Diving Bell

My newest obsession is the diving bell: a diving apparatus consisting of a container open only at the bottom and supplied with compressed air by a hose (date: 1661). I am currently immersed in compass and cartography research for a project and came across a lovely text about Edmond Halley, polymath, in Alan Gurney's "Compass: A Story of Exploration and Innovation." Many know Halley for the comet named after him (he accurately predicted its orbit), but this text introduced Halley walking along the bottom of the English Channel in a diving bell. How fantastic the scope of his interests (papers to the Royal Society during a one year period): "the transits of Venus and Mercury across the sun's face to determine the sun's distance from the earth; the physical mechanism of evaporation; measuring the thickness of gold upon gilt wire; Pliny's book of natural history; historical detective work; using astronomy and tides to locate the place and time of Julius Caesar's landing on England's coast; the speed of a bird's wing in flight; the measurement of wind and water forces; the refraction of light; the height to which bullets could be shot and fountains made to squirt; and a report on his diving activities where he had three men working for nearly two hours at a depth of ten fathoms." B

First Post

Welcome to Beetleness & Daffodility: Honoring the Creative Impulse. We should begin by giving credit to the inspiration for our name, Carol Kaesuk Yoon. Following is an excerpt from an article adapted from her book “Naming Nature: The Clash Between Instinct and Science.”

“No wonder so few of us can really see what is out there. Even when scads of insistent wildlife appear with a flourish right in front of us, and there is such life always–hawks migrating over the parking lot, great colorful moths banging up against the window at night–we barely seem to notice. We are so disconnected from the living world that we can live in the midst of a mass extinction, of the rapid invasion everywhere of new and noxious species, entirely unaware that anything is happening. Happily, changing all this turns out to be easy. Just find an organism, any organism, small, large, gaudy, subtle–anywhere, and they are everywhere–and get a sense of it, its shape, color, size, feel, smell, sound… and meditate, luxuriate in its beetle-ness, its daffodility. Then find a name for it. Learn science's name, one of countless folk names, or make up your own. To do so is to change everything, including yourself.”

We would also like to thank Brooke at Crosspollination for assisting us with getting this up and running.