Charles Morize and the astronomers Lélio Gama, Domingos Fernandes da Costa, Allyrio Hugueney de Mattos and Teófilo Lee with the objective of producing spectroscopic observations of the Sun's corona.
+The team set its gear at a plaza in front of the church of Patrocínio, where the Eclipse Museum is today. The team took several 24-by-18 and 9-by-12 cm plates capturing the Sun and the stars' positions near its edge, but unfortunately, no meaningful conclusions were drawn from the data produced by the Brazilian team, and its contribution was defined as just logistical support for the British team and climate observations. Its plates were restored by the National Observatory in 2015, while the British team plates were lost after 1979.
+The third expedition from that day was formed by Daniel Maynard Wise and Andrew Thomson, from the Carnegie Institution. Their goal was to study the eclipse effects on the magnetic field and atmospheric electricity.
+In 1925, Einstein stated to the Brazilian press about the results, "The problem conceived by my brain was solved by the bright Brazilian sky".

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+---
+title: "Eddington experiment"
+chunk: 3/5
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddington_experiment"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:10:59.485048+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+=== Príncipe ===
+The equipment used for the expedition to Príncipe, an island in the Gulf of Guinea off the coast of West Africa, was an astrographic lens borrowed from the Radcliffe Observatory in Oxford. Eddington sailed from England in March 1919. By mid-May he had his equipment set up on Príncipe near what was then Spanish Guinea. The eclipse was due to take place in the early afternoon of 29 May, at 2 pm, but that morning there was a storm with heavy rain. Eddington wrote: The rain stopped about noon and about 1.30 ... we began to get a glimpse of the sun. We had to carry out our photographs in faith. I did not see the eclipse, being too busy changing plates, except for one glance to make sure that it had begun and another half-way through to see how much cloud there was. We took sixteen photographs. They are all good of the sun, showing a very remarkable prominence; but the cloud has interfered with the star images. The last few photographs show a few images which I hope will give us what we need ... Eddington developed the photographs on Príncipe, and attempted to measure the change in the stellar positions during the eclipse. On 3 June, despite the clouds that had reduced the quality of the plates, Eddington recorded in his notebook: "... one plate I measured gave a result agreeing with Einstein."
+British future astronomer and astrophysicist Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin attended Eddington's lectures at Cambridge (including one where Eddington discussed the results of the eclipse expeditions) and later related how strongly these lectures had affected her.
+
+== Results and publication ==
+
+The results were announced at a joint meeting of the Royal Society and Royal Astronomical Society in November 1919, and published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society in 1920. Following the return of the expedition, Eddington was addressing a dinner held by the Royal Astronomical Society, and, showing his more light-hearted side, recited the following verse that he had composed in a style parodying the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam: 
+
+== Later replications ==
+The light deflection measurements were repeated by expeditions that observed the total solar eclipse of 21 September 1922 in Australia. An important role in this was played by the Lick Observatory and the Mount Wilson Observatory, both in California, US. On 12 April 1923, William Wallace Campbell announced that the preliminary new results confirmed Einstein's theory of relativity and prediction of the amount of light deflection with measurements from over 200 stars. Final results published in 1928 used measurements of over 3,000 star images.
+
+== Reception ==

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+---
+title: "Eddington experiment"
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+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddington_experiment"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:10:59.485048+00:00"
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+---
+
+The presentation of the results at the joint 6 November 1919 session of Royal Society and Royal Astronomical Society led to intensive press coverage first in Great Britain and a few days later in the US press, notably in The New York Times, and some days later still in the German press. While Einstein had been a moderately famous public figure in Germany for a few years by that time, the articles in question marked the beginning of his international celebrity status. A notable exception was Belgium, where the Eddington results were given the cold shoulder – partly because Einstein was seen as representing Germany, with the suffering of Belgium in World War I still very present in the country. The sudden popularity of Einstein's theories led to an "Einstein boom" of popular science books.
+While there is a later anecdote describing Einstein as unimpressed about the experimental results, and sure of his theory even in the absence of evidence (stating, when asked what he would have said if the results had been otherwise, "Then I would feel sorry for the dear Lord. The theory is correct anyway.") the evidence of Einstein's letters to other scientists indicates, on the contrary, that he was both impressed and moved by the new results, and regarded them as an important success.
+The 1919 results were also used as part of the systematic efforts by the Nobel laureate Philipp Lenard to discredit Einstein, whom Lenard, himself an avid national socialist and exponent of what he saw as "German physics", saw as a dangerous exponent of unnatural "Jewish physics". Lenard pointed to the 1801 prediction that Johann Georg von Soldner had derived from Newtonian gravity for starlight bending around a massive object, which corresponds to half the general-relativistic prediction derived by Einstein in 1915, and thus to Einstein's own earlier derivation of 1911, and claimed that it proved Einstein to be a plagiarist, and that von Soldner deserved to be given credit for the 1919 result.
+Both the 1919 results themselves and Eddington's textbook on general relativity, whose second edition including the results saw numerous translations as interest in Einstein's theory grew, played important roles in the reception of Einstein's theory in the scientific community. It is notable that while the Eddington results were seen as a confirmation of Einstein's prediction, and in that capacity soon found their way into general relativity text books, among other astronomers there followed a decade-long discussion of the quantitative values of light deflection, with the precise results in contention even after several expeditions had repeated Eddington's observations on the occasion of subsequent eclipses. The discussion concerned both the data analysis – such as the different weight assigned to different stars in the 1922 and 1929 eclipse expeditions – and the question of specific systematic effects that could skew the results.
+All in all, eclipse measurements of this kind, using visible light, retained considerable uncertainty, and it was only radio-astronomical measurements in the late 1960s that definitively showed that the amount of deflection was the full value predicted by general relativity, and not half that number as predicted by a "Newtonian" calculation. Those measurements and their successors are nowadays an important part of the so-called post-Newtonian tests of gravity, the systematic way of parametrizing the predictions of general relativity and other theories in terms of ten adjustable parameters in the context of the parameterized post-Newtonian formalism, where each parameter represents a possible departure from Newton's law of universal gravitation. The earliest parameterizations of the post-Newtonian approximation were performed by Eddington (1922). The parameter concerned with the amount of deflection of light by a gravitational source is the so-called Eddington parameter (γ), and it is currently the best-constrained of the ten post-Newtonian parameters.
+At about the time of the last serious photo-plate eclipse measurements, by a University of Texas expedition observing in Mauritania in 1973, doubts began to surface about whether or not the original Eddington measurements were sufficient to vindicate Einstein's prediction, or whether biased analysis by Eddington and his colleagues had skewed the results. Similar concerns about systematic errors and possibly confirmation bias were raised in the science history community and gained more prominence as part of the popular book The Golem by Trevor Pinch and Harry Collins. A modern reanalysis of the dataset, though, suggests that Eddington's analysis was accurate, and in fact less afflicted by bias than some of the analyses of solar eclipse data that followed. Part of the vindication comes from a 1979 reanalysis of the plates from the two Sobral instruments, using a much more modern plate-measuring machine than was available in 1919, which supports Eddington's results.
+The Eddington Experiment was crucial for inspiring Karl Popper's theory of falsifiability, the central idea of The Logic of Scientific Discovery and a core part of the scientific method. The concept of falsifiability says that all scientific theories, to count as scientific, must have an associated scientific experiment or experiments which could, in principle, prove the theory wrong. Popper cites Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity as an example of good science because it is falsifiable, and the Eddington Experiment is an example of an experiment which could have falsified the theory but didn't. Popper contrasts this with Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis, which he claims cannot be tested by experiment, meaning that psychoanalysis is unfalsifiable and therefore pseudoscience.
+
+== In popular culture ==
+The experiment was central to the plot of the 2008 BBC television film Einstein and Eddington, with David Tennant in the role of Eddington.
+
+== See also ==
+
+Tests of general relativity
+Einstein and Eddington
+
+== Notes ==
+
+== References ==

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+title: "Eddington experiment"
+chunk: 5/5
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddington_experiment"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:10:59.485048+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+== Sources and further reading ==
+Collins, Harry; Pinch, Trevor (1993). The Golem: What everyone should know about science. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521477360.
+Cowen, Ron (May 2019). Gravity's Century: From Einstein's Eclipse to Images of Black Holes (Illustrated ed.). Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-97496-8.
+Crelinsten, Jeffrey (May 2006). Einstein's Jury: The Race to Test Relativity. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-12310-3.
+Gates, Sylvester J. Jr; Pelletier, Cathie (2019). Proving Einstein right: The daring expeditions that changed how we look at the universe (First ed.). New York: PublicAffairs. ISBN 978-1541762251.
+Kennefick, Daniel (2019). No Shadow of a Doubt: The 1919 Eclipse That Confirmed Einstein's Theory of Relativity. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 9780691183862.
+Popper, Karl (2002) [1935]. The Logic of Scientific Discovery. Routledge. ISBN 0-203-99462-0.
+Stanley, Matthew (2019). Einstein's War: How Relativity Triumphed Amid the Vicious Nationalism of World War I. Dutton. ISBN 978-1-5247-4541-7.
+
+== External links ==
+Eclipse 1919, website about the eclipse, the expeditions and centenary events
+"Eddington's Eclipse and Einstein's Celebrity" Discovery (audio) episode (from BBC World Service)
+"The man who made Einstein world-famous" (BBC News, 24 May 2019)
+"Matthew Stanley and Einstein's War". Archived 2020-07-30 at the Wayback Machine (Clarke Center for Human Imagination, UCSD podcast)
+"100 years on: the pictures that changed our view of the universe" (The Observer, 12 May 2019)
+"How the 1919 Solar Eclipse Made Einstein the World's Most Famous Scientist" (Discover magazine, May 2019)
+"A Total Solar Eclipse 100 Years Ago Proved Einstein's General Relativity" (Smithsonian Magazine, 24 May 2019)
+"Einstein, Eddington and the 1919 eclipse" (Nature, April 2019)
+"Arthur S. Eddington: From Physics to Philosophy and Back Again" (Eddington Conference, 27–29 May 2019, Paris)
+Roça Sundy  Abandoned plantation where the experiment was carried out.
+Small memorial in honour of the experiments carried out here in 1919 to find empirical evidence for the theory of relativity during a solar eclipse

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+---
+title: "Empiricism"
+chunk: 1/7
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empiricism"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:11:00.706456+00:00"
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+---
+
+In philosophy, empiricism is an epistemological view which holds that true knowledge or justification comes either only or primarily from sensory experience and empirical evidence. It is one of several competing views within epistemology, along with rationalism and skepticism.
+Empiricists argue that empiricism is a more reliable method of finding the truth than relying purely on logical reasoning, because humans have cognitive biases and limitations which lead to errors of judgement. 
+Empiricism emphasizes the central role of empirical evidence in the formation of ideas, rather than innate ideas or traditions. Empiricists may argue that traditions (or customs) arise due to relations of previous sensory experiences. 
+Historically, empiricism was associated with the "blank slate" concept (tabula rasa), according to which the human mind is "blank" at birth and develops its thoughts only through later experience. 
+Empiricism in the philosophy of science emphasizes evidence, especially as discovered in experiments. It is a fundamental part of the scientific method that all hypotheses and theories must be tested against observations of the natural world rather than resting solely on a priori reasoning, intuition, or revelation.
+Empiricism, often used by natural scientists, holds that "knowledge is based on experience" and that "knowledge is tentative and probabilistic, subject to continued revision and falsification". Empirical research, including experiments and validated measurement tools, guides the scientific method.
+
+== Etymology ==
+The English term empirical derives from the Ancient Greek word ἐμπειρία, empeiria, which is cognate with and translates to the Latin experientia, from which the words experience and experiment are derived.
+
+== Background ==
+
+A central concept in science and the scientific method is that conclusions must be empirically based on the evidence of the senses. Both natural and social sciences use working hypotheses that are testable by observation and experiment. The term semi-empirical is sometimes used to describe theoretical methods that make use of basic axioms, established scientific laws, and previous experimental results to engage in reasoned model building and theoretical inquiry.
+Philosophical empiricists hold no knowledge to be properly inferred or deduced unless it is derived from one's sense-based experience. In epistemology (theory of knowledge) empiricism is typically contrasted with rationalism, which holds that knowledge may be derived from reason independently of the senses, and in the philosophy of mind it is often contrasted with innatism, which holds that some knowledge and ideas are already present in the mind at birth. However, many Enlightenment rationalists and empiricists still made concessions to each other. For example, the empiricist John Locke admitted that some knowledge (e.g. knowledge of God's existence) could be arrived at through intuition and reasoning alone. Similarly, Robert Boyle, a prominent advocate of the experimental method, held that we also have innate ideas. At the same time, the main continental rationalists (Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz) were also advocates of the empirical "scientific method".
+
+== History ==
+
+=== Early empiricism ===
+
+Between 600 and 200 BCE, the Vaisheshika school of Hindu philosophy, founded by the ancient Indian philosopher Kanada, accepted perception and inference as the only two reliable sources of knowledge. This is enumerated in his work Vaiśeṣika Sūtra. The Charvaka school held similar beliefs, asserting that perception is the only reliable source of knowledge while inference obtains knowledge with uncertainty.
+The earliest Western proto-empiricists were the empiric school of ancient Greek medical practitioners, founded in 330 BCE. Its members rejected the doctrines of the dogmatic school, preferring to rely on the observation of phantasiai (i.e., phenomena, the appearances). The Empiric school was closely allied with the Pyrrhonist school of philosophy, which made the philosophical case for their proto-empiricism. 
+The notion of tabula rasa ("clean slate" or "blank tablet") connotes a view of the mind as an originally blank or empty recorder (Locke used the words "white paper") on which experience leaves marks. This denies that humans have innate ideas. The notion dates back to Aristotle, c. 350 BC:
+
+What the mind (nous) thinks must be in it in the same sense as letters are on a tablet (grammateion) which bears no actual writing (grammenon);  this is just what happens in the case of the mind.  (Aristotle, On the Soul, 3.4.430a1).
+Aristotle's explanation of how this was possible was not strictly empiricist in a modern sense, but rather based on his theory of potentiality and actuality, and experience of sense perceptions still requires the help of the active nous. These notions contrasted with Platonic notions of the human mind as an entity that pre-existed somewhere in the heavens, before being sent down to join a body on Earth (see Plato's Phaedo and Apology, as well as others).  Aristotle was considered to give a more important position to sense perception than Plato, and commentators in the Middle Ages summarized one of his positions as "nihil in intellectu nisi prius fuerit in sensu" (Latin for "nothing in the intellect without first being in the senses").
+This idea was later developed in ancient philosophy by the Stoic school, from about 330 BCE. Stoic epistemology generally emphasizes that the mind starts blank, but acquires knowledge as the outside world is impressed upon it. The doxographer Aetius summarizes this view as "When a man is born, the Stoics say, he has the commanding part of his soul like a sheet of paper ready for writing upon."
+
+=== Islamic Golden Age and Pre-Renaissance (5th to 15th centuries CE) ===

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+---
+title: "Empiricism"
+chunk: 2/7
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empiricism"
+category: "reference"
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+date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:11:00.706456+00:00"
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+---
+
+During the Middle Ages (from the 5th to the 15th century CE) Aristotle's theory of tabula rasa was developed by Islamic philosophers starting with Al Farabi (c. 872 – c. 951 CE), developing into an elaborate theory by Avicenna (c.  980 – 1037 CE) and demonstrated as a thought experiment by Ibn Tufail. For Avicenna (Ibn Sina), for example, the tabula rasa is a pure potentiality that is actualized through education, and knowledge is attained through "empirical familiarity with objects in this world from which one abstracts universal concepts" developed through a "syllogistic method of reasoning in which observations lead to propositional statements which when compounded lead to further abstract concepts". The intellect itself develops from a material intellect (al-'aql al-hayulani), which is a potentiality "that can acquire knowledge to the active intellect (al-'aql al-fa'il), the state of the human intellect in conjunction with the perfect source of knowledge". So the immaterial "active intellect", separate from any individual person, is still essential for understanding to occur.
+In the 12th century CE, the Andalusian Muslim philosopher and novelist Abu Bakr Ibn Tufail (known as "Abubacer" or "Ebu Tophail" in the West) included the theory of tabula rasa as a thought experiment in his Arabic philosophical novel, Hayy ibn Yaqdhan in which he depicted the development of the mind of a feral child "from a tabula rasa to that of an adult, in complete isolation from society" on a desert island, through experience alone. The Latin translation of his philosophical novel, entitled Philosophus Autodidactus, published by Edward Pococke the Younger in 1671, had an influence on John Locke's formulation of tabula rasa in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding.
+A similar Islamic theological novel, Theologus Autodidactus, was written by the Arab theologian and physician Ibn al-Nafis in the 13th century. It also dealt with the theme of empiricism through the story of a feral child on a desert island, but departed from its predecessor by depicting the development of the protagonist's mind through contact with society rather than in isolation from society.
+During the 13th century Thomas Aquinas adopted into scholasticism the Aristotelian position that the senses are essential to the mind. Bonaventure (1221–1274), one of Aquinas' strongest intellectual opponents, offered some of the strongest arguments in favour of the Platonic idea of the mind.
+
+=== Renaissance Italy ===
+
+In the late renaissance various writers began to question the medieval and classical understanding of knowledge acquisition in a more fundamental way. In political and historical writing Niccolò Machiavelli and his friend Francesco Guicciardini initiated a new realistic style of writing. Machiavelli in particular was scornful of writers on politics who judged everything in comparison to mental ideals and demanded that people should study the "effectual truth" instead. Their contemporary, Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) said, "If you find from your own experience that something is a fact and it contradicts what some authority has written down, then you must abandon the authority and base your reasoning on your own findings."
+Significantly, an empirical metaphysical system was developed by the Italian philosopher Bernardino Telesio which had an enormous impact on the development of later Italian thinkers, including Telesio's students Antonio Persio and Sertorio Quattromani, his contemporaries Thomas Campanella and Giordano Bruno, and later British philosophers such as Francis Bacon, who regarded Telesio as "the first of the moderns". Telesio's influence can also be seen on the French philosophers René Descartes and Pierre Gassendi.
+The decidedly anti-Aristotelian and anti-clerical music theorist Vincenzo Galilei (c. 1520 – 1591), father of Galileo and the inventor of monody, made use of the method in successfully solving musical problems, firstly, of tuning such as the relationship of pitch to string tension and mass in stringed instruments, and to volume of air in wind instruments; and secondly to composition, by his various suggestions to composers in his Dialogo della musica antica e moderna (Florence, 1581). The Italian word he used for "experiment" was esperimento. It is known that he was the essential pedagogical influence upon the young Galileo, his eldest son (cf. Coelho, ed. Music and Science in the Age of Galileo Galilei), arguably one of the most influential empiricists in history. Vincenzo, through his tuning research, found the underlying truth at the heart of the misunderstood myth of 'Pythagoras' hammers' (the square of the numbers concerned yielded those musical intervals, not the actual numbers, as believed), and through this and other discoveries that demonstrated the fallibility of traditional authorities, a radically empirical attitude developed, passed on to Galileo, which regarded "experience and demonstration" as the sine qua non of valid rational enquiry.
+
+=== British empiricism ===

