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GP: Fachverband Geschichte der Physik

GP 5: Physics and the Museum

GP 5.5: Talk

Tuesday, March 22, 2022, 12:10–12:30, GP-H7

Mont Blanc, the laboratory of 18th century Geneva scientists — •Stéphane Fischer — Musée d'histoire des sciences de Genève, 128, rue de Lausanne, 1202 Genève

At the end of the 18th century, through a combination of political, social and cultural circumstances, Geneva became the scientific capital of the Alps. In less than fifty years, several of the city's scientists embarked on a scientific exploration of the Savoyard Pre-Alps and the Mont Blanc Massif, 60 km away. The mountain became a veritable open-air laboratory where various measurements were taken: altitude, air or water boiling temperatures, topographical surveys, purity of the atmosphere, composition of the gases in the atmosphere at altitude, etc.This quest culminated in the summer of 1788 with the ascent of Mont Blanc by the Genevan naturalist Horace-Bénédict de Saussure.

The Museum of the History of Science is devoting its next temporary exhibition to this scientific epic. The heart of this exhibition is made up of instruments from the collections, in this case the instruments from the Saussure collection kept at the Museum. The exhibition is an ideal medium for tracing a storyline, a narrative that allows the context in which these instruments were invented and manufactured at the time. A great deal of attention is paid to the functioning of these instruments. Alongside the old barometers, two modern replicas of mercury barometers taken this summer to heights of more than 3000m for altitude measurements will be presented. Various interactive experiments offer visitors the opportunity to learn the basics of barometric levelling, surveying and slope inclination in a playful way.