Graeme John Norman Gooday

Last updated

Graeme John Norman Gooday (born June 1965) is a British historian and philosopher of science currently working as Professor of History of Science and Technology at the University of Leeds School of Philosophy, Religion, and History of Science, where he was Head of School between 2014 and 2019. [1] His research encompasses the history and philosophy of technology: especially electrical technologies, telecommunications, and auditory technologies. He has published extensively on measurement, gender and technology, women in engineering, and histories of patenting. [2] [3] [4]

Contents

Education

Gooday's PhD dissertation was on 'Precision Measurement and the Genesis of Physics Teaching Laboratories in Victorian Britain' and he (jointly) won the 1988-9 British Society for the History of Science Singer Prize for his essay on this topic. His first book The Morals of Measurement: accuracy, irony and trust in late Victorian electrical practice extended his key work on measurement and was published by Cambridge University Press in 2004.

Career and awards

Gooday returned to the University of Kent in 1989 to complete an IEEE fellowship in Electrical History and then a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship. Then in 1992 he moved to the University of Oxford to take up a Postdoctoral Fellowship in the History of Science and Technology before becoming a Lecturer in History History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Leeds. [5] He was President of the British Science Association in 2011 and has held various positions in the British Society for the History of Science, including Treasurer and, more recently, Finance Committee member. [6] In 2014 he won the British Society for the History of Science Pickstone prize for his co-authored (with Stathis Aropostathis) book Patently Contestable: Electrical Technologies and Inventor Identities on Trial in Britain The awarding panel described the book as a 'superbly scholarly volume [which] offers a richly wrought set of case studies of electrical technologies including telephony, incandescent lighting, electrical power and wireless communication in the late 19th and the early 20th centuries'. [7] He has led a number of research projects sponsored by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, including projects on: telecommunications and intellectual property in the First World War, [8] telecommunications and hearing loss, [9] and electrification of country houses [10] [11]

His research on hearing loss and domesticating electricity has (respectively) been used to inform museum exhibitions based in the Leeds Thackray Medical Museum and the Minneapolis Bakken Museum. The royalties from his recent book on the history of hearing loss (authored with Professor Karen Sayer) will be split between the charity ' Action on Hearing Loss' and the National Deaf Children's Society. [12] He has made a number of media appearances and publications. [13] [14] and published on teaching history of science.

Notable works

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Electrical engineering</span> Branch of engineering

Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the latter half of the 19th century after the commercialization of the electric telegraph, the telephone, and electrical power generation, distribution, and use.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Electricity</span> Phenomena related to electric charge

Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter possessing an electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described by Maxwell's equations. Common phenomena are related to electricity, including lightning, static electricity, electric heating, electric discharges and many others.

Sir Richard Tetley Glazebrook was an English physicist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ferranti</span> British electrical engineering company

Ferranti or Ferranti International PLC was a UK electrical engineering and equipment firm that operated for over a century from 1885 until it went bankrupt in 1993. The company was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.

Graeme Milbourne Clark is an Australian Professor of Otolaryngology at the University of Melbourne. Worked in ENT surgery, electronics and speech science contributed towards the development of the multiple-channel cochlear implant. His invention was later marketed by Cochlear Limited.

Willis Jackson, Baron Jackson of Burnley FRS was a British technologist and electrical engineer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Gordon (bishop of Jarrow)</span> Priest and bishop in the Church of England

James Geoffrey Gordon was a priest and bishop in the Church of England.

Geoffrey N. Cantor is Emeritus Professor of the History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Leeds and Honorary Senior Research Associate at UCL Department of Science and Technology Studies at University College London. He has written about Michael Faraday, the wave theory of light and the responses of the Quaker and Jewish religions to science. With John Hedley Brooke he delivered the 1995–1996 Gifford Lecture at the University of Glasgow, which were subsequently published as Reconstructing Nature: The Engagement of Science and Religion in 1998. He contributed to the SciPer Project, which researches the popularization of science in the periodicals of the 19th century, such as the Boy's Own Paper and Punch, and has lectured upon this subject at the Royal Institution in 2005.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Electrical measurements</span>

Electrical measurements are the methods, devices and calculations used to measure electrical quantities. Measurement of electrical quantities may be done to measure electrical parameters of a system. Using transducers, physical properties such as temperature, pressure, flow, force, and many others can be converted into electrical signals, which can then be conveniently measured and recorded. High-precision laboratory measurements of electrical quantities are used in experiments to determine fundamental physical properties such as the charge of the electron or the speed of light, and in the definition of the units for electrical measurements, with precision in some cases on the order of a few parts per million. Less precise measurements are required every day in industrial practice. Electrical measurements are a branch of the science of metrology.