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+title: "Empiricism"
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+
+British empiricism, a retrospective characterization, emerged during the 17th century as an approach to early modern philosophy and modern science. Although both integral to this overarching transition, Francis Bacon, in England, first advocated for empiricism in 1620, whereas René Descartes, in France, laid the main groundwork upholding rationalism around 1640. (Bacon's natural philosophy was influenced by Italian philosopher Bernardino Telesio and by Swiss physician Paracelsus.)  Contributing later in the 17th century, Thomas Hobbes and Baruch Spinoza are retrospectively identified likewise as an empiricist and a rationalist, respectively. In the Enlightenment of the late 17th century, John Locke in England, and in the 18th century, both George Berkeley in Ireland and David Hume in Scotland, all became leading exponents of empiricism, hence the dominance of empiricism in British philosophy. The distinction between rationalism and empiricism was not formally made until Immanuel Kant, in Germany, around 1780, who sought to merge the two views.
+In response to the early-to-mid-17th-century "continental rationalism", John Locke (1632–1704) proposed in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689) a very influential view wherein the only knowledge humans can have is a posteriori, i.e., based upon experience. Locke is famously attributed with holding the proposition that the human mind is a tabula rasa, a "blank tablet", in Locke's words "white paper", on which the experiences derived from sense impressions as a person's life proceeds are written. 
+There are two sources of our ideas: sensation and reflection. In both cases, a distinction is made between simple and complex ideas. The former are unanalysable, and are broken down into primary and secondary qualities. Primary qualities are essential for the object in question to be what it is. Without specific primary qualities, an object would not be what it is. For example, an apple is an apple because of the arrangement of its atomic structure. If an apple were structured differently, it would cease to be an apple. Secondary qualities are the sensory information we can perceive from its primary qualities. For example, an apple can be perceived in various colours, sizes, and textures but it is still identified as an apple. Therefore, its primary qualities dictate what the object essentially is, while its secondary qualities define its attributes. Complex ideas combine simple ones, and divide into substances, modes, and relations. According to Locke, our knowledge of things is a perception of ideas that are in accordance or discordance with each other, which is very different from the quest for certainty of Descartes.
+
+A generation later, the Irish Anglican bishop George Berkeley (1685–1753) determined that Locke's view immediately opened a door that would lead to eventual atheism. In response to Locke, he put forth in his Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (1710) an important challenge to empiricism in which things only exist either as a result of their being perceived, or by virtue of the fact that they are an entity doing the perceiving. (For Berkeley, God fills in for humans by doing the perceiving whenever humans are not around to do it.) In his text Alciphron, Berkeley maintained that any order humans may see in nature is the language or handwriting of God. Berkeley's approach to empiricism would later come to be called subjective idealism.
+Scottish philosopher David Hume (1711–1776) responded to Berkeley's criticisms of Locke, as well as other differences between early modern philosophers, and moved empiricism to a new level of skepticism. Hume argued in keeping with the empiricist view that all knowledge derives from sense experience, but he accepted that this has implications not normally acceptable to philosophers. He wrote for example, "Locke divides all arguments into demonstrative and probable. On this view, we must say that it is only probable that all men must die or that the sun will rise to-morrow, because neither of these can be demonstrated. But to conform our language more to common use, we ought to divide arguments into demonstrations, proofs, and probabilities—by ‘proofs’ meaning arguments from experience that leave no room for doubt or opposition." And,
+
+I believe the most general and most popular explication of this matter, is to say [See Mr. Locke, chapter of power.], that finding from experience, that there are several new productions in matter, such as the motions and variations of body, and concluding that there must somewhere be a power capable of producing them, we arrive at last by this reasoning at the idea of power and efficacy. But to be convinced that this explication is more popular than philosophical, we need but reflect on two very obvious principles. First, That reason alone can never give rise to any original idea, and secondly, that reason, as distinguished from experience, can never make us conclude, that a cause or productive quality is absolutely requisite to every beginning of existence. Both these considerations have been sufficiently explained: and therefore shall not at present be any farther insisted on.
+Hume divided all of human knowledge into two categories: relations of ideas and matters of fact (see also Kant's analytic-synthetic distinction). Mathematical and logical propositions (e.g. "that the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the two sides") are examples of the first, while propositions involving some contingent observation of the world (e.g. "the sun rises in the East") are examples of the second. All of people's "ideas", in turn, are derived from their "impressions". For Hume, an "impression" corresponds roughly with what we call a sensation. To remember or to imagine such impressions is to have an "idea". Ideas are therefore the faint copies of sensations.

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+title: "Empiricism"
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+
+Hume maintained that no knowledge, even the most basic beliefs about the natural world, can be conclusively established by reason.  Rather, he maintained, our beliefs are more a result of accumulated habits, developed in response to accumulated sense experiences. Among his many arguments Hume also added another important slant to the debate about scientific method—that of the problem of induction.  Hume argued that it requires inductive reasoning to arrive at the premises for the principle of inductive reasoning, and therefore the justification for inductive reasoning is a circular argument. Among Hume's conclusions regarding the problem of induction is that there is no certainty that the future will resemble the past.  Thus, as a simple instance posed by Hume, we cannot know with certainty by inductive reasoning that the sun will continue to rise in the East, but instead come to expect it to do so because it has repeatedly done so in the past.
+Hume concluded that such things as belief in an external world and belief in the existence of the self were not rationally justifiable. According to Hume these beliefs were to be accepted nonetheless because of their profound basis in instinct and custom.  Hume's lasting legacy, however, was the doubt that his skeptical arguments cast on the legitimacy of inductive reasoning, allowing many skeptics who followed to cast similar doubt.
+
+=== Phenomenalism ===
+
+Most of Hume's followers have disagreed with his conclusion that belief in an external world is rationally unjustifiable, contending that Hume's own principles implicitly contained the rational justification for such a belief, that is, beyond being content to let the issue rest on human instinct, custom and habit.  According to an extreme empiricist theory known as phenomenalism, anticipated by the arguments of both Hume and George Berkeley, a physical object is a kind of construction out of our experiences.
+Phenomenalism is the view that physical objects, properties, events (whatever is physical) are reducible to mental objects, properties, events. Ultimately, only mental objects, properties, events, exist—hence the closely related term subjective idealism. By the phenomenalistic line of thinking, to have a visual experience of a real physical thing is to have an experience of a certain kind of group of experiences.  This type of set of experiences possesses a constancy and coherence that is lacking in the set of experiences of which hallucinations, for example, are a part. As John Stuart Mill put it in the mid-19th century, matter is the "permanent possibility of sensation".
+Mill's empiricism went a significant step beyond Hume in still another respect: in maintaining that induction is necessary for all meaningful knowledge including mathematics.  As summarized by D.W. Hamlin:

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+
+[Mill] claimed that mathematical truths were merely very highly confirmed generalizations from experience; mathematical inference, generally conceived as deductive [and a priori] in nature, Mill set down as founded on induction.  Thus, in Mill's philosophy there was no real place for knowledge based on relations of ideas.  In his view logical and mathematical necessity is psychological; we are merely unable to conceive any other possibilities than those that logical and mathematical propositions assert. This is perhaps the most extreme version of empiricism known, but it has not found many defenders.
+Mill's empiricism thus held that knowledge of any kind is not from direct experience but an inductive inference from direct experience.  The problems other philosophers have had with Mill's position center around the following issues: Firstly, Mill's formulation encounters difficulty when it describes what direct experience is by differentiating only between actual and possible sensations.  This misses some key discussion concerning conditions under which such "groups of permanent possibilities of sensation" might exist in the first place.  Berkeley put God in that gap; the phenomenalists, including Mill, essentially left the question unanswered. 
+In the end, lacking an acknowledgement of an aspect of "reality" that goes beyond mere "possibilities of sensation", such a position leads to a version of subjective idealism. Questions of how floor beams continue to support a floor while unobserved, how trees continue to grow while unobserved and untouched by human hands, etc., remain unanswered, and perhaps unanswerable in these terms. Secondly, Mill's formulation leaves open the unsettling possibility that the "gap-filling entities are purely possibilities and not actualities at all".  Thirdly, Mill's position, by calling mathematics merely another species of inductive inference, misapprehends mathematics.  It fails to fully consider the structure and method of mathematical science, the products of which are arrived at through an internally consistent deductive set of procedures which do not, either today or at the time Mill wrote, fall under the agreed meaning of induction.
+The phenomenalist phase of post-Humean empiricism ended by the 1940s, for by that time it had become obvious that statements about physical things could not be translated into statements about actual and possible sense data.  If a physical object statement is to be translatable into a sense-data statement, the former must be at least deducible from the latter. But it came to be realized that there is no finite set of statements about actual and possible sense-data from which we can deduce even a single physical-object statement.  The translating or paraphrasing statement must be couched in terms of normal observers in normal conditions of observation. 
+There is, however, no finite set of statements that are couched in purely sensory terms and can express the satisfaction of the condition of the presence of a normal observer. According to phenomenalism, to say that a normal observer is present is to make the hypothetical statement that were a doctor to inspect the observer, the observer would appear to the doctor to be normal.  But, of course, the doctor himself must be a normal observer. If we are to specify this doctor's normality in sensory terms, we must make reference to a second doctor who, when inspecting the sense organs of the first doctor, would himself have to have the sense data a normal observer has when inspecting the sense organs of a subject who is a normal observer. And if we are to specify in sensory terms that the second doctor is a normal observer, we must refer to a third doctor, and so on (also see the third man).
+
+=== Logical empiricism ===

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+
+Logical empiricism (also logical positivism or neopositivism) was an early 20th-century attempt to synthesize the essential ideas of British empiricism (e.g. a strong emphasis on sensory experience as the basis for knowledge) with certain insights from mathematical logic that had been developed by Gottlob Frege  and Ludwig Wittgenstein. Some of the key figures in this movement were Otto Neurath, Moritz Schlick and the rest of the Vienna Circle, along with A. J. Ayer, Rudolf Carnap and Hans Reichenbach.
+The neopositivists subscribed to a notion of philosophy as the conceptual clarification of the methods, insights and discoveries of the sciences. They saw in the logical symbolism elaborated by Frege (1848–1925) and Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) a powerful instrument that could rationally reconstruct all scientific discourse into an ideal, logically perfect, language that would be free of the ambiguities and deformations of natural language. This gave rise to what they saw as metaphysical pseudoproblems and other conceptual confusions. By combining Frege's thesis that all mathematical truths are logical with the early Wittgenstein's idea that all logical truths are mere linguistic tautologies, they arrived at a twofold classification of all propositions: the "analytic" (a priori) and the "synthetic" (a posteriori). On this basis, they formulated a strong principle of demarcation between sentences that have sense and those that do not: the so-called "verification principle". Any sentence that is not purely logical, or is unverifiable, is devoid of meaning. As a result, most metaphysical, ethical, aesthetic and other traditional philosophical problems came to be considered pseudoproblems.
+In the extreme empiricism of the neopositivists—at least before the 1930s—any genuinely synthetic assertion must be reducible to an ultimate assertion (or set of ultimate assertions) that expresses direct observations or perceptions. In later years, Carnap and Neurath abandoned this sort of phenomenalism in favor of a rational reconstruction of knowledge into the language of an objective spatio-temporal physics.  That is, instead of translating sentences about physical objects into sense-data, such sentences were to be translated into so-called protocol sentences, for example, "X at location Y and at time T observes such and such".  The central theses of logical positivism (verificationism, the analytic–synthetic distinction, reductionism, etc.) came under sharp attack after World War II by thinkers such as Nelson Goodman, W. V. Quine, Hilary Putnam, Karl Popper, and Richard Rorty. By the late 1960s, it had become evident to most philosophers that the movement had pretty much run its course, though its influence is still significant among contemporary analytic philosophers such as Michael Dummett and other anti-realists.
+
+=== Pragmatism ===
+In the late 19th and early 20th century, several forms of pragmatic philosophy arose.  The ideas of pragmatism, in its various forms, developed mainly from discussions between Charles Sanders Peirce and William James when both men were at Harvard in the 1870s.  James popularized the term "pragmatism", giving Peirce full credit for its patrimony, but Peirce later demurred from the tangents that the movement was taking, and redubbed what he regarded as the original idea with the name of "pragmaticism".  Along with its pragmatic theory of truth, this perspective integrates the basic insights of empirical (experience-based) and rational (concept-based) thinking.
+
+Charles Peirce (1839–1914) was highly influential in laying the groundwork for today's empirical scientific method. Although Peirce severely criticized many elements of Descartes' peculiar brand of rationalism, he did not reject rationalism outright.  Indeed, he concurred with the main ideas of rationalism, most importantly the idea that rational concepts can be meaningful and the idea that rational concepts necessarily go beyond the data given by empirical observation.  In later years he even emphasized the concept-driven side of the then ongoing debate between strict empiricism and strict rationalism, in part to counterbalance the excesses to which some of his cohorts had taken pragmatism under the "data-driven" strict-empiricist view.
+Among Peirce's major contributions was to place inductive reasoning and deductive reasoning in a complementary rather than competitive mode, the latter of which had been the primary trend among the educated since David Hume wrote a century before.  To this, Peirce added the concept of abductive reasoning.  The combined three forms of reasoning serve as a primary conceptual foundation for the empirically based scientific method today.  Peirce's approach "presupposes that (1) the objects of knowledge are real things, (2) the characters (properties) of real things do not depend on our perceptions of them, and (3) everyone who has sufficient experience of real things will agree on the truth about them.  According to Peirce's doctrine of fallibilism, the conclusions of science are always tentative. The rationality of the scientific method does not depend on the certainty of its conclusions, but on its self-corrective character: by continued application of the method science can detect and correct its own mistakes, and thus eventually lead to the discovery of truth".

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+
+In his Harvard "Lectures on Pragmatism" (1903), Peirce enumerated what he called the "three cotary propositions of pragmatism" (L: cos, cotis whetstone), saying that they "put the edge on the maxim of pragmatism".  First among these, he listed the peripatetic-thomist observation mentioned above, but he further observed that this link between sensory perception and intellectual conception is a two-way street.  That is, it can be taken to say that whatever we find in the intellect is also incipiently in the senses.  Hence, if theories are theory-laden then so are the senses, and perception itself can be seen as a species of abductive inference, its difference being that it is beyond control and hence beyond critique—in a word, incorrigible.  This in no way conflicts with the fallibility and revisability of scientific concepts, since it is only the immediate percept in its unique individuality or "thisness"—what the Scholastics called its haecceity—that stands beyond control and correction.  Scientific concepts, on the other hand, are general in nature, and transient sensations do in another sense find correction within them.  This notion of perception as abduction has received periodic revivals in artificial intelligence and cognitive science research, most recently for instance with the work of Irvin Rock on indirect perception.
+Around the beginning of the 20th century, William James (1842–1910) coined the term "radical empiricism" to describe an offshoot of his form of pragmatism, which he argued could be dealt with separately from his pragmatism—though in fact the two concepts are intertwined in James's published lectures. James maintained that the empirically observed "directly apprehended universe needs ... no extraneous trans-empirical connective support", by which he meant to rule out the perception that there can be any value added by seeking supernatural explanations for natural phenomena.  James' "radical empiricism" is thus not radical in the context of the term "empiricism", but is instead fairly consistent with the modern use of the term "empirical". His method of argument in arriving at this view, however, still readily encounters debate within philosophy even today.
+John Dewey (1859–1952) modified James' pragmatism to form a theory known as instrumentalism.  The role of sense experience in Dewey's theory is crucial, in that he saw experience as a unified totality of things through which everything else is interrelated.  Dewey's basic thought, in accordance with empiricism, was that reality is determined by past experience.  Therefore, humans adapt their past experiences of things to perform experiments upon and test the pragmatic values of such experience.  The value of such experience is measured experientially and scientifically, and the results of such tests generate ideas that serve as instruments for future experimentation, in physical sciences as in ethics.  Thus, ideas in Dewey's system retain their empiricist flavour in that they are only known a posteriori.
+
+== See also ==
+
+== Notes ==
+
+== References ==
+
+== External links ==
+
+Fasko, Manuel; West, Peter. "British Empiricism". In Fieser, James; Dowden, Bradley (eds.). Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. ISSN 2161-0002. OCLC 37741658.
+Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). "Rationalism vs. Empiricism". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. ISSN 1095-5054. OCLC 429049174.
+Rationalism vs. Empiricism at the Indiana Philosophy Ontology Project
+Empiricism on In Our Time at the BBC
+Empiricist Man

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+title: "Epistemic cultures"
+chunk: 1/1
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemic_cultures"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:11:03.032436+00:00"
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+---
+
+Epistemic cultures (often used in plural form) is a concept developed in the nineties by anthropologist Karin Knorr Cetina in her book Epistemic Cultures: How the Sciences Make Knowledge. Opposed to a monist vision of scientific activity (according to which, would exist  a unique scientific method), Knorr Cetina defines the concept of epistemic cultures as a diversity of scientific activities according to different scientific fields, not only in methods and tools, but also in types of reasonings, ways to establish evidence, and relationships between theory and empiry. Knorr Cetina's work is seminal in questioning the so-called unity of science.
+
+
+== Knorr Cetina's anthropology ==
+In practice, Knorr Cetina compares two contemporary important scientific fields: High energy physics and molecular biology. She worked as an anthropologist within two laboratories, along the line of the laboratory anthropology work by Latour and Woolgar. Her anthropological work is comparative and the two chosen scientific fields are highly mediaticized and easily distinguishable.
+Epistemic cultures as a philosophical concept has been perused by numerous philosophical, anthropological or historical studies of science.
+
+
+== Two distinct publication regimes ==
+High energy physics and molecular biology are very different as scientific fields belonging to two different epistemic cultures. They also are very different in terms of academic authorship. Biagioli describes this difference in terms of publications culture regarding number of authors per paper, distribution of contributorship within authors, preprint policy and he precisely chooses to oppose the very same domains.
+
+
+== References ==

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+---
+title: "European and American voyages of scientific exploration"
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+
+The era of European and American voyages of scientific exploration followed the Age of Discovery and were inspired by a new confidence in science and reason that arose in the Age of Enlightenment. Maritime expeditions in the Age of Discovery were a means of expanding colonial empires, establishing new trade routes and extending diplomatic and trade relations to new territories, but with the Enlightenment scientific curiosity became a new motive for exploration to add to the commercial and political ambitions of the past. See also List of Arctic expeditions and List of Antarctic expeditions.
+
+== Maritime exploration in the Age of Discovery ==
+
+From the early 15th century to the early 17th century the Age of Discovery had, through Portuguese seafarers, and later, Spanish, Dutch, French and English, opened up southern Africa, the Americas (New World), Asia and Oceania to European eyes: Bartholomew Dias had sailed around the Cape of southern Africa in search of a trade route to India; Christopher Columbus, on four journeys across the Atlantic, had prepared the way for European colonisation of the New World; Ferdinand Magellan had commanded the first expedition to sail across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans to reach the Maluku Islands and was continued by Juan Sebastián Elcano, completing the first circumnavigation of the Earth.
+The Francisco Hernández expedition (1570–1577) (Spanish: Comisión de Francisco Hernández a Nueva España) is considered to be the first scientific expedition to the New World, led by Francisco Hernández de Toledo, a naturalist and physician of the Court of King Philip II, who was highly regarded in Spain because of his works on herbal medicine.
+Among some of the most important achievements of the expedition were the discovery and subsequent introduction in Europe of a number of new plants that did not exist in the Old World, but that quickly gained acceptance and become very popular among European consumers, such as pineapples, cocoa, corn, and many others.
+During the 17th century the naval hegemony started to shift from the Portuguese and Spanish to the Dutch and then the British and French. The new era of scientific exploration began in the late 17th century as scientists, and in particular natural historians, established scientific societies that published their researches in specialist journals. The British Royal Society was founded in 1660 and encouraged the scientific rigour of empiricism with its principles of careful observation and deduction. Activities of early members of the Royal Society served as models for later maritime exploration. Hans Sloane (1650–1753) was elected a member in 1685 and travelled to Jamaica from 1687 to 1689 as physician to the Duke of Albemarle (1653–1688) who had been appointed Governor of Jamaica. In Jamaica Sloane collected numerous specimens which were carefully described and illustrated in a published account of his stay. Sloane bequeathed his vast collection of natural history 'curiosities' and library of over 50,000 bound volumes to the nation, prompting the establishment in 1753 of the British Museum. His travels also made him an extremely wealthy man as he patented a recipe that combined milk with the fruit of Theobroma cacao (cocoa) he saw growing in Jamaica, to produce milk chocolate.  Books of distinguished social figures like the intellectual commentator Jean Jacques Rousseau, Director of the Paris Museum of Natural History Comte de Buffon, and scientist-travellers like Joseph Banks, and Charles Darwin, along with the romantic and often fanciful travelogues of intrepid explorers, increased the desire of European governments and the general public for accurate information about the newly discovered distant lands.
+One of the earliest French expeditions on the coasts of Africa, South America and through the Strait of Magellan was made by a squadron of French men-of-war under the command of M. de Gennes in 1695–97. The young French explorer, engineer and hydrographer François Froger described this expedition in his A Relation of a Voyage (1699).

