Virtual Lecture –
Measuring the Weather:
How do you Catch a Cloud and Pin it Down?
Virtual Program – Zoom
Thursday, August 26, 2021
6:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m. (EST)
$10 General Admission Virtual Connection/$5 Virtual Connection for BCHS Members
From the Renaissance to global warming today, scientists have developed ingenious ways to record the changing skies. While Torricelli’s barometer has endured, other instruments have not, like the leech-based electrical “tempest prognosticator” built in 1851 by the appropriately-named George Merryweather. But history shows the secret to measuring weather ultimately lies in combining instruments with innovative social organizations managed by government bureaucrats.
Join us for a Zoom presentation with Roger Turner, museum curator at the Science History Institute in Philadelphia, as we explore this fascinating topic. Turner also runs PicturingMeteorology.com, a blog for compelling stories about the people who study weather.
Purchase tickets for Thursday, August 26, 2021, at 6:00 p.m.
A selection of weather measurement instruments are currently on display in the Mercer Museum’s summer exhibit, Magnificent Measures! The Hausman-Hill Collection of Calculating Instruments,
open through Sunday, September 5, 2021.