The Centre for History and Philosophy of Science is a research centre devoted to the historical and philosophical study of science, technology and medicine, based in the School of Philosophy, Religion and History of Science, at the University of Leeds in West Yorkshire, England. The Centre – previously known as the Division of History and Philosophy of Science, which was founded in 1956 – is one of the oldest units of its kind in the world. Throughout its history, the Centre has been home to many of the leading historians and philosophers of science who have deepened our understanding of scientific activity and how it shapes and is shaped by wider society.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Butcher, 1st Baron Danesfort</span> British barrister and politician

John George Butcher, 1st Baron Danesfort, KC, known as Sir John Butcher, Bt, between 1918 and 1924, was a British barrister and Conservative Party politician.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edison and Swan Electric Light Company</span> Light bulb manufacturer

The Edison and Swan Electric Light Company Limited was a manufacturer of incandescent lamp bulbs and other electrical goods. It was formed in 1883 with the name Edison & Swan United Electric Light Company with the merger of the Swan United Electric Company and the Edison Electric Light Company.

James Edward Henry Gordon was a British electrical engineer, the son of James Alexander Gordon (1793–1872). He took his B.A. at Caius College, Cambridge in 1876.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bionics Institute</span>

The Bionics Institute is an Australian medical research institute focusing on medical device development. It is located in Melbourne, Australia.

<i>Uncertainty and Quality in Science for Policy</i>

Uncertainty and Quality in Science for Policy is a 1990 book by Silvio Funtowicz and Jerome Ravetz, in which the authors explain the notational system NUSAP and applies it to several examples from the environmental sciences. The work is considered foundational to the development of post-normal science.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hasok Chang</span> Historian and philosopher of science

Hasok Chang is a Korean-born American historian and philosopher of science currently serving as the Hans Rausing Professor at the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge and a board member of the Philosophy of Science Association. He previously served as president of the British Society for the History of Science from 2012 to 2014.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Florence Bell (scientist)</span> British X-ray crystallographer

Florence Ogilvy Bell, later Florence Sawyer, was a British scientist who contributed to the discovery of the structure of DNA. She was an X-ray crystallographer in the lab of William Astbury. In 1938 they published a paper in Nature that described the structure of DNA as a "Pile of Pennies".

Electrical demonstrations during the eighteenth century were performances by experimental philosophers before an audience to entertain with and teach about electricity. Such displays took place in British America as well across Europe. Their form varied from something similar to modern day carnival shows to grand displays in exhibition halls and theatres. With concern about safety of electrical power, these displays were sometimes pushed back upon.

Alice Mary Gordon was a British author and writer on the aesthetics of domestic electricity. During her life she was known by her husbands' names, making her Alice Gordon or Mrs J E H Gordon as well as Alice Butcher, Mrs John Butcher and Lady Danesfort.

Women have played a role in engineering in the United Kingdom for hundreds of years, despite the various societal barriers facing them. In the 18th and 19th century, there were few formal training opportunities for women to train as engineers and frequently women were introduced to engineering through family companies or their spouses. Some women did have more formal educations in the late 19th century and early 20th century, normally in mathematics or science subjects. There are several examples of women filing patents in the 19th century, including Sarah Guppy, Henrietta Vansittart and Hertha Ayrton.

References

  1. AHC. "Graeme Gooday | School of Philosophy, Religion and History of Science | University of Leeds". ahc.leeds.ac.uk. Retrieved 13 December 2022.
  2. G.J.N. Gooday, The Morals of Measurement: Accuracy, Irony, and Trust in Late Victorian Electrical Practice (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2004)
  3. "Dynamic women worked to make electricity a success". The Independent. 28 July 2019. Retrieved 13 December 2022.
  4. Moore, Abigail Harrison; Gooday, Graeme. "The Current War: there were also dynamic women who made electricity a success". The Conversation. Retrieved 13 December 2022.
  5. AHC. "Graeme Gooday | School of Philosophy, Religion and History of Science | University of Leeds". ahc.leeds.ac.uk. Retrieved 13 December 2022.
  6. bshs-admin (9 July 2011). "BSHS Council of the Society, 2006-7". BSHS. Retrieved 13 December 2022.
  7. Office, BSHS (20 January 2015). "January 2015". BSHS. Retrieved 13 December 2022.
  8. "Innovating in Combat - Telecommunications and intellectual property in the First World War". Innovating in Combat. Retrieved 13 December 2022.
  9. BT Innovations blog, Remembering the Post Office's role in creating the first NHS hearing aid, November 2015, https://www.btplc.com/Innovation/Innovationnews/RememberingthePostOffices/index.htm Archived 12 June 2020 at the Wayback Machine
  10. "Electrifying the Country House – Educational resources on the history of domestic electricity". www.electrifyingthecountryhouse.org. Retrieved 13 December 2022.
  11. Professor Graeme Gooday: Domesticating Electricity at Lotherton Hall , retrieved 13 December 2022
  12. Gooday, Graeme; Sayer, Karen (2017). Managing the Experience of Hearing Loss in Britain, 1830–1930. doi:10.1057/978-1-137-40686-6. ISBN   978-1-137-40687-3. S2CID   57057352.
  13. "Graeme Gooday". Boston Review. 30 April 2015.
  14. "Great profits during the Great War? | Elizabeth Bruton and Graeme Gooday". the Guardian. 28 October 2013. Retrieved 13 December 2022.