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+
+== Maritime exploration in the Age of Enlightenment ==
+By the 18th century maritime exploration had become safer and more efficient with technical innovations that vastly improved navigation and cartography: improvements were made to the theodolite, octant, precision clocks, as well as the compass, telescope, and general shipbuilding techniques.
+From the mid-18th century through the 19th century scientific missions mapped the newly discovered regions, brought back to Europe the newly discovered fauna and flora, made hydrological, astronomical and meteorological observations and improved the methods of navigation. This stimulated great advances in the scientific disciplines of natural history, botany, zoology, ichthyology, conchology, taxonomy, medicine, geography, geology, mineralogy, hydrology, oceanography, physics, meteorology etc. – all contributing to the sense of "improvement" and "progress" that characterized the Enlightenment. Often these missions brought together diverse researchers of different ethnic and regional background, thus creating a "transnational culture of expertise". Artists were used to record landscapes and indigenous peoples, while natural history illustrators captured the appearance of organisms before they deteriorated after collection. Some of the world's finest natural history illustrations were produced at this time and the illustrators changed from informed amateurs to fully trained professionals acutely aware of the need for scientific accuracy.
+By the middle of the 19th century, all of the world's major land masses, and most of the minor ones, had been discovered by Europeans and their coastlines charted. This marked the end of this phase of science as the Challenger Expedition of 1872–76 began exploring the deep seas beyond a depth of 20 or 30 meters. In spite of the growing community of scientists, for nearly 200 years science had been the preserve of wealthy amateurs, educated middle classes and clerics. At the start of the 18th century, most voyages were privately organized and financed, but by the second half of the century these scientific expeditions, like James Cook's three Pacific voyages under the auspices of the British Admiralty, were instigated by government. In the late 19th century, when this phase of science was drawing to a close, it became possible to earn a living as a professional scientist although photography was beginning to replace the illustrators. The exploratory sailing ship had gradually evolved into the modern research vessels. From now on maritime research in new European colonies in America, Africa, Australia, India and elsewhere, would be carried out by researchers within the occupied territories themselves.
+
+=== Chronology of voyages ===
+This compendium of voyages of scientific exploration provides an overview of maritime scientific research carried out at the time of the Enlightenment in Europe.
+Published journals and accounts are included with the individual voyages.
+
+==== 1735–39: French Geodesic Mission ====
+The French Geodesic Mission to the Equator was an 18th-century expedition to what is now Ecuador carried out for the purpose of measuring the roundness of the Earth and measuring the length of a degree of latitude at the Equator. The mission was one of the first geodesic (or geodetic) missions carried out under modern scientific principles, and the first major international scientific expedition.
+
+Ships: from Spain to Colombia, El Conquistador and Incendio; from France to Colombia, Portefaix; from Colombia to Ecuador, San Cristóbal; from Ecuador to Chile and return, Nuestra Señora de Belén and Rosa, and finally from Ecuador to France  Liz, Nuestra Señora de la Deliberanza, Luis Erasmo, Marquesa de Antin (among a convoy of 53 ships).
+French astronomers: Charles Marie de La Condamine (1701–1774), Pierre Bouguer (1698–1758) and Louis Godin (1704–1760).
+Spanish geographers: Jorge Juan y Santacilla (1713–1773) and Antonio de Ulloa (1716–1795).
+Assistants: Joseph de Jussieu (1704–1779) and Jean Godin (1713–1792).
+Ecuadoran geographer and topographer: Pedro Maldonado (1704–1748).
+Publications: Relación histórica del viaje a la América meridional, Jorge Juan and Ulloa, 1748; Figure de la terre determine, Bouguer, 1749; Journal du voyage, La Condamine, 1751; Le procès des étoiles, 1735–71, ISBN 978-2-232-10176-2, 978-2-232-11862-3.
+
+==== 1764–66: HMS Dolphin ====
+
+Considered the first scientific voyage undertaken by the Royal Navy, its primary purpose was the discovery of new lands in the South Atlantic Ocean. It was during this trip that several islands of the Tuamotu archipelago were discovered. Dolphin was a 24-gun post ship launched in 1751 and used as a survey ship from 1764, making two circumnavigations under the command of John Byron and Samuel Wallis. She was broken up in 1777.
+
+Captain: John Byron (1723–1786).
+Publications: J. Byron, A Voyage round the world. (London, 1767), translated into French the same year under the title Journey around the world in 1764 and 1765, on the English warship "The Dolphin", commissioned by Vice-Admiral Byron ... (Paris).
+
+==== 1766–68: HMS Dolphin and HMS Swallow ====
+A circumnavigation by the English navigator Samuel Wallis, on board HMS Dolphin, accompanied by Philip Carteret on the consort ship Swallow. In August 1766, the two ships passed through the Strait of Magellan. In December 1766, conflicts between the two captains led to the separation of the ships. Dolphin reached Tahiti in June 1767, where Wallis and the British opened fire on the native Tahitians with the ship’s cannons, killing many Tahitians. There was also an exploitative trade and the transfer of disease, which was often devastating for indigenous societies. Meanwhile, Philip Carteret in Swallow explored and studied the Solomon Islands, New Ireland (island) (now part of Papua New Guinea) and the islands of the Indonesian archipelago (Sulawesi among others). The expedition also stopped in Batavia from June to September 1768 and returned to London in March 1769.
+
+Captains: Samuel Wallis (1728–1795) (leader of the expedition), Philip Carteret (1733–1796) (Commander of Swallow which was separated from the Dolphin and returned to its point of departure a year later).
+Second Lieutenant: Tobias Furneaux (1735–1781).
+
+==== 1766:  HMS Niger ====
+This British ship explored Newfoundland and Labrador with Constantine Phipps aboard and Thomas Adams (Captain?), and with Joseph Banks also aboard. HMS Niger was a 33-gun fifth-rate launched in 1759, converted to a prison ship in 1810 and renamed Negro in 1813. She was sold in 1814.

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_and_American_voyages_of_scientific_exploration-10.md

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+---
+title: "European and American voyages of scientific exploration"
+chunk: 11/11
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_and_American_voyages_of_scientific_exploration"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:11:04.350296+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+Albatross belonged to the Committee on Fisheries of the United States and it carried out numerous scientific expeditions under the direction of Alexander Emanuel Agassiz (1835–1910). The primary goal was an inventory of the Pacific fishery reserves but many other observations are carried out by Townsend and other scientists.
+
+Captain: Zera Tanner (1835–1906)
+Naturalist: Charles Haskins Townsend (1859–1944)
+
+==== 1897–98: Lila and Mattie ====
+Zoologist Walter Rothschild commissioned the Webster-Harris Expedition to the Galápagos Islands from June 1897 to February 1898. This expedition on the schooner Lila & Mattie is well-described in the 1983 book titled Dear Lord Rothschild by Miriam Rothschild. In the 1936 book Oceanic Birds of South America by Robert Cushman Murphy, Rollo Beck describes the seminal telegram from C.M Harris that started his long and important association with the Galápagos Islands. The original of this telegram is in the Rollo Beck Collection in the California Academy of Sciences Archives. There is also a photo from Beck's Sierra Nevada collecting trip in the archives of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology on the University of California, Berkeley campus. The story of buried treasure on Tower Island connected with this trip was apparently known to Captain Lindbridge during this voyage, but the information was not revealed until after the group had left Tower Island. This trip lasted from June 1897 to February 1898, after having started on a tragic note with the deaths of three of the original crew to Yellow Fever, and having to reconstitute the expedition in San Francisco, California.
+
+Naturalist: Rollo Beck (1870–1950)
+Organizer: Frank Blake Webster
+Organizer: Charles Miller Harris
+
+==== 1897–98: Belgica ====
+Adrien de Gerlache was an officer in the Belgian Royal Navy who led the Belgian Antarctic Expedition of 1897 to 1899. He acquired Le Patria in 1896 renaming it Belgica. He left Antwerp on 16 August 1897 passing winter in the Antarctic before returning to Belgium on 5 November 1898.
+
+Captain: Adrien de Gerlache (1866–1934)
+Naturalist: Emil Racovita (1868–1947)
+
+==== 1898–99: Valdivia ====
+
+A German deep-sea expedition exploring in Antarctic regions, the Valdivia being a steamship in the Hamburg-American line of steamers. The subscription was launched by Georg von Neumayer (1826–1909) and only consisted of a single vessel instead of the two planned. The expedition quickly reached the Cape of Good Hope where the study of deep waters began. The ship reached Antarctic pack ice and rediscovered Bouvet Island followed by the Kerguelen Islands. For the first time, evidence of deep water in this region was provided by survey. The Valdivia then passed to the Indian Ocean, studying the coast of Sumatra before returning to its port of origin 29 April 1899.
+
+Captain: Adalbert Krech (1852–1907)
+Naturalist: Carl Chun (1852–1914).
+Publication: C. Chun (1903), "Aus den Tiefen des Weltmeeres".
+
+== See also ==
+Circumnavigation
+History of navigation
+List of explorers
+List of circumnavigations
+United States Coast and Geodetic Survey
+U.S. National Geodetic Survey
+Chronology of European exploration of Asia
+Timeline of European exploration
+List of Arctic expeditions
+List of Antarctic expeditions
+Apostles of Linnaeus
+Capture of Manuel Briones
+
+== References ==
+
+== Bibliography ==

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_and_American_voyages_of_scientific_exploration-2.md

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+---
+title: "European and American voyages of scientific exploration"
+chunk: 3/11
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_and_American_voyages_of_scientific_exploration"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:11:04.350296+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+Captain: Thomas Adams (?–1770)
+Also aboard: Joseph Banks (1743–1820) and Constantine Phipps.
+
+==== 1766–69: La Boudeuse and L'Étoile ====
+
+Ordered by Louis XV, it was the first trip around the world initiated by the French. The discovery and description of Tahiti by Louis Antoine de Bougainville in his trip influenced several Enlightenment philosophers including Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–78). The expedition was organised by Louis Antoine de Bougainville and received the support of such prominent figures of the time as Charles de Brosses (1709–77), Comte de Buffon (1707–88), Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis (1698–1759) and Jérôme Lalande (1732–1807).
+The expedition aimed to discover new territories available for settlement, to open a new route to reach China, to found new outlets for the French East India Company and, finally, discover acclimatable spices for the Isle de France (now Mauritius).
+
+Captains: Louis Antoine de Bougainville (1729–1811) Chief of expedition, Nicolas Pierre Duclos-Guyot (Captain of La Boudeuse), François Chenard de la Giraudais (1727–1775) (Captain of L'Étoile)
+Naturalists: Philibert Commerçon (1727–73), Jeanne Baré (1740–1807)
+Astronomer: Pierre-Antoine Véron (1736–70)
+Cartographer: Charles Routier de Romainville (1742–92?)
+Publication: Louis Antoine de Bougainville, Journey Around the World by the Commander of the La Boudeuse and L'Étoile, in 1766, 1767, 1768 and 1769" (Paris, 1771)
+
+==== 1768–71: HMS Endeavour ====
+
+An expedition to observe the transit of Venus across the Sun (in 1769) that included the discovery of new Islands, Tuamotu and Society Islands, the first circumnavigation of New Zealand and charting of the East coast of New Holland.
+
+Captain: James Cook (1728–1779)
+Naturalists: Sir Joseph Banks (1743–1820) and Daniel Solander (1733–1782)
+Astronomer: Charles Green (1735–1771)
+Artist: Sydney Parkinson (1745–1771)
+Publications: "A Journal of a voyage round the world [printed], in His Majesty's ship Endeavour, in the years 1768, 1769, 1770, and 1771… to which is added, a Concise vocabulary of the language of Otahitee" (London, 1771). The identity of the authors of this report remains controversial because different authors attribute it to Cook, to Banks, Solander as well as various officers having shared in the voyage. It is translated into French under the title of "Journal of a voyage around the world, 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771; containing the various events of the voyage; with the relationship of the lands newly discovered in the méridional… hemisphere " (Paris, 1772).John Hawkesworth (c. 1715 – 1773) is commissioned by the Admiralty to make a synthesis of different shipments under the title "An Account of the Voyages undertaken… for making discoveries in the Southern Hemisphere and performed by Commodore Byrone John Byron, Captain Hallis, Captain Carteret and Captain Cook (from 1702 to 1771) drawn up from the Journals…" (London, three volumes, 1773).
+
+==== 1771–72: Isle de France and Le Nécessaire ====
+Expedition to harvest spices for production on Mauritius, to prevent the monopoly of their trade by the Dutch.
+
+Captains: Chevalier de Coëtivi (Isle of France) and Mr. Cordé (Le Nécessaire)
+Naturalist: Pierre Sonnerat (1748–1814)
+Publication: P. Sonnerat, Trip to New Guinea, which is the description of places, the physical and moral observations, and details about the naturelle… history (Paris, 1776)
+
+==== 1771–72: La Fortune and Le Gros-Ventre ====
+Exploration of the southern Indian Ocean and the shipping routes to India.
+
+Captains: Yves-Joseph de Kerguelen-Trémarec (1734–1797), Louis Aleno de St Aloüarn (1738–1772)
+
+==== 1772: Sir Lawrence ====
+An expedition in the brig Sir Lawrence exploring Iceland and the islands along the West coast of Scotland.
+
+Captain: John Gore (1772–1836)
+Naturalists: Joseph Banks (1743–1820) and Daniel Solander (1733–1782)
+
+==== 1772–75: HMS Resolution and HMS Adventure ====
+
+Cook's second voyage in Resolution and Adventure around the world. He again visited New Zealand, sailed near the Antarctic and discovered many islands in the Pacific. Swedish Sparrman embarked during a stopover at the Cape.
+
+Captains: James Cook (1728–1779) (Resolution) expedition leader, Charles Clerke and Tobias Furneaux (1735–1781) (Adventure)
+Surgeon-naturalist: William Anderson (1750–1788)
+Naturalists: Johann Reinhold Forster (1729–1798), Georg Forster (1754–1794) and Anders Sparrman (1748–1820)
+Astronomers: William Wales (c. 1734 – 1798), William Bayly (1737–1810)
+Aboard as crew member George Vancouver, also to become a famous Explorer
+Publications: Cook's journals; also the two Forsters each released an account of this journey (Georg A Voyage Round the World (1777), Reinhold Observations Made during a Voyage round the World (1778)).
+
+==== 1773: HMS Racehorse and HMS Carcass ====
+
+A British expedition to explore the Arctic Sea. The two ships reached Svalbard before turning back because of the ice. The teenage Horatio Nelson was a midshipman aboard HMS Carcass.
+
+Captain: Constantine John Phipps (1744–1792)
+Surgeon-naturalist: Charles Irving, assisted by Olaudah Equiano
+Astronomer: Israel Lyons (1739–1775)
+Publication: C.J. Phipps (1774), A Voyage towards the north pole undertaken ....
+
+==== 1773–74: Le Roland and L'Oiseau ====
+Exploration of the southern Indian Ocean.
+
+Captain: Yves-Joseph de Kerguelen-Trémarec (1734–1797)
+Naturalist: Jean Guillaume Bruguière (1749 or 1750–1798)
+Astronomer: Joseph Lepaute Dagelet
+
+==== 1776–80: HMS Resolution and HMS Discovery ====
+
+Cook's Third Voyage to find the Northwest Passage by crossing the Bering Strait. Cook was killed in the Hawaiian archipelago.
+
+Captains: James Cook (1728–1779) (Resolution) and Charles Clerke (1741–1779) (Discovery)
+Surgeon-naturalists: William Anderson (1750–1788) and William Ellis (1747–1810)
+Astronomer: William Bayly (1737–1810), assistant astronomer Joseph Billings (1758–1806)
+Illustrator: John Webber (1750–1793)
+Crew members: George Vancouver (1757–1798) was to become a celebrated explorer himself and William Bligh (1754–1817) who would later command HMS Bounty, James King (1750–1784) was second lieutenant and shared astronomical duties with Cook on Resolution.
+
+==== 1785–88: Boussole and Astrolabe ====
+
+French King Louis XVI inspired by Cook's voyages mounted his own expedition under the direction of de Lapérouse. Cook's anti-scorbutic remedies to eradicate scurvy were applied successfully. Lamanon and twelve other members of the expedition were massacred by natives at Vanuatu where they were looking for water. The two ships disappeared in the Solomon Islands, at Vanikoro, during a violent storm.

