Press Release
Dibner Hall of the History of Science Opens Nov. 1, 2008
The Huntington opens a new permanent exhibition on Nov. 1, showcasing some of science’s greatest achievements, from Ptolemy to Copernicus, Newton to Einstein. The 2,800-square-foot Dibner Hall of the History of Science comes as a result of the marriage of The Huntington’s history of science materials with the Burndy Library, a 67,000-volume collection of rare books and manuscripts donated to The Huntington in 2006 by the Dibner family of Connecticut. Called “Beautiful Science: Ideas that Changed the World,” the exhibition highlights four areas of exploration: astronomy, natural history, medicine, and light. A gallery on each focuses on the changing role of science over time, particularly the astonishing leaps in imagination made by scientists over the years and the importance of written works in communicating those ideas. Works in the exhibition represent centuries of thought, showing how knowledge has become more refined over time. Press Release · Dibner Backgrounder · Gallery Design
Dibner History of Science Program · History of Science Collections · Exhibition Highlights Request Images 
  
Photo Captions
| Calculator
| A rotating astronomical calculator. From Petrus Apianus, Astronomicum
caesareum (Caesar’s Astronomy), Ingolstadt, 1540. © The Huntington
Library
| Telescope
| The reflecting telescope. From Isaac Newton, An Account of a New Kind
of Telescope, Invented by Mr. Isaac Newton, London, 1672. © The
Huntington Library
| Stars
| Thomas Wright’s vision of stars in large, spherical groupings. From
Thomas Wright, An Original Theory or New Hypothesis of the Universe,
London, 1750. © The Huntington Library
| Leo
| Zodiacal constellation Leo. From John Flamsteed, Atlas Celeste (Celestial Atlas), Paris, 1776. © The Huntington Library
| Unicorn
| Unicorn. From Edward Topsell, The History of Four-Footed Beasts and Serpents, London, 1658. © The Huntington Library
| | Flea | Flea under magnification. From Robert Hooke, Micrographia, London, 1665. © The Huntington Library | | Magnolia | Magnolia. From Mark Catesby, The Natural History of Carolina, Florida
and the Bahama Islands, London, 1741. © The Huntington Library
| | Tanager | Tanager, drawn and described by John Gould after Charles Darwin brought
specimens back from the journey of the H.M.S. Beagle. From Charles
Darwin and John Gould, The Zoology of the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle,
London, 1839–43. © The Huntington Library | | Aloe | Aloe from an early herbal, a book describing plants and their uses.
From Hieronymus Bock, Neu Kreuterbuch (New Plant Book), Strasburg,
1551. © The Huntington Library | | Spine | The spine. From William Cheselden, Osteographia, or the Anatomy of the Bones, London, 1733. © The Huntington Library | | Angel | The “flayed angel.” From Gautier D'Agoty and Joseph Guichard Duverny,
Myologie complete (Comprehensive Study of the Muscles), Paris, 1746. ©
The Huntington Library | | Twins | Twins. From George Spratt, Obstetric Tables, London, 1841. © The Huntington Library | | Optics | A Latin copy of one of the earliest great books on optics. Ibn
Al-Haytham, Kithab al-Manzir (Book of Optics), Basel, 1572. © The
Huntington Library | | Vision | Diagram of vision and the effect of parallax. From Rene Descartes,
Tractatus de homine et de formatione foetus (On Man and the Formation
of the Fetus), Amsterdam, 1677. © The Huntington Library | | Spectra | Light spectra from stars. From Norman Lockyer, Studies in Spectrum Analysis, New York, 1878. © The Huntington Library | | Triangles | Two color triangles. From Robert Ridgway, A Nomenclature of Color for Naturalists, New York, 1886. © The Huntington Library | | Dan Lewis | Dibner Senior Curator, History of Science and Technology | Astronomy 1,2
| (Gallery installation) Views of the Astronomy gallery. © The Huntington Library | | Volvelles | A series of rotating wheel charts called volvelles are included in
Petrus Apianus’ Astronomicum caesareum (Caesar’s astronomy), published
in 1540. The charts were used to perform astronomical calculations. © The Huntington Library | | Medicine 1,2,3 | (Gallery installation) Views of the
Medicine gallery. [Medicine 1: In a section devoted to the science of
healing, a wall graphic depicts “Wound Man,” an enlargement of an
engraving from a 16th-century German field manual on wound surgery.
Medicine 3: Early texts and illustrations describing the skeletal and
muscular structure of the human body.] © The Huntington Library | Bern Dibner
| Industrialist Bern Dibner (1897-1988), founder of the
Burndy Library, which was acquired by The Huntington in 2006.
Selections from both the Burndy and Huntington collections are featured
in this new permanent installation. | | Einstein to Hale | Letter from Albert Einstein to George Ellery Hale, 1913. © The Huntington Library |
|