{"id":{"repo_id":"cambridge","oai_identifier":"oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/372485"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/cambridge/oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/372485","repository":{"repo_id":"cambridge","name":"Cambridge University","base_url":"https://api.repository.cam.ac.uk/server/oai/request"},"display":{"title":"Instrument and Influence: The Problem of Fair Weather Electricity (1850–1930)","abstract":"This thesis presents a history of the fair weather problem, an atmospheric electric phenomenon, between 1850 and 1930. The analogy and presumed identity between lightning and the sparks drawn from electrical machines in 1752 has been heralded as a pivotal moment in the history of physics. That same year, Louis-Guillaume Le Monnier (1717-1799) found his electroscope rendered another phenomenon visible on a clear day: ordinary air appeared electrical too. But how was this possible? This dissertation explores various attempts to solve this scientific problem across an eighty-year period, and argues that an instrument-oriented analysis of this history reveals a richer view of atmospheric electricity than has previously been provided. Chapter 2 provides an account of the instruments and innovations made by British physicist and industrialist William Thomson (1824–1907) around 1850, and then explores his attempts at instigating a global electrical survey. Chapter 3 assesses Continental responses to Thomson’s programme in the decades that follow, through the divergent programmes of Austrian physicist Franz Exner (1849–1926) and German schoolteachers Julius Elster (1854-1920) and Hans Geitel (1855-1923) between 1870 to 1900. Chapter 4 analyses the theoretical problems arising from the ionisation of the atmosphere, and explores the controversies surrounding British physicist C.T.R. Wilson’s (1869-1959) new global electrical circuit theory between 1900 and 1930. In this thesis, I put forward the term *instrumental thinking* to describe the plasticity of instruments designed for measurements of atmospheric electricity. Instruments enabled phenomena to be interrogated creatively and productively through physical interaction and metaphorical speculation. Instruments were designed, used, improved, altered, and co-opted by an array of practitioners to investigate atmospheric electrification. Further, thinking with electrical instruments was central to many practitioners’ conceptualisations of the Earth-atmosphere system. Metaphorical Leyden jars, capacitors, circuits, and batteries were often invoked to carry significant explanatory weight. Shifts in understanding fair weather were mediated by physical and metaphorical scientific instruments with different perspectives of invisible electric quantities: potential, charge, and current. These shifts were also reflected in practitioners’ various choices: which measurements were considered useful and valuable, what instruments allowed them to obtain these values, and which atmospheres and environments were appropriate for measurement. Across these chapters, the sustained utility of the electrical atmosphere to various practitioners across this period becomes clear. In exploring the fair weather problem through both its instrumental and environmental dimensions, this thesis makes a case for considering alternative kinds of histories of science. By using instruments to track approaches to a persistently thorny problem that resisted disciplinary categorisations, this thesis has revealed a rich, alternative narrative of science across the long nineteenth century. Instead of following more standard forms of scholarship, upon inherited textbook narratives, neat disciplinary lines, or tidy results, this thesis asks what else might be gained from using instruments to pursue these kinds of unsatisfying, untidy, and difficult histories of science.","abstract_html":"This thesis presents a history of the fair weather problem, an atmospheric electric phenomenon, between 1850 and 1930. The analogy and presumed identity between lightning and the sparks drawn from electrical machines in 1752 has been heralded as a pivotal moment in the history of physics. That same year, Louis-Guillaume Le Monnier (1717-1799) found his electroscope rendered another phenomenon visible on a clear day: ordinary air appeared electrical too. But how was this possible? This dissertation explores various attempts to solve this scientific problem across an eighty-year period, and argues that an instrument-oriented analysis of this history reveals a richer view of atmospheric electricity than has previously been provided. Chapter 2 provides an account of the instruments and innovations made by British physicist and industrialist William Thomson (1824–1907) around 1850, and then explores his attempts at instigating a global electrical