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_and_American_voyages_of_scientific_exploration-3.md

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+---
+title: "European and American voyages of scientific exploration"
+chunk: 4/11
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_and_American_voyages_of_scientific_exploration"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:11:04.350296+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+Captain: Jean-François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse (1741–1788) (on the  Boussole) and Paul Antoine Fleuriot de Langle (1744–1787) (on the Astrolabe)
+Chief Engineer: Paul Mérault Monneron (1748–1788)
+Geologist: Robert de Lamanon (1752–1787)
+Artists: the uncle and nephew Prevost, Duché De Vancy
+Naturalists: Jean-André Mongez (1751 – c. 1788)
+Interpreter of Russian: Barthélemy de Lesseps (1766–1834) landed at Petropavlovsk, and in charge of bringing to France the log, maps and drawings of the trip.
+
+==== 1785–88: King George ====
+Global circumnavigation.
+
+Captain: Nathaniel Portlock
+
+==== 1785–94: Slava Rossii ====
+A Russian expedition commanded by the British Captain Joseph Billings, astronomer on Cook's third voyage. This expedition lasted more than ten years attempting, unsuccessfully, to find the Northwest Passage that had remained undiscovered after Cook's explorations.
+
+Captain: Joseph Billings (c. 1758 – 1806)
+Naturalists: Carl Heinrich Merck and Carl Krebs
+Surgeons-naturalists: Michael Robeck and Peter Allegretti
+Cartographer: Gavriil Sarytchev
+Publications: J. Billings, An Account of a Geographical and Astronomical expedition to the Northern parts of Russia. (1802), translated into French the same year under the title of Voyage made by order of Empress Catherine II Russia, in the North of the Asian Russian the icy sea, in the sea on the coasts of America, from 1785 until 1794, by commodore Billings and Anadyr (Paris, 1802); Peter Simon Pallas (1741–1811), Zoographia Rosso – Asiatica (1811), where he described the species discovered by this expedition.
+
+==== 1790–91: La Solide ====
+The Solide expedition was the second successful circumnavigation by the French, after that by Bougainville. It occurred from 1790 to 1792 but remains little known due to its mostly commercial aims in the fur trade between the northwest American coast and China.
+
+Captain: Étienne Marchand (1755–1793)
+
+==== 1789–94: Descubierta and Atrevida ====
+
+The Spanish Malaspina Expedition explored the coasts of Spanish possessions in America and Alaska, always looking for the Northwest Passage. More than 70 crates of natural history specimens were sent to Madrid. On return Captain Malaspina was forced into exile because of his ideas, suggesting, among other things, that Spain abandon the military domination of its colonies in favour of a Federation. The scientific journal of the trip was lost but recovered in 1885.
+
+Captains: Alessandro Malaspina (1754–1810) (Descubierta) and José de Bustamante y Guerra (1759–1825) (Atrevida)
+Naturalists: Antonio Pineda (1751–1792), Thaddäus Haenke (1761–1817), Luis Née (c. 1789 – 1794) and Tomas de Suria
+Artist: José del Pozo and José Guío
+Publication: Pedro de Novo y Colson (1846–1931), Viaje político-científico alrededor del mundo: por las corbetas Descubierta y Atrevida al mando los capitanes navío d. Alejandro Malaspina y Don José de Bustamante y Guerra, desde 1789 á 1794. (Madrid, 1885).
+
+==== 1791–94: La Recherche and L'Espérance ====
+
+An expedition to find the two vessels commanded by Jean-François de La Pérouse (1741–1788), and of which there was no news after they had left Port Jackson heading for southern Tasmania and southern Australia. The two captains of the search expedition both perished en route: Captain Kermadec died in May 1793 of tuberculosis and Captain d'Entrecasteaux died of scurvy in July of the same year. The expedition was headed by a royalist, and heard of The Terror in France when putting into the Dutch colonies. The crew was arrested and collections of natural history confiscated and offered by the Dutch to the British. These were however, on the express request of the scientist Joseph Banks (1743–1820), returned to France.
+
+Captains: Antoine Bruni d'Entrecasteaux (1737–1793) (Recherche) and Jean-Michel de Kermadec (1748–1793) (Espérance)
+Naturalists: Jacques-Julien de Labillardière (1755–1834), Claude Riche (1762–1798), Jean Blavier (1764–1828), the father Louis Ventenat (1765–1794) and Louis Deschamps (1765–1842)
+Hydrographer: Charles-François Beautemps-Beaupré (1766–1854)
+Gardener: Félix Delahaye (1767–1829)
+Artist: Piron (?–1796)
+Publication: J.H. La Billardière, Relation of the voyage for the Perugia, made by order of the constituent Assembly during the years 1791, 1792 and during the first and second years of the Republic Françoise (Paris, 1799); Elizabeth Rossel, Voyage of Entrecasteaux, sent for Lapérouse, 2 vols, 1809.
+
+==== 1791–93: HMS Providence ====
+The Royal Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce offered a reward of fifty pounds for living breadfruit plants. Bligh completed this in Providence, his second mission to collect breadfruit plants and other botanical specimens from the Pacific. These he transported to the West Indies, specimens being given to the Royal Botanic Gardens in Saint Vincent. This expedition was a success, returning to the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew with 1,283 plants including varieties of apple, pear, oranges and mangoes. In addition to these specimens, the expedition accomplished many observations and cartographic surveys in the South Seas.
+
+Captain: William Bligh (1754–1817)
+Surgeon-naturalist: Thomas Dancer (c. 1750 – 1811)
+
+==== 1791–95: HMS Discovery and HMS Chatham ====
+
+A mission to the South Seas and Pacific Northwest coast of America. In 1791, Discovery left England with Chatham. Both ships anchored at Cape Town before exploring the south coast of Australia. In King George Sound, the Discovery's naturalist and surgeon Archibald Menzies collected various plant species including Banksia grandis, the first recording of the genus Banksia from Western Australia. The two ships sailed to Hawaiʻi where Vancouver named Kamehameha I. Chatham and Discovery then sailed on to the Northwest Pacific. Over the course of the next four years, Vancouver surveyed the northern Pacific Ocean coast in Discovery wintering in Spanish California or Hawaiʻi. Discovery's primary mission was to exert British sovereignty over this part of the Northwest Coast following the hand-over of the Spanish Fort San Miguel at Nootka Sound, although exploration in co-operation with the Spanish was seen as an important secondary objective. Exploration work was successful as relations with the Spanish went well; resupply in California was especially helpful. Vancouver and the Spanish commandant Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra were on such good terms that the original name of Vancouver Island was actually Quadra and Vancouver's Island.
+
+Captains: George Vancouver (1757–1798) (Discovery) and William Robert Broughton (1763–1822) (Chatham)
+Naturalist: Archibald Menzies (1754–1842)
+Physician-naturalist: Alexander Cranstoun
+
+==== 1800–04: Le Géographe and Naturaliste ====

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_and_American_voyages_of_scientific_exploration-4.md

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+---
+title: "European and American voyages of scientific exploration"
+chunk: 5/11
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_and_American_voyages_of_scientific_exploration"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:11:04.350296+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+This expedition was organised to establish a permanent colonial presence in the South Seas before the British, concentrating on the mapping of the coast of the Australia and New Guinea. Nicolas Baudin died in Mauritius in 1803, another naturalist on the island of Timor, two other naturalists chose to stay on the island and two astronomers died of dysentery. Péron, assisted by his friend Lesueur, managed to gather a vast zoological collection. Naturaliste returned to France in 1803 with a part of the collections. Captain Baudin bought a schooner, the Casuarina, at the British settlement of Port Jackson in Australia. Baudin was replaced by Pierre Bernard Milius (1773–1829).
+
+Commanders: Nicolas Baudin (1754–1803) (Le Géographe) and Jacques Hamelin (1768–1839) (Le Naturaliste).
+Physician, surgeon (first doctor in the Navy) and biologist: Pierre François Keraudren (1769–1858) (Le Géographe).
+Naturalists: Jean Baptiste Leschenault de la Tour (1773–1826), René Maugé Cely, Stanislas Levillain (1774–1801), François Péron (1775–1810), Jean-Baptiste Bory de Saint-Vincent (1778–1846) (left the expedition to Mauritius), Désiré Dumont, André Michaux (1746–1803)
+Artist: Charles-Alexandre Lesueur (1778–1846) assisted by Nicolas-Martin Petit (1777–1804)
+Astronomers: Pierre-François Bernier (1779–1803) and Frédéric de Bissy (1768–1803)
+Cartographer: Charles-Pierre Boullanger
+Geographer: Pierre Faure (1777–1855)
+Mineralogist: Louis Depuch, Joseph Charles Bailly
+Publications: F. Péron, Voyage of discovery to the southern lands (three volumes, Paris, 1807–1816); many species of birds are described by Louis Pierre Vieillot (1748–1831) in the New Dictionary of Natural History (1816–1819).
+
+==== 1801–03: HMS Investigator ====
+
+The first circumnavigation of Australia. The work of scientific observation was interrupted due to damage and many specimens transferred to HMS Porpoise were lost when it sank. The observations of Brown on the flora of this continent were the most extensive at this time.
+
+Captain: Matthew Flinders (1774–1814).
+Naturalist: Robert Brown (1773–1858)
+Physician-naturalist: Hugh Bell
+Mineralogist: John Allen
+Astronomer: John Crosley
+Artists: Ferdinand Bauer (1760–1826) and William Westall (1781–1850)
+Publication: M. Flinders, A Voyage to Terra Australis, undertaken for the purpose of completing the discovery of that vast country and prosecuted in the years 1801, 1802 and 1803 ... (two volumes, 1814).
+
+==== 1803–06: Nadezhda and Neva ====
+
+The first Russian circumnavigation of the world was intended to establish a link with Russian possessions in America, the transport of goods at that time being via Siberia (a journey lasting about two years). The second objective, which was not achieved, was to establish trade and diplomatic links with Japan. This expedition took place during the rule of emperor Alexander I (1777–1825).
+Nadezhda and Neva explored the Aleutian Islands, Sakhalin and discovered the mouth of the Love River. They also visited the Marquesas Islands and Hawaii. Baron von Langsdorff left the expedition in 1805 to explore the Interior of Alaska and California. Thirteen cases of natural history specimens were shipped to the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences.
+
+Captains: Adam Johann von Krusenstern (1770–1846) (Nadezhda) and Yuri Fyodorovich Lisianski (Neva)
+Naturalist: Georg Heinrich von Langsdorff (1774–1852)
+Physician-naturalist: Wilhelm Gottlieb Tilesius von Tilenau (1769–1857)
+Publication: G. H. von Langsdorff, Bemerkungen auf einer Reise um die Welt in den Jahren 1803 bis 1807, von G. h. von Langsdorff, ... (Frankfurt am Main, two volumes, 1812).
+
+==== 1815–18: Rurik ====
+A Russian expedition funded by the Chancellor of Russia, count Nikolai P. Romanzof to investigate the Northeast Passage in the Bering Sea. The coast of Alaska was studied and the South Pacific, also the cartography of 36 islands including the Marshall Islands. Also natural history collections made.
+
+Captain: Otto von Kotzebue (1787–1846)
+Naturalist: Adelbert von Chamisso (1781–1838)
+Physician-naturalist: Johann Friedrich von Eschscholtz (1793–1831)
+Publication: J.F. Eschscholtz, Entdeckungs – Reise in die Süd – See und nach der Berings – Strasse zur Erforschung einer nordöstlichen Durchfahrt, unternommen in den Jahren 1815, 1816, 1817 1818 und, auf Kosten… a… Grafen Rumanzoff, auf dem Schiffe ″Rurick″, unter dem Befehle of the Lieutenants… Otto von Kotzebue… (three volumes, Weimer, 1821).
+
+==== 1817–20: L'Uranie and La Physicienne ====
+
+A French expedition exploring Western Australia and islands of Timor, Molucca, Samoa and Hawaii. L'Uranie visited Rio de Janeiro to take a series of pendulum measurements as well as other observations, not only in geography and ethnology, but in astronomy, terrestrial magnetism, and meteorology, and for the collection of specimens in natural history.
+
+Commander: Commander Louis Claude de Saulces Freycinet (1779–1842)
+Second: Louis Isidore Duperrey (1786–1865)
+Physician-naturalist: Joseph Paul Gaimard (1796–1858) and Jean René Constant Quoy (1790–1869)
+Botanist: Charles Gaudichaud-Beaupré (1789–1854)
+Illustrator: Jacques Arago (1790–1855), Adrien Taunay the Younger (1803–1828)
+Publication: de Freycinet, L. Voyage autour du Monde...exécuté sur les corvettes de L. M. "L'Uranie" et "La Physicienne," pendant les années 1817, 1818, 1819 et 1820. Paris. pp. 192–401. J. Arago, Drive around the world during the years 1817, 1818, 1819 and 1820, on the corvettes of the King the Urania and physicist, commissioned by Mr. Freycinet, by Js. Arago, designer of the expedition (Paris, 2 volumes, 1822).
+
+==== 1819–21: Le Rhône and La Durance ====
+One of the missions of this expedition was to take plants from Java and the Philippines to French Guiana. The botanist Samuel Perrottet (1793–1870) settled in Guyana to investigate the acclimatisation of plants transplanted from Asia. La Durance returned to France in 1820, Le Rhône the following year.
+
+Captain: Pierre Henri Philibert (1774–?)
+Botanist: George Samuel Perrottet (1793–1870)
+
+==== 1822–25: La Coquille ====
+Louis Isidore Duperrey commanded the expedition in La Coquille with Jules Dumont d'Urville as second in command.  The naturalists appointed to the expedition were the surgeon, pharmacist and zoologist René Primevère Lesson and surgeon-major Prosper Garnot. Doctor Garnot had a severe attack of dysentery and was sent back on the Castle Forbes with some of the specimens collected in South America and the Pacific. The specimens were lost when the ship was wrecked off the Cape of Good Hope in July 1824. Garnot and Lesson wrote the zoological section of the voyage's report.

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+---
+title: "European and American voyages of scientific exploration"
+chunk: 6/11
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_and_American_voyages_of_scientific_exploration"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:11:04.350296+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+Commander: lieutenant Louis Isidore Duperrey (1786–1865)
+Second: lieutenant Jules Dumont d'Urville, botanist (1790–1842)
+Physician-naturalist: the surgeon, pharmacist and zoologist René Primevère Lesson (1794–1849) and surgeon-major Prosper Garnot (1794–1838)
+Astronomer: Charles Hector Jacquinot (1796–1879)
+Illustrators: Jules Louis Lejeune (1804–1851), Jacques Arago (1790–1855)
+Hydrographer: Victor Charles Lottin (1795–1858)
+Publications: Lesson and Garnot, Voyage autour du monde exécuté par ordre du roi sur la corvette La Coquille (1828–32)/Journey around the world on the corvette La Coquille (Paris, six volumes, 1826–1830).
+
+==== 1823–26: Predpriyatiye ====
+An expedition of two ships of war, the main object of which was to take reinforcements to Kamchatka. There was, however, a staff of scientists on board the Russian sailing sloop Predpriyatiye (Russian: "Enterprise"), who collected much valuable information and material on geography, ethnography and natural history. The expedition, proceeding by Cape Horn, visited the Radak and Society Islands, and reached Petropavlovsk in July 1824. Many positions along the coast were mapped more accurately, the Navigator islands visited, and several discoveries made. The expedition returned by the Marianas, Philippines, New Caledonia and the Hawaiian Islands, reaching Kronstadt on 10 July 1826.
+
+Captain: Otto von Kotzebue (1787–1846)
+Physician-naturalist: Johann Friedrich von Eschscholtz (1793–1831) and Dr. Lenz
+Publication: O. von Kotzebue, Reise um die Welt in den Jahren 1823, 24, 25 und 26, von Otto von Kotzebue, ... (Weimer, 1830).
+
+==== 1824–25: HMS Blonde ====
+
+In 1824 Byron was chosen to accompany homewards the bodies of Hawaiian monarchs Liholiho (known as King Kamehameha II) and Queen Kamāmalu, who had died of measles during a state visit to England. He sailed in HMS Blonde in September 1824, accompanied by several naturalists and, amongst others, his lieutenant, Edward Belcher.
+He toured the islands and made observations. With the consent of Christian missionaries to the islands, he also removed wooden carvings and other artifacts of the chiefs of ancient Hawaii from the temple ruins of Puʻuhonua O Hōnaunau.
+On his return journey in 1825, Lord Byron discovered and charted Malden Island, which he named after his surveying officer, Mauke; and Starbuck Island. Starbuck was named in honour of Captain Valentine Starbuck, an American whaler who had sighted the island while carrying the Hawaiian royal couple to England in 1823–1824, but which had probably been previously sighted by his cousin and fellow-whaler Captain Obed Starbuck in 1823.
+
+Captain: George Anson Byron (1789–1868)
+Naturalists: Andrew Bloxam (1801–1878) and James Macrae
+Published by: G.A. Byron, Voyage of H.M.S. Blonde to the Sandwich Islands, in the years 1824–1825. The Right Hon. captain. Lord Byron order. (London, 1826).
+
+==== 1824–26: Le Thétis and L'Espérance ====
+
+A French mission to establish diplomatic relations with Indochina and make geographical observations. On 12 January 1825, Hyacinthe de Bougainville led an embassy to Vietnam with Captain Courson de la Ville-Hélio, arriving in Da Nang, with the warships Thétis and L'Espérance. Although they had a 28 January 1824 letter from Louis XVIII, the ambassadors could not obtain an audience with Minh Mạng.
+
+Captains: Hyacinthe de Bougainville (1781–1846) (Le Thétis) and Paul de Nourquer du Camper (L'Espérance)
+Surgeon-naturalist: François Louis Busseuil (1791–1835)
+
+==== 1825–28: HMS Blossom ====
+
+A British expedition to the Bering Sea attempting a rendezvous with the expedition of Sir John Franklin (1786–1847) at the mouth of the Mackenzie River. Blossom reached as far north as Point Barrow, Alaska, the furthest point into the Arctic any non-Inuit had been at the time, but was unable to join the Franklin expedition. With Lay ill it was Beechey and Collie that performed most of the specimen collection but many could not be preserved.
+
+Captain: Frederick William Beechey (1796–1856)
+Physician-naturalist: Alexander Collie (1793–1835)
+Naturalist: George Tradescant Lay (1800?–1854)
+Publication: F.W. Beechey, Narrative of a Voyage to the Pacific and Behring's Strait" (1831), "The Zoology of Captain Beechey's voyage to the Pacific and Behring's Strait. (1839).
+
+==== 1825–30: HMS Adventure and HMS Beagle ====
+The mission was the hydrographic survey of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, under the overall command of the surveyor Commander Phillip Parker King, in HMS Adventure.
+In the desolate waters of Tierra del Fuego Stokes, the captain of HMS Beagle, became depressed and shot himself on 2 August 1828 dying a few days later. Parker King replaced Stokes with Lieutenant W.G. Skyring as commander of the ship, and both ships sailed to Montevideo. After the ships arrived at Rio de Janeiro for repairs and provisioning, Rear Admiral Sir Robert Otway, the Commander-in-chief of the South American station, gave command of Beagle to his aide, Lieutenant Robert FitzRoy. Fuegians were taken back with them when the Beagle returned. During this survey, the Beagle Channel was identified and named after the ship.
+
+Captain: Philip Parker King (1793–1856) (Adventure) and Pringle Stokes (?–1828) (Beagle)
+Naturalist: James Anderson (1797–1842)
+Publication: P.P. King, Narrative of the first surveying voyage of H. M. ships ″Adventure″ and ″Beagle″, between the years 1826 and 1836, describing their examination of the Southern shores of South-America and the ″Beagle's″ circumnavigation of the world ... Vol. i. [containing the proceedings of the first expedition, 1826–1830 under the command of captain P. Parker King "(London, 1839).]
+
+==== 1826–29: L'Astrolabe ====
+This mission, led by Dumont d'Urville, searched for the two vessels of La Pérouse (1741–1788). The coasts of Australia, of New Zealand, of Fiji and the Loyalty Islands were explored. Dumont d'Urville renamed La Coquille as L'Astrolabe as a tribute to the ship of La Pérouse.
+
+Captain: Jules Dumont d'Urville (1790–1842)
+Physician-naturalist: Joseph Paul Gaimard (1796–1858) and Jean René Constant Quoy (1790–1869)
+Pharmacy-botanist: René Primevère Lesson (1805–1888)
+Publications: J. Dumont d'Urville, Voyage of the Astrolabe. (14 volumes, 1830–1835).

