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Technology and Culture 42.4 (2001) 797-798



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Book Review

Spectrum of Belief: Joseph von Fraunhofer and the Craft of Precision Optics


Spectrum of Belief: Joseph von Fraunhofer and the Craft of Precision Optics.By Myles W. Jackson. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2000. Pp. x+284. $34.95.

This book offers a remarkably interesting account of Joseph von Fraunhofer (1787-1826), the Bavarian optician whose optical glass and optical instruments were the best in the world. While clearly in awe of Fraunhofer's many achievements, Myles Jackson focuses his attention on the context that nurtured his skills, supported his experiments, supplied the skilled workmen he needed, and provided the privacy that kept his techniques secret from would-be spies.

We have long known that Fraunhofer was an orphan. What we learn from Jackson is that he came from a long line of glassmakers and cutters. We knew that Fraunhofer worked for the Optical Institute connected with the Mathematical-Mechanical Institute established in Munich in 1801. What we learn from Jackson is that this organization was established to provide the theodolites and other instruments needed by the new government bureaus that were set up in emulation of French practice and designed to modernize aspects of Bavarian society, economy, and science. We also knew that Fraunhofer worked at Benediktbeurn. What we learn from Jackson is that Benediktbeurn was a recently secularized Benedictine monastery at the foothills of the Alps, and that it gave Fraunhofer a huge space for his large-scale experiments, a skilled labor force (the Benedictines had been manufacturing, cutting, and polishing glass for about a thousand years), a plentiful supply of wood to heat the furnaces in which the glass was produced, and a tradition of secrecy.

Jackson strengthens his argument about the importance of context by drawing a comparison between Bavaria and Great Britain. Britain, he explains, had been the center of glass manufacture and optical technology in the eighteenth century and, with the industrial revolution in full swing, many of its people expected this situation to continue apace. Actually, the industrial revolution was a key factor in the rapid demise of the British optical industry. Here Jackson points to the decline in the status of skilled artisans and a labor hierarchy that impeded the exchange of information between ordinary glassmakers and high-class opticians. Moreover, even if British opticians could import optical glass, heavy excise taxes ensured that British lenses could not compete with those made on the Continent.

When it became obvious that astronomers preferred Fraunhofer's [End Page 797] lenses to those made in Britain, British scientists tried to discover the secret to his success. Michael Faraday approached the question of optical glass production as a scientific problem to be solved through rational analysis alone, and never appreciated the extent to which he was facing a technical problem whose solution came about, in part, through skillful manipulation. John Herschel regarded Fraunhofer as a fellow scientist and expected him to accept the scientific ethos of open communication. As it happened, however, when Herschel visited Benediktbeurn in 1824, Fraunhofer gave him the standard dog and pony show but did not share his secrets. Fraunhofer's formulae were so secret that even his successors at the Optical Institute could not emulate his successes.

Jackson closes his book by noting that, after German unification, Fraunhofer became a powerful symbol of German science and technology. By analyzing several hagiographical accounts written by leading German scientists and technologists, Jackson shows how Fraunhofer's example was used to raise government funds for Schott and Abbe's optical laboratory at Jena, make space for sophisticated technology in the Physikalisch-Technische-Reichsanstalt, and unite German culture.

Deborah Jean Warner

 

Ms. Warner is curator of the physical sciences collection at the National Museum of American History, which includes a Fraunhofer telescope.

Permission to reprint a review published here may be obtained only from the reviewer.

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