survey. Chapter 3 assesses Continental responses to Thomson’s programme in the decades that follow, through the divergent programmes of Austrian physicist Franz Exner (1849–1926) and German schoolteachers Julius Elster (1854-1920) and Hans Geitel (1855-1923) between 1870 to 1900. Chapter 4 analyses the theoretical problems arising from the ionisation of the atmosphere, and explores the controversies surrounding British physicist C.T.R. Wilson’s (1869-1959) new global electrical circuit theory between 1900 and 1930. In this thesis, I put forward the term *instrumental thinking* to describe the plasticity of instruments designed for measurements of atmospheric electricity. Instruments enabled phenomena to be interrogated creatively and productively through physical interaction and metaphorical speculation. Instruments were designed, used, improved, altered, and co-opted by an array of practitioners to investigate atmospheric electrification. Further, thinking with electrical instruments was central to many practitioners’ conceptualisations of the Earth-atmosphere system. Metaphorical Leyden jars, capacitors, circuits, and batteries were often invoked to carry significant explanatory weight. Shifts in understanding fair weather were mediated by physical and metaphorical scientific instruments with different perspectives of invisible electric quantities: potential, charge, and current. These shifts were also reflected in practitioners’ various choices: which measurements were considered useful and valuable, what instruments allowed them to obtain these values, and which atmospheres and environments were appropriate for measurement. Across these chapters, the sustained utility of the electrical atmosphere to various practitioners across this period becomes clear. In exploring the fair weather problem through both its instrumental and environmental dimensions, this thesis makes a case for considering alternative kinds of histories of science. By using instruments to track approaches to a persistently thorny problem that resisted disciplinary categorisations, this thesis has revealed a rich, alternative narrative of science across the long nineteenth century. Instead of following more standard forms of scholarship, upon inherited textbook narratives, neat disciplinary lines, or tidy results, this thesis asks what else might be gained from using instruments to pursue these kinds of unsatisfying, untidy, and difficult histories of science.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Duncan, Katherine"],"institution":"University of Cambridge","degree_name":"Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)","degree_level":"Doctoral","degree_discipline":null,"degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":[],"advisors":["Chang, Hasok"],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2024,"date_issued":"2024-05-16","date_published":"2024-05-16","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:24:21Z","subjects":["19th century physics","20th century physics","Atmospheric Physics","Electricity","History of Science","meteorology"],"languages":["eng"],"rights":[],"rights_urls":["https://apollo8-f-pro.lib.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/76279b57-6eb2-46ac-b25a-e61134d729a0/download","https://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved/"],"identifier_entries":[{"key":"dc:creator.authoridentifier","label":"Author Identifier","values":["0000000239765292"],"render_values":[{"text":"0000-0002-3976-5292","href":"https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3976-5292","code":true}]}]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.111351","outbound_label":"DOI","outbound_source":"dc:identifier.doi"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor.advisor","label":"Advisor","values":["Chang, Hasok"]},{"key":"dc:contributor.sponsor","label":"Sponsor","values":["The Gerda Henkel Foundation The Royal Institution The Stapely Trust The George Fentham Birmingham Charity The Yorkshire Women’s Council of Education"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Duncan, Katherine"]},{"key":"dc:creator.authoridentifier","label":"Author Identifier","values":["0000000239765292"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date.issued","label":"Date","values":["2024-05-16"]},{"key":"dc:publisher.institution","label":"Dc Publisher Institution","values":["University of Cambridge"]},{"key":"dc:relation.isreferencedby.uri","label":"Dc Relation Isreferencedby URI","values":["https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/372485"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["Thesis"]},{"key":"dc:type.qualificationlevel","label":"Dc Type Qualificationlevel","values":["Doctoral"]},{"key":"dc:type.qualificationname","label":"Dc Type Qualificationname","values":["Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["19th century physics","20th century physics","Atmospheric Physics","Electricity","History of Science","meteorology"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["eng"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["https://apollo8-f-pro.lib.