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+---
+title: "European and American voyages of scientific exploration"
+chunk: 7/11
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_and_American_voyages_of_scientific_exploration"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:11:04.350296+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+==== 1826–29: Senyavin and Moller ====
+A Russian circumnavigation on the ship Senyavin, sailing from Kronstadt and rounding Cape Horn, accompanied by Captain Mikhail Nikolaievich Staniukovich in command of the sloop Moller. During the voyage Litke and his team described the western coastline of the Bering Sea, the Bonin Islands off Japan, and the Carolines, and discovered 12 new islands. The expedition strengthened the Russian presence near Alaska. A large collection of natural history specimens was made including 1,000 new species of insects, fish, birds and other animals, and 2,500 plant specimens including algae and minerals.
+
+Captain: Fyodor Litke (1797–1882)
+Botanist-naturalist: Karl Heinrich Mertens (1796–1830)
+Naturalist: Heinrich von Kittlitz (1799–1874)
+Mineralogist: Alexander Philipov Postels (1801–1871)
+Published by: F. Litke, Trip around the world (1835–1836).
+
+==== 1827–28: La Chevrette ====
+The first French expedition to map the coast of India.
+
+Captain: Theodore Fabré (1795–1830)
+Surgeon-naturalist: Auguste Adolphe Marc Reynaud (1804–?)
+
+==== 1828: Ms. Korvet Triton ====
+Dutch exploration of New Guinea.
+
+The corvette Triton
+The brig Iris
+Expedition leader: Dr. H.C. Macklot
+Captain of Triton: J.J. Steenboom
+
+==== 1829: La Cybèle ====
+Scientific exploration was placed under the direction of Jean-Baptiste Bory de Saint-Vincent (1778–1846).
+
+Captain: Marie Antoine Chevalier de Robillard (1788–1837)
+Zoologists: Gaspard Auguste Brullé (1809–1873) and Sextius Delaunay
+Botanist: Jean-Marie Despréaux (1794–1843)
+Geologist: Pierre Théodore Virlet D'Aoust (1800–1894)
+Artist: Prosper Baccuet (1798–1854)
+
+==== 1829–32: La Favorite ====
+As British, American and Dutch voyages consolidated their interest in Australia, Hawaii and New Guinea, the French government sought to secure the religious freedoms and rights of French residents in the South Pacific. The expedition passed the Cape of Good Hope, stopping at Pondicherry and Madras, and then exploring the coast of Cochinchina and Tonkin, stopping in the Philippines, Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand.  The expedition was considered a great success, many hydrological observations were completed and natural history collections assembled.
+
+Captain: Cyrille Pierre Théodore Laplace (1793–1875)
+Naturalist: Joseph Fortuné Théodore Eydoux (1802–1841)
+Publication: C.P.T. Laplace, Journey around the world by the India and China seas, running on the corvette of the State the Favorite during the 1830s, 1831 and 1832 under the command of Mr Laplace captain of frégatte. Published by order of Mr. Vice-Admiral comte Rigny Minister of marine and colonies. (seven volumes including two atlas, Paris, 1833–1839).
+
+==== 1831–36: HMS Beagle ====
+
+A world circumnavigation to make a hydrographic survey of the coast of Patagonia, Tierra del Fuego, Chile and Peru, and establish accurate longitude measurements. Charles Darwin paid his own way as a naturalist/companion to the captain, and found the voyage a stimulus both to his understanding as a geologist and to the formulation of his Theory of Evolution.
+
+Captain: Robert FitzRoy (1805–1865)
+Physician-naturalist: Robert McCormick (1800–1890) until April 1832, followed by Benjamin Bynoe (1803–1865)
+Artist: Augustus Earle, replaced by Conrad Martens
+Naturalist (supernumerary passenger): Charles Darwin (1809–1882)
+Publications: C. Darwin (editor), Zoology of the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle. (five volumes, 1838–1843),R. FitzRoy (editor), Narrative of the surveying voyages of His Majesty's Ships Adventure and Beagle between the years 1826 and 1836, describing their examination of the southern shores of South America, and the Beagle's circumnavigation of the globe. (volume 2 and appendix by FitzRoy, Proceedings of the second expedition, 1831–36, under the command of Captain Robert Fitz-Roy, R.N.  (1839), volume 3 by C. Darwin Journal and Remarks, (1839).)C. Darwin, The Geology of the Voyage of The Beagle (three volumes, The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs (1842), Geological Observations on the Volcanic Islands (1844), Geological Observations on South America (1846).)
+
+==== 1835 and 1836: La Recherche ====
+
+Two French expeditions to the coasts of Iceland and Greenland in an attempt to trace the Bordelaise commanded by Jules de Blosseville (1802–1833), which had been missing since 1833.
+
+Captain François Thomas Tréhouart (1798–1873)
+Physician-naturalist: Joseph Paul Gaimard (1796–1858) assisted by Elie Jean-François Le Guillou (1806–1894) (first voyage) and by Charles René Augustin Léclancher (1804–1857) (second voyage), Louis Eugène Robert
+
+==== 1836–39: Vénus ====
+A French expedition (circumnavigation) in the frigate Vénus to assess the economic viability of whaling in the North Pacific. However, it's the safeguarding of the French Catholics in the Pacific that will remain the most notable feat of Captain Abel Aubert du Petit-Thouars.
+
+Captain: Abel Aubert du Petit-Thouars (1793–1864)
+Engineer hydrographer: Urbain Dortet de Tessan (1804–1879)
+Physician-naturalist: Adolphe Simon Neboux (1806–1844)
+Surgeon: Charles René Augustin Léclancher (1804–1857)
+Publication: A.A. Petit-Thouars, Travel around the world on the frigate Venus. (eleven volumes, 1840–1864).
+
+==== 1836–37: La Bonite ====
+A global circumnavigation sailing the coast of South America, back along the West Coast to California, across the Pacific, reaching Manila, China, India, the Isla Borbón and returning to France. More than 1,000 new plant species were collected and many geographical and meteorological observations made.
+
+Captain: Auguste-Nicolas Vaillant (1793–1858)
+Physician-naturalist: Joseph Fortuné Théodore Eydoux (1803–1841) and Louis François Auguste Souleyet (1811–1852)
+Hydrographer: Benoît Darondeau (1805–1869)
+Pharmacy-botanist: Charles Gaudichaud-Beaupré (1789–1854)
+Publication: A. N. Vaillant, Trip around the world executed during the years 1836 and 1837 on the corvette Bonito ... (eleven volumes, Paris, 1841–1852).
+
+==== 1836–42: HMS Sulphur ====
+Exploration of the Pacific coast of America and interior of Nicaragua and El Salvador. Sulphur participated in the First Opium War between 1840 and 1841 and was later used to survey the harbour of Hong Kong in 1841, returning to England in 1842.
+
+Captain: Edward Belcher (1799–1877)
+Physician-naturalist: Richard Brinsley Hinds (1811–1846)
+Publications: E. Belcher, Narrative of a Voyage Round the World in HMS Sulphur. (two volumes, 1843) (Volume 1, Volume 2); R.B. Hinds (editor), "The Zoology of the Voyage of HMS Sulphur" (two volumes, 1843–1844).
+
+==== 1837–40: L'Astrolabe and La Zélée ====

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_and_American_voyages_of_scientific_exploration-7.md

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+---
+title: "European and American voyages of scientific exploration"
+chunk: 8/11
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_and_American_voyages_of_scientific_exploration"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:11:04.350296+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+The second voyage of L'Astrolabe, this time accompanied by La Zélée, sailed on 7 September 1837 and at the end of November, the ships reached the Strait of Magellan. Dumont thought there was sufficient time to explore the strait for three weeks, taking into account the precise maps drawn by Phillip Parker King between 1826 and 1830, before heading south again but two weeks after seeing their first iceberg, the ships were encased in pack ice for a while. After reaching the South Orkney Islands, the expedition headed directly to the South Shetland Islands and the Bransfield Strait. Then located some land which was named Terre de Louis-Philippe (now called Graham Land), the Joinville Island group and Rosamel Island (now called Andersson Island). In poor shape the two ships headed for Talcahuano in Chile. Turning south they led for the first time some experiments to determine the approximate position of the South Magnetic Pole, discovered the Terre Adélie on 20 January 1840, and landed two days later on an islet of the Géologie Archipelago (66°36′19″S 140°4′0″E) 4 km from the mainland to take mineral and animal samples.
+
+Captains: Jules Dumont d'Urville (1790–1842) (L'Astrolabe), Charles Hector Jacquinot (1796–1879) (La Zélée)
+Physician-naturalist: on "The Astrolabe", Jacques Bernard Hombron (1798–1852) surgeon-major of 2nd class and Louis Le Breton (1818–1866) surgeon 3rd class and "La Zélée" Honoré Jacquinot (1815–1887) 3rd class surgeon, Elie Jean François Le Guillou (1806 – after 1860) surgeon, 3rd class
+Preparer-naturalist, phrenologist: Pierre Marie Alexandre Dumoutier (1797–1871)
+Illustrator: Ernest Goupil (1814–1840) (replaced on his death on 1 April 1840 to Hobart-Town by Louis Le Breton surgeon, 3rd class)
+Hydrographer-cartographer: Clément Adrien Vincendon-Dumoulin (1811–1858)
+Publications: J. Dumont d'Urville then Clément Adrien Vincendon-Dumoulin, assisted Desgraz Secretary of L'Astrolabe "Histoire du voyage" from Tome 4 to 10 tome 1, tome 2, tome 3, tome 4, tome 5, volume 6, tome 7, tome 8, tome 9, tome 10.
+For all other publications by themes and authors, refer to Expédition Dumont d'Urville in the Publications part.
+
+==== 1837–43: HMS Beagle ====
+The mission was the hydrographic survey of the coasts of Australia. In 1839 Lieutenant Stokes sighted a natural harbour which Wickham named Port Darwin after Charles Darwin, who had previously sailed round the world on the Beagle. The later settlement nearby eventually became the city of Darwin, Northern Territory. In 1841 Wickham fell ill, and Stokes took command.
+
+Captain: John Clements Wickham (1798–1864), succeeded by John Lort Stokes (1812–1885)
+Physician-naturalist: Benjamin Bynoe (1804–1865)
+Publication: J. L. Stokes, Discoveries in Australia, With an Account of the Coasts and Rivers Explored and Surveyed During The Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle, in the Years 1837-38-39-40-41-42-43. By Command of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty. Also a Narrative of Captain Owen Stanley's Visits to the Islands in the Arafura Sea. Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 (London, 1846)
+
+==== 1838–42: USS Vincennes and USS Peacock ====
+
+The "Wilkes Expedition", included naturalists, botanists, a mineralogist, taxidermists, artists and a philologist in the ships Vincennes, Peacock, the brig Porpoise, the store-ship Relief, and two schooners, Sea Gull, and Flying Fish.
+Departing Hampton Roads on 18 August 18, 1838, the expedition stopped at Madeira and Rio de Janeiro, Argentina; visited Tierra del Fuego, Chile, Peru, the Tuamotu Archipelago, Samoa, and New South Wales. From Sydney, the fleet sailed into the Antarctic Ocean in December 1839 and reported the discovery "of an Antarctic continent west of the Balleny Islands" of which it sighted the coast on 25 January 1840. Next, the expedition visited Fiji and the Hawaiian Islands in 1840. In July 1840, two sailors, one of whom was Wilkes' nephew, Midshipman Wilkes Henry, were killed while bartering for food on Malolo, in Fiji. Wilkes' retribution was swift and severe. According to an old man of Malolo Island, nearly 80 Fijians were killed in the incident.
+From December 1840 to March 1841, his men with native Hawaiian porters hauled a pendulum to the summit of Mauna Loa to measure gravity. He explored the west coast of North America, including the Strait of Juan de Fuca, Puget Sound, the Columbia River, San Francisco Bay and the Sacramento River, in 1841.
+The expedition returned by way of the Philippines, the Sulu Archipelago, Borneo, Singapore, Polynesia and the Cape of Good Hope, reaching New York City on 10 June 1842. This was the first circumnavigation of the world funded by the Government of the United States and the last by a sailing vessel. The expedition was poorly prepared and of five vessels which left, only two returned to port. The natural history collections were very rich with 50,000 plant specimens (approximately 10 000 species) and 4,000 specimens of animals (half being new species).
+
+Captains: Charles Wilkes (1798–1877) (USS Vincennes) and William Levereth Hudson (USS Peacock) (1794–1862)
+Doctor-tries: J.L. Fox
+Naturalists: Charles Pickering (1805–1878), Titian Ramsay Peale (1799–1885), James Dwight Dana (1813–1895), William Dunlop Brackenridge (1810–1893)
+Publication: V. Wilkes, Narrative of the United States exploring Expedition. (twenty volumes, 1845–1876)
+
+==== 1839–43: HMS Erebus and HMS Terror ====
+
+This British trip, sponsored by the Royal Society, was to discover magnetic and geographic features of the Antarctic. The expedition was prepared with great care by James Clark Ross, already familiar with Polar navigation. The two ships left the United Kingdom on 19 September 1839, stopping to explore the Kerguelen Islands in 1840, and then on Tasmania to build a magnetic observatory for the Antarctic and to conduct cartographic work. Mount Erebus and the Ross Sea were discovered during this journey. After three attempts, Ross admitted that the magnetic pole lay in land that he could not reach. Following the footsteps of his uncle John Ross, he performed the first deep sea surveys up to 4800 m (2677 fathoms), using ropes. Unfortunately biological specimens collected decomposed.

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+---
+title: "European and American voyages of scientific exploration"
+chunk: 9/11
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_and_American_voyages_of_scientific_exploration"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:11:04.350296+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+Captains: Sir James Clark Ross (1800–1862) (Erebus) and Francis Crozier (1796–1848) (Terror)
+Physician-naturalist: Robert McCormick (1800–1890), Joseph Hooker (1817–1911), John Robertson, David Lyall (1817–1895)
+Publications: J.C. Ross, A Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions. (1847), J.E. Gray and John Richardson, The zoology of the Voyage of HM Ships Erebus and Terror (1844–1875). J.D. Hooker, The botany of the Antarctic voyage of HM discovery ships Erebus and Terror in the years 1839–1843 under the command of Captain Sir James Clark Ross. Three volumes: I. Flora Antarctica (1844), II. Flora Novae Zelandiae (1853–1855), III. Flora Tasmaniae (1860).
+
+==== 1841–44: La Favorite ====
+A French scientific exploration in the China Sea and Indian Ocean.
+
+Captain: Théogène François Page (1807–1867)
+Surgeon-naturalist: Charles René Augustin Léclancher (1804–1857)
+
+==== 1842–46: HMS Fly ====
+During the early to mid-1840s, Fly charted numerous trade and other routes between many locations, primarily off Australia's north-east coast and nearby islands. Such islands included Whitsunday Island and the Capricorn Islands. After being discovered during the survey of the Gulf of Papua, New Guinea, the Fly River was named after HMS Fly. For the most of its seaworthy existence, Fly was captained by Francis Price Blackwood.
+
+Captain: Francis Price Blackwood (1809–1854)
+Physician-naturalist: Benjamin Bynoe (1804–1865)
+Naturalists: Joseph Beete Jukes (1811–1869) and John MacGillivray (1821–1867)
+Publication: J.B. Jukes, "Narrative of the surveying voyage of H. M. S. ″Fly″, commanded by captain F. P. Blackwood,... in Torres Strait, New Guinea and other islands of the Eastern Archipelago, during the years 1842–1846, together with an excursion into the interior of the Eastern part of Java" (two volumes, 1847).
+
+==== 1845–47: HDMS Galathea ====
+The corvette Galathea was sent out by  King Christian VIII of Denmark, with its main purposes the handover of the Danish colonies in India to the British East India Company, and exploring and possibly recolonising the Nicobar Islands in the Indian Ocean. Additional aims were the expansion of trade with China and the discovery of new trading opportunities, as well as making extensive scientific collections.
+
+Captain: Steen Andersen Bille
+Physician-naturalist: Didrik Ferdinand Didrichsen
+Naturalists: Bernhard Casper Kamphǿvener, Carl Emil Kiellerup, Hinrich Johannes Rink, Wilhelm Friedrich Georg Behn and Johannes Theodor Reinhardt.
+Artists: Johan Christian Thornam and Poul August Plum.
+Publication: Steen Bille, Beretning om Corvetten Galathea's Reise omkring Jorden i 1845, 46 og 47, Universitetsboghandler C. U. Reitzels Forlag, Kjøbenhavn 1853
+
+==== 1846–50: HMS Rattlesnake and HMS Bramble ====
+
+A British expedition to the Cape York and Torres Strait areas of northern Australia.
+
+Captain: Owen Stanley (1811–1850) (Rattlesnake) and Charles Bampfield Yule (Bramble)
+Surgeon: John Thomson
+Physician-naturalist: Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895)
+Naturalists: John MacGillivray (1821–1867) and James Fowler Wilcox (1823–1881)
+Artist: Oswald Brierly (1817–1894)
+Publication: J. MacGillivray, Narrative of the Voyage of HMS Rattlesnake. (1852). Goodman, J. The Rattlesnake: A Voyage of Discovery to the Coral Sea. London: Faber & Faber, ISBN 978-0-571-21078-7 (2006). Goodman, J. Losing it in New Guinea: the voyage of HMS Rattlesnake. Endeavour (Elsevier) 29 (2): 60–65, doi:10.1016/j.endeavour.2005.04.005, PMID 15935857 (2005). J. Huxley, T.H. Huxley's diary of the voyage of HMS Rattlesnake. London: Chatto & Windus (1935).
+
+==== 1851–54: Capricieuse ====
+A French expedition circumnavigating the world via Cape Horn, stopping in Tahiti and Ualan to determine an astronomical Meridian intended for future travel in the Pacific, then arriving in China. There, the ship performed several missions of exploration including, in July–August 1852, in the seas of Korea and Japan (then very little known in Europe) and on the coasts of Kamchatkata, completely unknown since the Lapérouse expedition. The Capricieuse then returned to France via the Cape of Good Hope. This was the last French global circumnavigation by sail.
+
+Commander: Commander Gaston de Rocquemaurel (1804–1878)
+Second: Navy lieutenant Jules Duroch
+Publication: The narrative of the voyage remained unpublished.
+
+==== 1851–53: Eugenie ====
+
+A Swedish natural history excursion, the first Swedish circumnavigation of the world, which contributed to the Capture of Manuel Briones, a robber who seized an American whaler, the George Howland, and who was a terror on the coast of the Ecuador.
+
+Captain: Christian Adolf Virgin (1797–1870).
+Physician-naturalist: Johan Gustaf Hjalmar Kinberg (1820–1908)
+Naturalist: Nils Johan Andersson (1821–1880)
+Publication: N.J. Andersson, Fregatten "Eugenies" resa omkring jorden åren 1851–1853, under befäl af utgifven af, v. a. Virgin v. Skogman ... (Stockholm, 1856).
+
+==== 1852–63: HMS Herald ====
+
+A survey of the Australian coast and Fiji Islands, continuing the mission of HMS Rattlesnake. Following disagreements with the captain, naturalist John MacGillivray disembarks at Sydney in January 1854. Herald was a 500-ton, 28-gun sixth-rate, launched as Termagant in 1822 and renamed in 1824. She served as a survey ship under Henry Kellett and Henry Mangles Denham and was sold in 1864.
+
+Captain: Henry Mangles Denham (1800–1887)
+Naturalists: John MacGillivray (1821–1867), William Milne (botanist) and Denis Macdonald as Assistant Surgeon-zoologist.
+Publication: Edward Forbes (1815–1854), The zoology of the voyage of H.M.S. Herald under the command of Captain Henry Kellett,... during the years 1845–51. (London, 1854).
+
+==== 1853–55: USS Vincennes and USS Porpoise ====
+(See North Pacific Exploring and Surveying Expedition)
+This American expedition explored the coasts of Japan, China, Siberia and Kamchatka before putting in at the Cape of Good Hope and returning to the United States. Porpoise sank in a typhoon in 1854.
+
+Captain: John Rodgers (1812–1882)
+Naturalists: William Stimpson (1832–1872) and Charles Wright (1811–1885)
+Publication: due to the outbreak of civil war, there is no record of this voyage, scientific discoveries have been published separately from scientific journals.
+
+==== 1857–60: SMS Novara ====
+
+An expedition organized by the Emperor of Austria to demonstrate the power of the Crown. Novara departed Trieste in April 1857, passing the Cape of Good Hope to reach the Philippines, Australia, and New Zealand. Fourteen of the forty-four guns were dumped to make more room for the scientific collections.
+
+Captain: Bernhard von Wüllerstorf-Urbair (1816–1883)
+Naturalists: Ferdinand von Hochstetter (1829–1884), Georg von Frauenfeld (1807–1873) and Johann Zelebor (1819–1869).
+Publication: Reise der österreichischen Fregatte Novara um die Erde in den Jahren 1857, 1858, 1859 unter den Befehlen Commodore b. von Wüllerstorf-Urbair. (1864–1875)

