During the late nineteenth century, scientists around the world disagreed as to the types of instruments and methods that should be used for determining the most important constant of celestial mechanics: the solar parallax. Venus’s 1874 transit across the sun was seen as the best opportunity for ending decades of debate. However, a mysterious “black drop” that appeared between Venus and the sun and individual differences in observations of the phenomenon brought traditional methods into disrepute. To combat these difficulties, the (...) astronomer Jules Janssen devised a controversial new instrument, the “photographic revolver,” that photographed Venus at regular intervals. Another solution came from physicists, who rivaled the astronomers’ dominance in precision measurements by deducing the solar parallax from physical measurements of the speed of light. Yet other astronomers relied on drawings and well‐trained observers. The new space emerging from this debate was characterized by a decline in faith in photography and in geometry and by the growing realization of the importance of alternative elements needed for establishing scientific truths: power and authority, skill and discipline, standardization, mechanical reproducibility, and theatricality. By examining the “cinematographic turn” in science and its alternatives, this essay brings to light unexplored multidisciplinary connections that contribute to the histories of psychology, philosophy, physics, and film studies. (shrink)

The history of microcinematography is explored here as an example of the possible historiographical directions for work on science and film in the twentieth century. Topics discussed include investigations of the role of time in experiment, and the constant interplay between static and dynamic modes of imaging in scientific research; the role of films as depictions of both the objects of science and the process of scientific looking itself; and the possibility for telling a social history of science through investigation (...) of the production and reception of cinema. (shrink)

A complete, illustrated survey of Etienne-Jules Marey's work that investigates the far reaching effects of her inventions on stream-of-consciousness literature, psychoanalysis, Bergsonian philosophy, and the art of cubists and futurists.