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/76279b57-6eb2-46ac-b25a-e61134d729a0/download","https://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved/"]},{"key":"dc:rights.embargodate","label":"Dc Rights Embargodate","values":["2030-08-16"]},{"key":"dc:rights.embargotype","label":"Dc Rights Embargotype","values":["embargo"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier.doi","label":"DOI","values":["https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.111351"]},{"key":"dc:identifier.uri","label":"Identifier URI","values":["https://apollo8-f-pro.lib.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/7358deba-a6e7-45f5-9d5a-156ea867e1a6/download"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description.abstract","label":"Abstract","values":["This thesis presents a history of the fair weather problem, an atmospheric electric phenomenon, between 1850 and 1930. The analogy and presumed identity between lightning and the sparks drawn from electrical machines in 1752 has been heralded as a pivotal moment in the history of physics. That same year, Louis-Guillaume Le Monnier (1717-1799) found his electroscope rendered another phenomenon visible on a clear day: ordinary air appeared electrical too. But how was this possible? This dissertation explores various attempts to solve this scientific problem across an eighty-year period, and argues that an instrument-oriented analysis of this history reveals a richer view of atmospheric electricity than has previously been provided. Chapter 2 provides an account of the instruments and innovations made by British physicist and industrialist William Thomson (1824–1907) around 1850, and then explores his attempts at instigating a global electrical survey. Chapter 3 assesses Continental responses to Thomson’s programme in the decades that follow, through the divergent programmes of Austrian physicist Franz Exner (1849–1926) and German schoolteachers Julius Elster (1854-1920) and Hans Geitel (1855-1923) between 1870 to 1900. Chapter 4 analyses the theoretical problems arising from the ionisation of the atmosphere, and explores the controversies surrounding British physicist C.T.R. Wilson’s (1869-1959) new global electrical circuit theory between 1900 and 1930. In this thesis, I put forward the term *instrumental thinking* to describe the plasticity of instruments designed for measurements of atmospheric electricity. Instruments enabled phenomena to be interrogated creatively and productively through physical interaction and metaphorical speculation. Instruments were designed, used, improved, altered, and co-opted by an array of practitioners to investigate atmospheric electrification. Further, thinking with electrical instruments was central to many practitioners’ conceptualisations of the Earth-atmosphere system. Metaphorical Leyden jars, capacitors, circuits, and batteries were often invoked to carry significant explanatory weight. Shifts in understanding fair weather were mediated by physical and metaphorical scientific instruments with different perspectives of invisible electric quantities: potential, charge, and current. These shifts were also reflected in practitioners’ various choices: which measurements were considered useful and valuable, what instruments allowed them to obtain these values, and which atmospheres and environments were appropriate for measurement. Across these chapters, the sustained utility of the electrical atmosphere to various practitioners across this period becomes clear. In exploring the fair weather problem through both its instrumental and environmental dimensions, this thesis makes a case for considering alternative kinds of histories of science. By using instruments to track approaches to a persistently thorny problem that resisted disciplinary categorisations, this thesis has revealed a rich, alternative narrative of science across the long nineteenth century. Instead of following more standard forms of scholarship, upon inherited textbook narratives, neat disciplinary lines, or tidy results, this thesis asks what else might be gained from using instruments to pursue these kinds of unsatisfying, untidy, and difficult histories of science."]