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_and_American_voyages_of_scientific_exploration-9.md

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+---
+title: "European and American voyages of scientific exploration"
+chunk: 10/11
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_and_American_voyages_of_scientific_exploration"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:11:04.350296+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+==== 1860: HMS Bulldog ====
+An oceanographic survey in HMS Bulldog for the laying of a submarine telegraph cable in the North Atlantic.
+
+Captain: Francis Leopold McClintock (1819–1907)
+Naturalist: George Charles Wallich (1815–1899)
+Publication: The North Atlantic Sea – Bed; comprising a diary of the voyage on board H. M. S. Bulldog, in 1860, and observations on the presence of animal life, and the formation and nature of organic deposits, at great depths in the ocean. (1862).
+
+==== 1862: Arctic expedition of Krusenstern ====
+
+Arctic expedition of two ships, MV Iermak and MV Embrio in order to discover the Yenissei river delta, resulted in shipwreck in the Kara Sea.
+
+Captain: Paul Theodor von Krusenstern
+Publication: Naufrage du lieutenant Krusenstern dans les glaces de la mer de Kara (1863, in Le Tour du monde Volume 8 pp. 203–208)
+
+==== 1865–68: Magenta ====
+An Italian circumnavigation of the globe that made important scientific observations in South America. The purpose of the trip was also to establish diplomatic relations with China and Japan, but without success. De Filippi set out in 1866 on a government-sponsored scientific voyage to circumnavigate the globe. The ship, the Italian warship Magenta, sailed under the command of Vittorio Arminjon, departing Montevideo on 2 February 1866. It reached Naples on 28 March 1868. However, De Filippi himself died en route at Hong Kong, on 9 February 1867, from serious dysentery and liver problems. The scientific report was completed by his assistant, Professor Enrico Hillyer Giglioli. Giglioli returned to Italy in 1868.
+
+Captain: Vittorio Arminjon (1830–1897)
+Naturalists: Filippo de Filippi (1814–1867) and Enrico Hillyer Giglioli (1845–1909)
+Publications: E.H. Giglioli, Note intorno alla distribuzione della Fauna Vertebrata nell oceano prese durante un viaggio intorno al Blobo. (1870) and Viaggio intorno al globo della r. pirocorvetta italiana ″Magenta″ negli anni 1865-66-67-68, sotto it comando del capitano di fregata V. f. Arminjon. Relazione descrittiva e scientifica pubblicata sotto gli auspici del ministero di Agricoltura, industria e commercio dal dottore Enrico Hillyer Giglioli… Con una introduzione etnologica di Paolo Mantegazza. (Milan, 1875).
+
+==== 1865: HMS Curacoa ====
+An expedition embarked in Curacoa leaving Sydney in June 1865 to explore the Pacific Islands. One of the objectives is to punish the inhabitants of the islands of Tanna for mistreating a missionary.
+
+Captain: Sir William Wiseman, 8th Baronet (1814–1874)
+Naturalist: Julius Lucius Brenchley (1816–1873)
+Publication: J.L. Brenchley, Jottings during the cruise of H.M.S. Curoçoa among the south sea islands in 1865. (London, 1873). Collections by Brenchley are handled by various specialists as George Robert Gray (1808–1872) for Albert Günther (1830–1914) birds to fish and reptiles.
+
+==== 1868 and 1869–70: HMS Lightning and HMS Porcupine ====
+Two British oceanographic expeditions in the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea.
+
+Captains: Captain May (Porcupine), Killwick Calver (1813–1892) (Lightning).
+Naturalists: Sir Charles Wyville Thomson (1830–1882) and Philip Herbert Carpenter (1813–1885)
+Publication: The Depths of the Sea: An Account of the General Results of the Dredging Cruises of H.M.SS. Porcupine and Lightning during the summers of 1868, 1869, and 1870, Under the Scientific Direction of Dr. Carpenter, J. Gwyn Jeffreys, and Dr. Wyville Thomson.
+
+==== 1873–76: HMS Challenger ====
+
+The celebrated Challenger Expedition was a grand tour of the world covering 68,000 nautical miles (125,936 km), organised by the Royal Society in London in collaboration with the University of Edinburgh. Charles Thomson was the leader of a large scientific team.
+
+Captains: George Nares (1873 and 1874) and Frank Tourle Thomson (1875 and 1876)
+Naturalists: Charles Wyville Thomson (1830–1882), Henry Nottidge Moseley (1844–1891) and Rudolf von Willemoes-Suhm (1847–1875)
+Oceanographers: John Young Buchanan (1844–1925) and John Murray (1841–1914)
+Publications: C.W. Thomson, Report on the scientific results of the voyage of HMS Challenger during the years 1873–76… prepared under the superintendence of the late Sir C. Wyville Thomson,... and now of John Murray,... (fifty volumes, London, 1880–1895). H.N. Moseley, Notes by a naturalist on the Challenger (1879). W.J.J. Spry, The cruise of the Challenger (1876).
+
+==== 1875–76: HMS Alert and HMS Discovery ====
+
+The British Arctic Expedition in Alert and Discovery, seeking to establish the geographic and magnetic North Pole.
+
+Captain: George Strong Nares (1831–1915)
+Physician-naturalist: Richard William Coppinger (1847–1910) and Edward Lawton Moss
+Naturalists: Henry Chichester Hart (1847–1908) and Henry Fielden
+Publication: G. Nares, Narrative of a voyage to the Polar Sea during 1875–6 in the ships HMS Alert and HMS Discovery. (London, 1878); translated into French (Paris, 1877).
+
+==== 1881: USRC Thomas Corwin ====
+
+Several expeditions were conducted in the Bering Sea in 1881 to find the Jeannette and two whaling ships. Wrangel Island was discovered and made part of the United States in August 1881 with the landing of famed explorer John Muir and the crew of U. S. Revenue Marine ship Thomas Corwin under the command of Captain Calvin Leighton Hooper. The landing at the mouth of the Clark River was illustrated by Muir in his book The Cruise of the Corwin. Two weeks after the Corwin took possession, USS John Rodgers conducted a complete survey of the island, which turned out to equal the size of Rhode Island and Delaware combined.
+
+Captain: Calvin Leighton Hooper
+Naturalist: Edward William Nelson (1855–1934)
+Explorer: John Muir (1838–1914)
+Publication: Muir, J. The Cruise of the Corwin.
+
+==== 1882–83: La Romanche ====
+The French Navy frigate La Romanche was built for a French multidisciplinary expedition on a scientific mission to Tierra del Fuego. The primary object was to observe and photograph the transit of the planet Venus. The expedition also collected specimens of flora and fauna, and studied local Yahgan indigenous people, with the assistance of local Anglican missionary Thomas Bridges. (See also Romanche Glacier)
+
+Captain: Ferdinand Martial
+Officers/photographers: Payen, Doze
+Botanists: Émile Bescherelle, Paul Auguste Hariot, Adrien René Franchet, Paul Petit
+Doctor/geologist/ anthropologist: Paul Hyades
+Ornithologist: Emile Oustalet
+
+==== 1882–85: Vettor Pisani ====
+The Vettor Pisani was an Italian naval corvette equipped for scientific exploration.
+
+==== 1886–96: USS Albatross ====

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermentation_theory-0.md

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+---
+title: "Fermentation theory"
+chunk: 1/2
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermentation_theory"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:11:07.762853+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+In biochemistry, fermentation theory refers to the historical study of models of natural fermentation processes, especially alcoholic and lactic acid fermentation. Notable contributors to the theory include Justus Von Liebig and Louis Pasteur, the latter of whom developed a purely microbial basis for the fermentation process based on his experiments. Pasteur's work on fermentation later led to his development of the germ theory of disease, which put the concept of spontaneous generation to rest. Although the fermentation process had been used extensively throughout history prior to the origin of Pasteur's prevailing theories, the underlying biological and chemical processes were not fully understood. In the contemporary, fermentation is used in the production of various alcoholic beverages, foodstuffs, and medications.
+
+== Overview of fermentation ==
+
+Fermentation is the anaerobic metabolic process that converts sugar into acids, gases, or alcohols in oxygen starved environments. Yeast and many other microbes commonly use fermentation to carry out anaerobic respiration necessary for survival. Even the human body carries out fermentation processes from time to time, such as during long-distance running; lactic acid will build up in muscles over the course of long-term exertion. Within the human body, lactic acid is the by-product of ATP-producing fermentation, which produces energy so the body can continue to exercise in situations where oxygen intake cannot be processed fast enough. Although fermentation yields less ATP than aerobic respiration, it can occur at a much higher rate. Fermentation has been used by humans consciously since around 5000 BCE, evidenced by jars recovered in the Iran Zagros Mountains area containing remnants of microbes similar to those present in the wine-making process.
+
+== History ==
+Prior to Pasteur's research on fermentation, there existed some preliminary competing notions of it. One scientist who had a substantial degree of influence on the theory of fermentation was Justus von Liebig. Liebig believed that fermentation was largely a process of decomposition as a consequence of the exposure of yeast to air and water. This theory was corroborated by Liebig's observation that other decomposing matter, such as rotten plant and animal parts, interacted with sugar in a similar manner as yeast. That is, the decomposition of albuminous matter (i.e. water-soluble proteins) caused sugar to transform to alcohol. Liebig held this view until his death in 1873. A different theory was supported by Charles Cagniard de la Tour and cell theorist Theodor Schwann, who claimed that alcoholic fermentation depended on the biological processes carried out by brewer's yeast.
+Louis Pasteur's interest in fermentation began when he noticed some remarkable properties of amyl alcohol—a by-product of lactic acid and alcohol fermentation—during his biochemical studies. In particular, Pasteur noted its ability to “rotate the plane of polarized light”, and its “unsymmetric arrangement of atoms." These behaviors were characteristic of organic compounds Pasteur had previously examined, but also presented a hurdle to his own research about a "law of hemihedral correlation". Pasteur had previously been attempting to derive connections between substances' chemical structures and external shape, and the optically active amyl alcohol did not follow his expectations according to the proposed 'law'. Pasteur sought a reason for why there happened to be this exception, and why such a chemical compound was generated during the fermentation process in the first place. In a series of lectures later in 1860, Pasteur attempted to link optical activity and molecular asymmetry to organic origins of substances, asserting that no chemical processes were capable of converting symmetric substances (inorganic) into asymmetric ones (organic). Hence, the amyl alcohol observation provided some of the first motivations for a biological explanation of fermentation.
+In 1856, Pasteur was able to observe the microbes responsible for alcoholic fermentation under a microscope, as a professor of science in the University of Lille. According to a legend originating in the 1900 biography of Pasteur, one of his chemistry students—an owner of a beetroot alcohol factory in Lille—sought aid from him after an unsuccessful year of brewing. Pasteur performed experiments at the factory in observation of the fermentation process, noticing that yeast globules became elongated after lactic acid was formed, but round and full when alcohol was fermenting correctly.
+In a different observation, Pasteur inspected particles originating on grapevines under the microscope and revealed the presence of living cells. Leaving these cells immersed in grape juice resulted in active alcoholic fermentation. This observation provided evidence for ending the distinction between ‘artificial’ fermentation in wine and ‘true’ fermentation in yeast products. The previous incorrect distinction had stemmed in part from the fact that yeast had to be added to beer wort in order to provoke desired alcoholic fermentation, while the fermenting catalysts for wine occurred naturally on grapevines; the fermentation of wine had been viewed as 'artificial' since it did not require additional catalyst, but the natural catalyst had been present on the grapevine itself. These observations provided Pasteur with a working hypothesis for future experiments.
+One of the chemical processes that Pasteur studied was the fermentation of sugar into lactic acid, as occurs in the souring of milk. In an 1857 experiment, Pasteur was able to isolate microorganisms present in lactic acid ferment after the chemical process had taken place. Pasteur then cultivated the microorganisms in a culture with his laboratory. He was then able to accelerate the lactic acid fermentation process in fresh milk by administering the cultivated sample to it. This was an important step in proving his hypothesis that lactic acid fermentation was catalyzed by microorganisms.

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+---
+title: "Fermentation theory"
+chunk: 2/2
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermentation_theory"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:11:07.762853+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+Pasteur also experimented with the mechanisms of brewer's yeast in the absence of organic nitrogen. By adding pure brewer's yeast to a solution of cane sugar, ammonium salt, and yeast ash, Pasteur was able to observe the alcoholic fermentation process with all of its usual byproducts: glycerin, succinic acid, and small amounts of cellulose and fatty matters. However, if any of the ingredients were removed from the solution, no fermentation would occur. To Pasteur, this was proof that yeast required the nitrogen, minerals, and carbon from the medium for its metabolic processes, releasing carbonic acid and ethyl alcohol as byproducts. This also disproved Liebig's theory, since there was no albuminous matter present in the medium; the decomposition of the yeast was not the driving force for the observed fermentation.
+
+== Pasteur on spontaneous generation ==
+Before the 1860s and 1870s—when Pasteur published his work on this theory—it was believed that microorganisms and even some small animals such as frogs would spontaneously generate. Spontaneous generation was historically explained in a variety of ways. Aristotle, an ancient Greek philosopher, theorized that creatures appeared out of certain concoctions of earthly elements, such as clay or mud mixing with water and sunlight. Later on, Felix Pouchet argued for the existence of 'plastic forces' within plant and animal debris capable of spontaneously generating eggs, and new organisms were born from these eggs. On top of this, a common piece of evidence that seemed to corroborate the theory was the appearance of maggots on raw meat after it was left exposed to open air.
+In the 1860s and 1870s, Pasteur's interest in spontaneous generation led him to criticize Pouchet's theories and conduct experiments of his own. In his first experiment, he took boiled sugared yeast-water and sealed it in an airtight contraption. Feeding hot, sterile air into the mixture left it unaltered, while introducing atmospheric dust resulted in microbes and mold appearing within the mixture. This result was also strengthened by the fact that Pasteur used asbestos, a form of totally inorganic matter, to carry the atmospheric dust. In a second experiment, Pasteur used the same flasks and sugar-yeast mixture, but left it idle in 'swan-neck' flasks instead of introducing any extraneous matter. Some flasks were kept open to the common air as the control group, and these exhibited mold and microbial growths within a day or two. When the swan-neck flasks failed to show these same microbial growths, Pasteur concluded that the structure of the necks blocked the passage of atmospheric dust into the solution. From the two experiments, Pasteur concluded that the atmospheric dust carried germs responsible for the 'spontaneous generation' in his broths. Thus, Pasteur's work provided proof that the emergent growth of bacteria in nutrient broths is caused by biogenesis rather than some form of spontaneous generation.
+
+== Applications ==
+Today, the process of fermentation is used for a multitude of everyday applications including medication, beverages and food. Currently, companies like Genencor International uses the production of enzymes involved in fermentation to build a revenue of over $400 million a year. Many medications such as antibiotics are produced by the fermentation process. An example is the important drug cortisone, which can be prepared by the fermentation of a plant steroid known as diosgenin. 
+
+The enzymes used in the reaction are provided by the mold Rhizopus nigricans. Just as it is commonly known, alcohol of all types and brands are also produced by way of fermentation and distillation. Moonshine is a classic example of how this is carried out. Finally, foods such as yogurt are made by fermentation processes as well. Yogurt is a fermented milk product that contains the characteristic bacterial cultures Lactobacillus bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermopiles.
+
+== See also ==
+
+Cellular respiration
+Distillation
+Fermentation in food processing
+Louis Pasteur
+Spontaneous generation
+Zymotic diseases (for the Greek language term zumoun for "ferment")
+
+== References ==

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_age_of_cosmology-0.md

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+---
+title: "Golden age of cosmology"
+chunk: 1/1
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_age_of_cosmology"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:11:08.935846+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+The golden age of cosmology is a term often used to describe the period from 1992 to the present in which important advances in observational cosmology have been made. Prior to the golden age of cosmology, the understanding of the universe was limited to what scientists could observe through telescopes and other instruments. Theories and models were developed based on limited data and observations, and there was much speculation and debate regarding the true nature of the universe.
+The golden age of cosmology has also seen the development of new observational techniques and technologies. For example, the use of telescopes in space has revolutionized our ability to observe the universe. Space-based observatories such as the Hubble Space Telescope (launched in 1990) and the James Webb Space Telescope (launched in 2021) have provided stunning images and data that have expanded our understanding of the universe. 
+In addition, ground-based telescopes have also undergone significant improvements in recent years. For example, the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile is a revolutionary new telescope that is able to observe the universe in unprecedented detail. It has already made significant contributions to our understanding of star formation and the early universe.
+
+
+== Lambda-CDM model ==
+In 1992, however, the situation changed dramatically with the launch of the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite. This mission was designed to study the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation, which is the leftover radiation from the Big Bang. The COBE mission made the first precise measurements of the CMB, and these measurements provided evidence in support of the Big Bang theory. The COBE mission also discovered small fluctuations in the CMB radiation, which were believed to be the seeds of galaxy formation. This discovery was a major breakthrough in our understanding of the early universe, as it provided evidence for the inflationary universe model. This model suggests that the universe underwent a rapid expansion in the first few moments after the Big Bang, which would have caused the tiny fluctuations in the CMB.
+In the years following the COBE mission, there were several other important discoveries in observational cosmology. One of the most significant was the discovery of dark matter. This mysterious substance makes up approximately 27% of the universe, yet it cannot be observed directly. Its existence was inferred from its gravitational effects on visible matter.
+The discovery of dark matter was followed by the discovery of dark energy, which makes up approximately 68% of the universe. Dark energy is believed to be responsible for the accelerated expansion of the universe, which was first observed in 1998 by two independent teams of astronomers.
+The discovery of dark matter and dark energy, along with the observations of the CMB and the large-scale structure of the universe, have led to the development of the Lambda-CDM model of the universe. This model suggests that the universe is composed of approximately 5% ordinary matter, 27% dark matter, and 68% dark energy.
+
+
+== Cosmic inflation ==
+In addition to these discoveries, there have been numerous other important advances in observational cosmology in recent years. For example, the Planck satellite, which was launched in 2009, made even more precise measurements of the CMB radiation than the COBE mission. These measurements provided even more evidence in support of the cosmic inflation and helped to refine our understanding of the universe's initial conditions.
+
+
+== Gravitational waves ==
+Another significant development in recent years has been the discovery of gravitational waves. These ripples in the fabric of spacetime were predicted by Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity, but it was not until 2015 that they were first detected. This discovery was made by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and confirmed a major prediction of general relativity.
+
+
+== References ==

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_energy-0.md

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+---
+title: "History of energy"
+chunk: 1/1
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_energy"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:11:01.906536+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+In the history of physics, the history of energy examines the gradual development of energy as a central scientific concept. Classical mechanics was initially understood through the study of motion and force by thinkers like Galileo Galilei and Isaac Newton, the importance of the concept of energy was made clear in the 19th century with the principles of thermodynamics, particularly the conservation of energy which established that energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed. In the 20th century Albert Einstein's mass–energy equivalence expanded this understanding by linking mass and energy, and quantum mechanics introduced quantized energy levels. Today, energy is recognized as a fundamental conserved quantity across all domains of physics, underlying both classical and quantum phenomena.
+
+
+== Antiquity ==
+The word energy derives from Greek word "energeia" (Greek: ἐνέργεια) meaning actuality, which appears for the first time in the 4th century BCE in various works of Aristotle when discussing potentiality and actuality including Physics, Metaphysics, Nicomachean Ethics and On the Soul.
+
+
+== Kinetic energy ==
+The modern concept of kinetic energy emerged from the idea of vis viva (living force), which Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz defined over the period 1676–1689 as the product of the mass of an object and its velocity squared; he believed that total vis viva was conserved. To account for slowing due to friction, Leibniz claimed that heat consisted of the random motion of the constituent parts of matter — a view described by Francis Bacon in Novum Organon to illustrate inductive reasoning and shared by Isaac Newton, although it would be more than a century until this was generally accepted.
+Émilie du Châtelet in her book Institutions de Physique ("Lessons in Physics"), published in 1740, incorporated the idea of Leibniz with practical observations of Willem 's Gravesande to show that the "quantity of motion" of a moving object is proportional to its mass and its velocity squared (not the velocity itself as Newton taught—what was later called momentum).
+Daniel Bernoulli extended the vis viva principle into the Bernoulli's principle for fluids in his book in his work Hydrodynamica of 1738.
+In 1802 lectures to the Royal Society, Thomas Young was the first to use the term energy to refer to kinetic energy in its modern sense, instead of vis viva. In the 1807 publication of those lectures, he wrote,
+
+The product of the mass of a body into the square of its velocity may properly be termed its energy.
+Gustave-Gaspard Coriolis described "kinetic energy" in 1829 in its modern sense,
+
+
+== Thermodynamics ==
+
+It was argued for some years whether energy was a substance (the caloric) or merely a physical quantity.
+The development of steam engines in the 18th century required engineers to develop concepts and formulas that would allow them to describe the mechanical and thermal efficiencies of their systems. Engineers such as Sadi Carnot, physicists such as James Prescott Joule, mathematicians such as Émile Clapeyron and Hermann von Helmholtz, and amateurs such as Julius Robert von Mayer all contributed to the notion that the ability to perform certain tasks, called work, was somehow related to the amount of energy in the system. In the 1850s, Glasgow professor of natural philosophy William Thomson and his ally in the engineering science William Rankine began to replace the older language of mechanics with terms such as actual energy, kinetic energy, and potential energy.  In 1853, Rankine coined the term "potential energy."
+William Thomson (Lord Kelvin) amalgamated all of these laws into the laws of thermodynamics, which aided in the rapid development of explanations of chemical processes using the concept of energy by Rudolf Clausius, Josiah Willard Gibbs and Walther Nernst. It also led to a mathematical formulation of the concept of entropy by Clausius, and to the introduction of laws of radiant energy by Jožef Stefan.
+Rankine coined the term potential energy.  In 1881, William Thomson stated before an audience that:
+
+The very name energy, though first used in its present sense by Dr Thomas Young about the beginning of this century, has only come into use practically after the doctrine which defines it had ... been raised from mere formula of mathematical dynamics to the position it now holds of a principle pervading all nature and guiding the investigator in the field of science.
+Over the following thirty years or so this newly developing science went by various names, such as the dynamical theory of heat or energetics, but after the 1920s generally came to be known as thermodynamics, the science of energy transformations.
+
+
+== Time-translation symmetry ==
+In 1918 Emmy Noether proved that the law of conservation of energy is the direct mathematical consequence of the time-translation symmetry.  That is according to Noether's theorem relating symmetries and conserved quantity, energy is conserved because the laws of physics do not distinguish between different moments of time.
+During a 1961 lecture for undergraduate students at the California Institute of Technology, Richard Feynman, a celebrated physics teacher and Nobel Laureate, said this about the concept of energy:
+
+There is a fact, or if you wish, a law, governing natural phenomena that are known to date. There is no known exception to this law—it is exact so far we know. The law is called conservation of energy; it states that there is a certain quantity, which we call energy that does not change in manifold changes which nature undergoes. That is a most abstract idea, because it is a mathematical principle; it says that there is a numerical quantity, which does not change when something happens. It is not a description of a mechanism, or anything concrete; it is just a strange fact that we can calculate some number, and when we finish watching nature go through her tricks and calculate the number again, it is the same.
+
+
+== See also ==
+Timeline of thermodynamics
+History of physics
+History of the conservation of energy principle
+History of thermodynamics
+A Guide to the Scientific Knowledge of Things Familiar, a book by Ebenezer Cobham Brewer, published around 1840, presenting explanations for common phenomena
+Caloric theory
+
+
+== References ==
+
+
+== Further reading ==
+Hecht, Eugene. "An Historico-Critical Account of Potential Energy: Is PE Really Real?" The Physics Teacher 41 (Nov 2003): 486–93.
+Hughes, Thomas. Networks of Power. Electrification in Western society, 1880-1930 (Johns Hopkins UP, 1983).
+Martinás,  Katalin. "Aristotelian Thermodynamics," Thermodynamics: history and philosophy: facts, trends, debates (Veszprém, Hungary 23–28 July 1990), 285–303.
+Mendoza, E. "A sketch for a history of early thermodynamics." Physics Today 14.2 (1961): 32–42.
+Müller, Ingo. A history of thermodynamics (Berlin: Springer, 2007)
+Graf, Rüdiger. "Energy History and Histories of Energy", Docupedia-Zeitgeschichte (Aug 2023).
+
+
+== External links ==
+The Journal of Energy History / Revue d'histoire de l'énergie (JEHRHE) 
+Timeline of history of energy for children

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+---
+title: "History of experiments"
+chunk: 1/3
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_experiments"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:11:05.503097+00:00"
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+The history of experimental research is long and varied. Indeed, the definition of an experiment itself has changed in responses to changing norms and practices within particular fields of study. This article documents the history and development of experimental research from its origins in Galileo's study of gravity into the diversely applied method in use today.
+
+== Ibn al-Haytham ==
+
+The Arab physicist Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) used experimentation to obtain the results in his Book of Optics (1021). He combined observations, experiments and rational arguments to support his intromission theory of vision, in which rays of light are emitted from objects rather than from the eyes. He used similar arguments to show that the ancient emission theory of vision supported by Ptolemy and Euclid (in which the eyes emit the rays of light used for seeing), and the ancient intromission theory supported by Aristotle (where objects emit physical particles to the eyes), were both wrong.
+Experimental evidence supported most of the propositions in his Book of Optics and grounded his theories of vision, light and colour, as well as his research in catoptrics and dioptrics.  His legacy was elaborated through the 'reforming' of his Optics by Kamal al-Din al-Farisi (d. c. 1320) in the latter's Kitab Tanqih al-Manazir (The Revision of [Ibn al-Haytham's] Optics).
+Alhazen viewed his scientific studies as a search for truth: "Truth is sought for its own sake. And those who are engaged upon the quest for anything for its own sake are not interested in other things. Finding the truth is difficult, and the road to it is rough. ...
+Alhazen's work included the conjecture that "Light travels through transparent bodies in straight lines only", which he was able to corroborate only after years of effort. He stated, "[This] is clearly observed in the lights which enter into dark rooms through holes. ... the entering light will be clearly observable in the dust which fills the air." He also demonstrated the conjecture by placing a straight stick or a taut thread next to the light beam.
+Ibn al-Haytham employed scientific skepticism, emphasizing the role of empiricism and explaining the role of induction in syllogism. He went so far as to criticize Aristotle for his lack of contribution to the method of induction, which Ibn al-Haytham regarded as being not only superior to syllogism but the basic requirement for true scientific research.
+Something like Occam's razor is also present in the Book of Optics. For example, after demonstrating that light is generated by luminous objects and emitted or reflected into the eyes, he states that therefore "the extramission of [visual] rays is superfluous and useless." He may also have been the first scientist to adopt a form of positivism in his approach. He wrote that "we do not go beyond experience, and we cannot be content to use pure concepts in investigating natural phenomena", and that the understanding of these cannot be acquired without mathematics. After assuming that light is a material substance, he does not further discuss its nature but confines his investigations to the diffusion and propagation of light. The only properties of light he takes into account are those treatable by geometry and verifiable by experiment.
+
+== Roger Bacon ==
+Roger Bacon's assertions in the Opus Majus that "theories supplied by reason should be verified by sensory data, aided by instruments, and corroborated by trustworthy witnesses" were (and still are) considered "one of the first important formulations of the scientific method on record".
+
+== Galileo Galilei ==
+
+Galileo Galilei as a scientist performed quantitative experiments addressing many topics. Using several different methods, Galileo was able to accurately measure time. Previously, most scientists had used distance to describe falling bodies, applying geometry, which had been used and trusted since Euclid. Galileo himself used geometrical methods to express his results. Galileo's successes were aided by the development of a new mathematics as well as cleverly designed experiments and equipment. At that time, another kind of mathematics was being developed—algebra. Algebra allowed arithmetical calculations to become as sophisticated as geometric ones. Algebra also allowed the discoveries of scientists such as Galileo—as well as later scientists such as Isaac Newton, James Clerk Maxwell and Albert Einstein—to be summarized by mathematical equations. These equations described physical relationships in a precise, self-consistent manner.
+One prominent example is the "ball and ramp experiment." In this experiment Galileo used an inclined plane and several steel balls of different weights. With this design, Galileo was able to slow down the falling motion and record, with reasonable accuracy, the times at which a steel ball passed certain markings on a beam.  Galileo disproved Aristotle's assertion that weight affects the speed of an object's fall. According to Aristotle's Theory of Falling Bodies, the heavier steel ball would reach the ground before the lighter steel ball. Galileo's hypothesis was that the two balls would reach the ground at the same time.
+Other than Galileo, not many people of his day were able to accurately measure short time periods, such as the fall time of an object. Galileo accurately measured these short periods of time by creating a pulsilogon. This was a machine created to measure time using a pendulum. The pendulum was synchronized to the human pulse. He used this to measure the time at which the weighted balls passed marks that he had made on the inclined plane. His measurements found that balls of different weights reached the bottom of the inclined plane at the same time and that the distance traveled was proportional to the square of the elapsed time. Later scientists summarized Galileo's results as The Equation of Falling Bodies.
+
+These results supported Galileo's hypothesis that objects of different weights, when measured at the same point in their fall, are falling at the same speed because they experience the same gravitational acceleration.
+
+== Antoine Lavoisier ==

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+
+The experiments of Antoine Lavoisier (1743–1794), a French chemist regarded as the founder of modern chemistry, were among the first to be truly quantitative. Lavoisier showed that although matter changes its state in a chemical reaction, the quantity of matter is the same at the end as at the beginning of every chemical reaction. In one experiment, he burned phosphorus and sulfur in air to see whether the results further supported his previous conclusion (Law of Conservation of Mass). In this experiment, however, he determined that the products weighed more than the original phosphorus and sulfur. He decided to do the experiment again. This time he measured the mass of the air surrounding the experiment as well. He discovered that the mass gained in the product was lost from the air. These experiments provided further support for his Law of Conservation of Mass.
+One of Lavoisier's experiments connected the worlds of respiration and combustion. Lavoisier's hypothesis was that combustion and respiration were one and the same, and combustion occurs with every instance of respiration. Working with Pierre-Simon Laplace, Lavoisier designed an ice calorimeter apparatus for measuring the amount of heat given off during combustion or respiration. This machine consisted of three concentric compartments. The center compartment held the source of heat, in this case the guinea pig or piece of burning charcoal. The middle compartment held a specific amount of ice for the heat source to melt. The outside compartment contained packed snow for insulation. Lavoisier then measured the quantity of carbon dioxide and the quantity of heat produced by confining a live guinea pig in this apparatus.  Lavoisier also measured the heat and carbon dioxide produced when burning a piece of charcoal in the calorimeter. Using this data, he concluded that respiration was in fact a slow combustion process. He also discovered through precise measurements that these processes produced carbon dioxide and heat with the same constant of proportionality. He found that for 224 grains of "fixed air" (CO2) produced, 13 oz (370 g). of ice was melted in the calorimeter.  Converting grains to grams and using the energy required to melt 13 oz (370 g). of ice, one can compute that for each gram of CO2 produced, about 2.02 kcal of energy was produced by the combustion of carbon or by respiration in Lavoisier's calorimeter experiments. This compares well with the modern published heat of combustion for carbon of 2.13 kcal/g. This continuous slow combustion, which Lavoisier and Laplace supposed took place in the lungs, enabled the living animal to maintain its body temperature above that of its surroundings, thus accounting for the puzzling phenomenon of animal heat.  Lavoisier concluded, "La respiration est donc une combustion," That is, respiratory gas exchange is combustion, like that of burning a candle.
+Lavoisier was the first to conclude by experiment that the Law of Conservation of Mass applied to chemical change. His hypothesis was that the mass of the reactants would be the same as the mass of the products in a chemical reaction. He experimented on vinous fermentation, determining the amounts of hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon in sugar. Weighing a quantity of sugar, he added yeast and water in measured amounts, allowing the mixture to ferment.  Lavoisier then measured the mass of the carbonic acid gas and water that were given off during fermentation and weighed the residual liquor, the components of which were then separated and analyzed to determine their elementary composition.  In this way he controlled a couple of potential confounding factors. He was able to capture the carbonic acid gas and water vapor that were given off during fermentation so that his final measurements would be as accurate as possible. Lavoisier concluded that the total mass of the reactants was equal to the mass of the final product and residue. Moreover, he showed that the total mass of each constituent element before and after the chemical change remained the same. Similarly, he demonstrated via experimentation that the mass of products of combustion is equal to the mass of the reacting ingredients.
+
+== Louis Pasteur ==

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+The French biologist Louis Pasteur (1822-1895), regarded as the "Father of microbiological sciences and immunology", worked during the 19th century.  He postulated - and supported with experimental results - the idea that disease-causing agents do not spontaneously appear but are alive and need the right environment to prosper and multiply.  Stemming from this discovery, he used experimentation to develop vaccines for chicken cholera, anthrax and rabies, and developed methods for reducing bacteria in some food products by heating them (pasteurization).  Pasteur's work also led him to advocate (along with the English physician Dr. Joseph Lister) antiseptic surgical techniques. Most scientists of that day believed that microscopic life sprang into existence from spontaneous generation in non-living matter.
+Pasteur's observations of tiny organisms under the microscope caused him to doubt spontaneous generation. He designed an experiment to test his hypothesis that life could not arise from where there is no life. He took care to control possible confounding factors. For example, he needed to make sure there was no life, even microscopic, in the flasks of broth he used as a test medium. He decided to kill any microscopic organisms already present by boiling the broth until he was confident that any microorganisms present were dead. Pasteur also needed to make sure that no microscopic organisms entered the broth after boiling, yet the broth needed exposure to air to properly test the theory.  A colleague suggested a flask with a neck the shape of an "S" turned sideways. Dust (which Pasteur thought contained microorganisms) would be trapped at the bottom of the first curve, but the air would flow freely through.
+Thus, if bacteria should really be spontaneously generated, then they should be growing in the flask after a few days. If spontaneous generation did not occur, then the contents of the flasks would remain lifeless. The experiment appeared conclusive: not a single microorganism appeared in the broth. Pasteur then allowed the dust containing the microorganisms to mix with the broth. In just a few days the broth became cloudy from millions of organisms growing in it. For two more years he repeated the experiment in various conditions and locales to assure himself that the results were correct. In this way Pasteur supported his hypothesis that spontaneous generation does not occur. Despite the experimental results supporting his hypotheses and his success curing or preventing various diseases, correcting the public misconception of spontaneous generation proved a slow, difficult process.
+As he worked to solve specific problems, Pasteur sometimes revised his ideas in the light of the results of his experiments, as when faced with the task of finding the cause of disease devastating the French silkworm industry in 1865.  After a year of diligent work he correctly identified a culprit organism and gave practical advice for developing a healthy population of moths.  However, when he tested his own advice, he found disease still present. It turned out he had been correct but incomplete – there were two organisms at work.  It took two more years of experimenting to find the complete solution.
+
+== See also ==
+List of experiments
+
+== References ==
+
+Bell, Madison Smartt (2005) Lavoisier in the Year One.. W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. ISBN 0-393-05155-2
+Borlik, Todd Andrew (2013). "More than Art: Clockwork Automata, the Extemporizing Actor, and the Brazen Head in Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay". In Hyman, Wendy Beth (ed.). The Automaton in English Renaissance Literature. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. ISBN 978-1-4094-7884-3.
+Holmes, Frederic Lawrence (1987) Lavoisier and the chemistry of life: an exploration of scientific creativity, Univ. Wisconsin Press. Reprint. ISBN 978-0-299-09984-8.
+Dubos, Rene J. (1986) Louis Pasteur: Free Lance of Science. Da Capo Press. ISBN 978-0-306-80262-1
+Kupelis, Theo; Kuhn, Karl F. (2007) In Quest of the Universe. Jones and Bartlett Publishers. ISBN 978-0-7637-4387-1.