},{"key":"dc:format.checksum.md5","label":"Dc Format Checksum Md5","values":["939009adfbdfa8b8db057bf67fcf27c9","87eda9de84448d1f82354d60eee3eb5f"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Instrument and Influence: The Problem of Fair Weather Electricity (1850–1930)"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor.advisor":["Chang, Hasok"],"dc:contributor.sponsor":["The Gerda Henkel Foundation The Royal Institution The Stapely Trust The George Fentham Birmingham Charity The Yorkshire Women’s Council of Education"],"dc:creator":["Duncan, Katherine"],"dc:creator.authoridentifier":["0000000239765292"],"dc:date.issued":["2024-05-16"],"dc:description.abstract":["This thesis presents a history of the fair weather problem, an atmospheric electric phenomenon, between 1850 and 1930. The analogy and presumed identity between lightning and the sparks drawn from electrical machines in 1752 has been heralded as a pivotal moment in the history of physics. That same year, Louis-Guillaume Le Monnier (1717-1799) found his electroscope rendered another phenomenon visible on a clear day: ordinary air appeared electrical too. But how was this possible? This dissertation explores various attempts to solve this scientific problem across an eighty-year period, and argues that an instrument-oriented analysis of this history reveals a richer view of atmospheric electricity than has previously been provided. Chapter 2 provides an account of the instruments and innovations made by British physicist and industrialist William Thomson (1824–1907) around 1850, and then explores his attempts at instigating a global electrical survey. Chapter 3 assesses Continental responses to Thomson’s programme in the decades that follow, through the divergent programmes of Austrian physicist Franz Exner (1849–1926) and German schoolteachers Julius Elster (1854-1920) and Hans Geitel (1855-1923) between 1870 to 1900. Chapter 4 analyses the theoretical problems arising from the ionisation of the atmosphere, and explores the controversies surrounding British physicist C.T.R. Wilson’s (1869-1959) new global electrical circuit theory between 1900 and 1930. In this thesis, I put forward the term *instrumental thinking* to describe the plasticity of instruments designed for measurements of atmospheric electricity. Instruments enabled phenomena to be interrogated creatively and productively through physical interaction and metaphorical speculation. Instruments were designed, used, improved, altered, and co-opted by an array of practitioners to investigate atmospheric electrification. Further, thinking with electrical instruments was central to many practitioners’ conceptualisations of the Earth-atmosphere system. Metaphorical Leyden jars, capacitors, circuits, and batteries were often invoked to carry significant explanatory weight. Shifts in understanding fair weather were mediated by physical and metaphorical scientific instruments with different perspectives of invisible electric quantities: potential, charge, and current. These shifts were also reflected in practitioners’ various choices: which measurements were considered useful and valuable, what instruments allowed them to obtain these values, and which atmospheres and environments were appropriate for measurement. Across these chapters, the sustained utility of the electrical atmosphere to various practitioners across this period becomes clear. In exploring the fair weather problem through both its instrumental and environmental dimensions, this thesis makes a case for considering alternative kinds of histories of science. By using instruments to track approaches to a persistently thorny problem that resisted disciplinary categorisations, this thesis has revealed a rich, alternative narrative of science across the long nineteenth century. Instead of following more standard forms of scholarship, upon inherited textbook narratives, neat disciplinary lines, or tidy results, this thesis asks what else might be gained from using instruments to pursue these kinds of unsatisfying, untidy, and difficult histories of science."],"dc:format.checksum.md5":["939009adfbdfa8b8db057bf67fcf27c9","87eda9de84448d1f82354d60eee3eb5f"],"dc:identifier.doi":["https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.111351"],"dc:identifier.uri":["https://apollo8-f-pro.lib.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/7358deba-a6e7-45f5-9d5a-156ea867e1a6/download"],"dc:language":["eng"],"dc:publisher.institution":["University of Cambridge"],"dc:relation.isreferencedby.uri":["https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/372485"],"dc:rights":["https://apollo8-f-pro.lib.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/76279b57-6eb2-46ac-b25a-e61134d729a0/download","https://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved/"],"dc:rights.embargodate":["2030-08-16"],"dc:rights.embargotype":["embargo"],"dc:subject":["19th century physics","20th century physics","Atmospheric Physics","Electricity","History of Science","meteorology"],"dc:title":["Instrument and Influence: The Problem of Fair Weather Electricity (1850–1930)"],"dc:type":["Thesis"],"dc:type.qualificationlevel":["Doctoral"],"dc:type.qualificationname":["Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:24:21Z"}