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+
+Julian Huxley used the phrase "the eclipse of Darwinism" to describe the state of affairs prior to what he called the "modern synthesis". During the "eclipse", evolution was widely accepted in scientific circles but relatively few biologists believed that natural selection was its primary mechanism. Historians of science such as Peter J. Bowler have used the same phrase as a label for the period within the history of evolutionary thought from the 1880s to around 1920, when alternatives to natural selection were developed and explored—as many biologists considered natural selection to have been a wrong guess on Charles Darwin's part, or at least to be of relatively minor importance. 
+Four major alternatives to natural selection were in play in the 19th century:
+
+Theistic evolution, the belief that God directly guided evolution
+Neo-Lamarckism, the idea that evolution was driven by the inheritance of characteristics acquired during the life of the organism
+Orthogenesis, the belief that organisms were affected by internal forces or laws of development that drove evolution in particular directions
+Mutationism, the idea that evolution was largely the product of mutations that created new forms or species in a single step.
+Theistic evolution had largely disappeared from the scientific literature by the end of the 19th century as direct appeals to supernatural causes came to be seen as unscientific. The other alternatives had significant followings well into the 20th century; mainstream biology largely abandoned them only when developments in genetics made them seem increasingly untenable, and when the development of population genetics and the modern synthesis demonstrated the explanatory power of natural selection. Ernst Mayr wrote that as late as 1930 most textbooks still emphasized such non-Darwinian mechanisms.
+
+== Context ==
+Evolution was widely accepted in scientific circles within a few years after the publication of On the Origin of Species, but there was much less acceptance of natural selection as its driving mechanism. Six objections were raised to the theory in the 19th century:
+
+The fossil record was discontinuous, suggesting gaps in evolution.
+The physicist Lord Kelvin calculated in 1862 that the Earth would have cooled in 100 million years or less from its formation, too little time for evolution.
+It was argued that many structures were nonadaptive (functionless), so they could not have evolved under natural selection.
+Some structures seemed to have evolved on a regular pattern, like the eyes of unrelated animals such as the squid and mammals.
+Natural selection was argued not to be creative, while variation was admitted to be mostly not of value.
+The engineer Fleeming Jenkin correctly noted in 1868, reviewing The Origin of Species, that the blending inheritance favoured by Charles Darwin would oppose the action of natural selection.
+Both Darwin and his close supporter Thomas Henry Huxley freely admitted, too, that selection might not be the whole explanation; Darwin was prepared to accept a measure of Lamarckism, while Huxley was comfortable with both sudden (mutational) change and directed (orthogenetic) evolution.
+By the end of the 19th century, criticism of natural selection had reached the point that in 1903 the German botanist, Eberhard Dennert , edited a series of articles intended to show that "Darwinism will soon be a thing of the past, a matter of history; that we even now stand at its death-bed, while its friends are solicitous only to secure for it a decent burial." In 1907, the Stanford University entomologist Vernon Lyman Kellogg, who supported natural selection, asserted that "... the fair truth is that the Darwinian selection theory, considered with regard to its claimed capacity to be an independently sufficient mechanical explanation of descent, stands today seriously discredited in the biological world." He added, however, that there were problems preventing the widespread acceptance of any of the alternatives, as large mutations seemed too uncommon, and there was no experimental evidence of mechanisms that could support either Lamarckism or orthogenesis. Ernst Mayr wrote that a survey of evolutionary literature and biology textbooks showed that as late as 1930 the belief that natural selection was the most important factor in evolution was a minority viewpoint, with only a few population geneticists being strict selectionists.
+
+=== Motivation for alternatives ===
+
+A variety of different factors motivated people to propose other evolutionary mechanisms as alternatives to natural selection, some of them dating back before Darwin's Origin of Species. Natural selection, with its emphasis on death and competition, did not appeal to some naturalists because they felt it was immoral, and left little room for teleology or the concept of progress in the development of life. Some of these scientists and philosophers, like St. George Jackson Mivart and Charles Lyell, who came to accept evolution but disliked natural selection, raised religious objections. Others, such as Herbert Spencer, the botanist George Henslow (son of Darwin's mentor John Stevens Henslow, also a botanist), and Samuel Butler, felt that evolution was an inherently progressive process that natural selection alone was insufficient to explain. Still others, including the American paleontologists Edward Drinker Cope and Alpheus Hyatt, had an idealist perspective and felt that nature, including the development of life, followed orderly patterns that natural selection could not explain.
+Another factor was the rise of a new faction of biologists at the end of the 19th century, typified by the geneticists Hugo DeVries and Thomas Hunt Morgan, who wanted to recast biology as an experimental laboratory science. They distrusted the work of naturalists like Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace, dependent on field observations of variation, adaptation, and biogeography, considering these overly anecdotal. Instead they focused on topics like physiology, and genetics that could be easily investigated with controlled experiments in the laboratory, and discounted natural selection and the degree to which organisms were adapted to their environment, which could not easily be tested experimentally.
+
+== Anti-Darwinist theories during the eclipse ==
+
+=== Theistic evolution ===

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+British science developed in the early 19th century on a basis of natural theology which saw the adaptation of fixed species as evidence that they had been specially created to a purposeful divine design. The philosophical concepts of German idealism inspired concepts of an ordered plan of harmonious creation, which Richard Owen reconciled with natural theology as a pattern of homology showing evidence of design. Similarly, Louis Agassiz saw Ernest Haeckel's recapitulation theory, which held that the embryological development of an organism repeats its evolutionary history, as symbolising a pattern of the sequence of creations in which humanity was the goal of a divine plan. In 1844 Vestiges adapted Agassiz's concept into theistic evolutionism. Its anonymous author Robert Chambers proposed a "law" of divinely ordered progressive development, with transmutation of species as an extension of recapitulation theory. This popularised the idea, but it was strongly condemned by the scientific establishment. Agassiz remained forcefully opposed to evolution, and after he moved to America in 1846 his idealist argument from design of orderly development became very influential. In 1858 Owen cautiously proposed that this development could be a real expression of a continuing creative law, but distanced himself from transmutationists. Two years later, in his review of On the Origin of Species, Owen attacked Darwin while at the same time openly supporting evolution, expressing belief in a pattern of transmutation by law-like means. This idealist argument from design was taken up by other naturalists such as George Jackson Mivart, and the Duke of Argyll who rejected natural selection altogether in favor of laws of development that guided evolution down preordained paths.
+Many of Darwin's supporters accepted evolution on the basis that it could be reconciled with design. In particular, Asa Gray considered natural selection to be the main mechanism of evolution and sought to reconcile it with natural theology. He proposed that natural selection could be a mechanism in which the problem of evil of suffering produced the greater good of adaptation, but conceded that this had difficulties and suggested that God might influence the variations on which natural selection acted to guide evolution. For Darwin and Thomas Henry Huxley such pervasive supernatural influence was beyond scientific investigation, and George Frederick Wright, an ordained minister who was Gray's colleague in developing theistic evolution, emphasised the need to look for secondary or known causes rather than invoking supernatural explanations: "If we cease to observe this rule there is an end to all science and all sound science."
+A secular version of this methodological naturalism was welcomed by a younger generation of scientists who sought to investigate natural causes of organic change, and rejected theistic evolution in science. By 1872 Darwinism in its broader sense of the fact of evolution was accepted as a starting point. Around 1890 only a few older men held onto the idea of design in science, and it had completely disappeared from mainstream scientific discussions by 1900. There was still unease about the implications of natural selection, and those seeking a purpose or direction in evolution turned to neo-Lamarckism or orthogenesis as providing natural explanations.
+
+=== Neo-Lamarckism ===
+
+Jean-Baptiste Lamarck had originally proposed a theory on the transmutation of species that was largely based on a progressive drive toward greater complexity. Lamarck also believed, as did many others in the 19th century, that characteristics acquired during the course of an organism's life could be inherited by the next generation, and he saw this as a secondary evolutionary mechanism that produced adaptation to the environment. Typically, such characteristics included changes caused by the use or disuse of a particular organ. It was this mechanism of evolutionary adaptation through the inheritance of acquired characteristics that much later came to be known as Lamarckism. Although Alfred Russel Wallace completely rejected the concept in favor of natural selection, Darwin always included what he called Effects of the increased Use and Disuse of Parts, as controlled by Natural Selection in On the Origin of Species, giving examples such as large ground feeding birds getting stronger legs through exercise, and weaker wings from not flying until, like the ostrich, they could not fly at all.

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+In the late 19th century the term neo-Lamarckism came to be associated with the position of naturalists who viewed the inheritance of acquired characteristics as the most important evolutionary mechanism. Advocates of this position included the British writer and Darwin critic Samuel Butler, the German biologist Ernst Haeckel, the American paleontologists Edward Drinker Cope and Alpheus Hyatt, and the American entomologist Alpheus Packard. They considered Lamarckism to be more progressive and thus philosophically superior to Darwin's idea of natural selection acting on random variation. Butler and Cope both believed that this allowed organisms to effectively drive their own evolution, since organisms that developed new behaviors would change the patterns of use of their organs and thus kick-start the evolutionary process. In addition, Cope and Haeckel both believed that evolution was a progressive process. The idea of linear progress was an important part of Haeckel's recapitulation theory. Cope and Hyatt looked for, and thought they found, patterns of linear progression in the fossil record. Packard argued that the loss of vision in the blind cave insects he studied was best explained through a Lamarckian process of atrophy through disuse combined with inheritance of acquired characteristics. 
+Many American proponents of neo-Lamarckism were strongly influenced by Louis Agassiz, and a number of them, including Hyatt and Packard, were his students. Agassiz had an idealistic view of nature, connected with natural theology, that emphasized the importance of order and pattern. Agassiz never accepted evolution; his followers did, but they continued his program of searching for orderly patterns in nature, which they considered to be consistent with divine providence, and preferred evolutionary mechanisms like neo-Lamarckism and orthogenesis that would be likely to produce them.
+In Britain the botanist George Henslow, the son of Darwin's mentor John Stevens Henslow, was an important advocate of neo-Lamarckism. He studied how environmental stress affected the development of plants, and he wrote that the variations induced by such environmental factors could largely explain evolution. The historian of science Peter J. Bowler writes that, as was typical of many 19th century Lamarckians, Henslow did not appear to understand the need to demonstrate that such environmentally induced variations would be inherited by descendants that developed in the absence of the environmental factors that produced them, but merely assumed that they would be.
+
+==== Polarising the argument: Weismann's germ plasm ====
+
+Critics of neo-Lamarckism pointed out that no one had ever produced solid evidence for the inheritance of acquired characteristics. The experimental work of the German biologist August Weismann resulted in the germ plasm theory of inheritance. This led him to declare that inheritance of acquired characteristics was impossible, since the Weismann barrier would prevent any changes that occurred to the body after birth from being inherited by the next generation. This effectively polarised the argument between the Darwinians and the neo-Lamarckians, as it forced people to choose whether to agree or disagree with Weismann and hence with evolution by natural selection. Despite Weismann's criticism, neo-Lamarckism remained the most popular alternative to natural selection at the end of the 19th century, and would remain the position of some naturalists well into the 20th century.
+
+==== Baldwin effect ====
+
+As a consequence of the debate over the viability of neo-Lamarckism, in 1896 James Mark Baldwin, Henry Fairfield Osborne and C. Lloyd Morgan all independently proposed a mechanism where new learned behaviors could cause the evolution of new instincts and physical traits through natural selection without resort to the inheritance of acquired characteristics. They proposed that if individuals in a species benefited from learning a particular new behavior, the ability to learn that behavior could be favored by natural selection, and the result would be the evolution of new instincts and eventually new physical adaptations. This became known as the Baldwin effect and it has remained a topic of debate and research in evolutionary biology ever since.
+
+=== Orthogenesis ===
+
+Orthogenesis was the theory that life has an innate tendency to change, in a unilinear fashion in a particular direction. The term was popularized by Theodor Eimer, a German zoologist, in his 1898 book On Orthogenesis: And the Impotence of Natural Selection in Species Formation. He had studied the coloration of butterflies, and believed he had discovered non-adaptive features which could not be explained by natural selection. Eimer also believed in Lamarckian inheritance of acquired characteristics, but he felt that internal laws of growth determined which characteristics would be acquired and guided the long term direction of evolution down certain paths.
+Orthogenesis had a significant following in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, its proponents including the Russian biologist Leo S. Berg, and the American paleontologist Henry Fairfield Osborn. Orthogenesis was particularly popular among some paleontologists, who believed that the fossil record showed patterns of gradual and constant unidirectional change. Those who accepted this idea, however, did not necessarily accept that the mechanism driving orthogenesis was teleological (goal-directed). They did believe that orthogenetic trends were non-adaptive; in fact they felt that in some cases they led to developments that were detrimental to the organism, such as the large antlers of the Irish elk that they believed led to the animal's extinction.
+Support for orthogenesis began to decline during the modern synthesis in the 1940s, when it became apparent that orthogenesis could not explain the complex branching patterns of evolution revealed by statistical analysis of the fossil record by paleontologists. A few biologists however hung on to the idea of orthogenesis as late as the 1950s, claiming that the processes of macroevolution, the long term trends in evolution, were distinct from the processes of microevolution.
+
+=== Mutationism ===

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+
+Mutationism was the idea that new forms and species arose in a single step as a result of large mutations. It was seen as a much faster alternative to the Darwinian concept of a gradual process of small random variations being acted on by natural selection. It was popular with early geneticists such as Hugo de Vries, who along with Carl Correns helped rediscover Gregor Mendel's laws of inheritance in 1900, William Bateson a British zoologist who switched to genetics, and early in his career, Thomas Hunt Morgan.
+The 1901 mutation theory of evolution held that species went through periods of rapid mutation, possibly as a result of environmental stress, that could produce multiple mutations, and in some cases completely new species, in a single generation. Its originator was the Dutch botanist Hugo de Vries. De Vries looked for evidence of mutation extensive enough to produce a new species in a single generation and thought he found it with his work breeding the evening primrose of the genus Oenothera, which he started in 1886. The plants that de Vries worked with seemed to be constantly producing new varieties with striking variations in form and color, some of which appeared to be new species because plants of the new generation could only be crossed with one another, not with their parents. DeVries himself allowed a role for natural selection in determining which new species would survive, but some geneticists influenced by his work, including Morgan, felt that natural selection was not necessary at all. De Vries's ideas were influential in the first two decades of the 20th century, as some biologists felt that mutation theory could explain the sudden emergence of new forms in the fossil record; research on Oenothera spread across the world. However, critics including many field naturalists wondered why no other organism seemed to show the same kind of rapid mutation.
+Morgan was a supporter of de Vries's mutation theory and was hoping to gather evidence in favor of it when he started working with the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster in his lab in 1907. However, it was a researcher in that lab, Hermann Joseph Muller, who determined in 1918 that the new varieties de Vries had observed while breeding Oenothera were the result of polyploid hybrids rather than rapid genetic mutation. While they were doubtful of the importance of natural selection, the work of geneticists like Morgan, Bateson, de Vries and others from 1900 to 1915 established Mendelian genetics linked to chromosomal inheritance, which validated August Weismann's criticism of neo-Lamarckian evolution by discounting the inheritance of acquired characteristics. The work in Morgan's lab with Drosophila also undermined the concept of orthogenesis by demonstrating the random nature of mutation.
+
+== End of the eclipse ==
+
+During the period 1916–1932, the discipline of population genetics developed largely through the work of the geneticists Ronald Fisher, J.B.S. Haldane, and Sewall Wright. Their work recognized that the vast majority of mutations produced small effects that served to increase the genetic variability of a population rather than creating new species in a single step as the mutationists assumed. They were able to produce statistical models of population genetics that included Darwin's concept of natural selection as the driving force of evolution.
+Developments in genetics persuaded field naturalists such as Bernhard Rensch and Ernst Mayr to abandon neo-Lamarckian ideas about evolution in the early 1930s. By the late 1930s, Mayr and Theodosius Dobzhansky had synthesized the ideas of population genetics with the knowledge of field naturalists about the amount of genetic diversity in wild populations, and the importance of genetically distinct subpopulations (especially when isolated from one another by geographical barriers) to create the early 20th century modern synthesis. In 1944 George Gaylord Simpson integrated paleontology into the synthesis by statistically analyzing the fossil record to show that it was consistent with the branching non-directional form of evolution predicted by the synthesis, and in particular that the linear trends cited by earlier paleontologists in support of Lamarckism and orthogenesis did not stand up to careful analysis. Mayr wrote that by the end of the synthesis natural selection together with chance mechanisms like genetic drift had become the universal explanation for evolutionary change.

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_eclipse_of_Darwinism-4.md

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+---
+title: "The eclipse of Darwinism"
+chunk: 5/5
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_eclipse_of_Darwinism"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:10:58.221063+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+== Historiography ==
+The concept of eclipse suggests that Darwinian research paused, implying in turn that there had been a preceding period of vigorously Darwinian activity among biologists. However, historians of science such as Mark Largent have argued that while biologists broadly accepted the extensive evidence for evolution presented in The Origin of Species, there was less enthusiasm for natural selection as a mechanism. Biologists instead looked for alternative explanations more in keeping with their worldviews, which included the beliefs that evolution must be directed and that it constituted a form of progress. Further, the idea of a dark eclipse period was convenient to scientists such as Julian Huxley, who wished to paint the modern synthesis as a bright new achievement, and accordingly to depict the preceding period as dark and confused. Huxley's 1942 book Evolution: The Modern Synthesis therefore, argued Largent, suggested that the so-called modern synthesis began after a long period of eclipse lasting until the 1930s, in which Mendelians, neo-Lamarckians, mutationists, and Weismannians, not to mention experimental embryologists and Haeckelian recapitulationists fought running battles with each other. The idea of an eclipse also allowed Huxley to step aside from what was to him the inconvenient association of evolution with aspects such as social Darwinism, eugenics, imperialism, and militarism. Accounts such as Michael Ruse's very large book Monad to Man ignored, claimed Largent, almost all the early 20th century American evolutionary biologists. Largent has suggested as an alternative to eclipse a biological metaphor, the interphase of Darwinism, interphase being an apparently quiet period in the cycle of cell division and growth. 
+In 2024, Michał J. Wagner argues that the eclipse of Darwinism was a theoretical crisis rather than a historiographical construct. In Revisiting the Eclipse of Darwinism, Wagner writes that the decline of confidence in Darwinism resulted from unresolved philosophical tensions within the theory itself, particularly concerning ontology, causation, and standards of scientific explanation. In his view, tensions between population-based evolutionary explanations and residual essentialist assumptions limited the explanatory scope of natural selection, especially with respect to heredity, variation, and evolutionary direction. On this view, alternative evolutionary theories of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries emerged as responses to these internal difficulties, and the modern synthesis represented not simply a revival of Darwinism but a reconfiguration of its conceptual foundations.
+
+== See also ==
+Coloration evidence for natural selection
+Objections to evolution
+
+== Notes ==
+
+== References ==
+
+== Sources ==