Scientific Notebooks From The Past

[LisaN]

On a recent trip to Philadelphia, my mother, my husband and I stumbled across the Chemical Heritage Museum. It is a small museum full of historical instrumentation, artifacts and apparati, most of which was involved in Nobel Prize winning research. Because I am a chemist, I was like a kid in a candy store, looking at all of these things that were used by my heroes, explaining it all to my mom.

 

For me, the best were the notebooks. Nowadays, we do not use fountain pens much in research notebooks, because of the water issues. But of course, back in the day, scientists wrote their notebooks out every day in fountain pen.

This is a photo of Bruce Merrifield's notebook, where he was developing solid phase peptide synthesis methods. He published a paper on it in 1963, and received the Nobel prize in 1984.

 

 

[linearM]

Historic journals and organizational minutes can be an interesting source of samples of handwriting out of the past. My wife and I had to do some research at our local historical society. We were looking through the minutes of the local school board. The very first entry was from the 1860's. Most likely the secretary was using a dip pen rather than a fountain pen. The penmanship was beautiful, amazing, page after page. Letters from the 20's, 30's and 40's are what got me interested in knowing more about the writing instruments that were used in writing them and eventually my pen collecting.

[Octo]

It looks like Merrifield used a marble covered composition notebook. A visit to that museum is now on my wish list. Thanks for the info.

[UDog]

What do scientists and engineers use as notebooks today?

[Ink Stained Wretch]

I remember seeing the marble Composition book that one of the big physicists of the mid-20^th Century had used for his lab notebook. It was semi-famous because when he'd wanted to bombard some substance with electrons or neutrons or whatever he had used his notebook to hold the target in place while the source shot particles at it. The Composition book survived, and I was impressed that the notebook I'd used in grammar school had been used by such a famous scientist in such a way.

 

Yeah, not a lot of detail there. I can't remember his name, nor exactly what the experiment was about. I have quite the geriatric memory these days. I do remember that Composition book though!

[TeaHive]

So cool! I'm not at all very scientifically inclined, but I do love history, especially where writing, paper, and literature are concerned. Count me fascinated! I wonder what ink was used. It seems to be quite lightfast after so many years. Then again, it might be do to a stabilized environment in its museum home.

[FarmBoy]

What do scientists and engineers use as notebooks today?

Many use an ELN.

[sail0rm00n]

It looks like Merrifield used a marble covered composition notebook. A visit to that museum is now on my wish list. Thanks for the info.

 

I noticed the same!

[1maddog1]

I'm surprised at the depth of the narrative. Lab notebooks are often boring bullet pointed lists of reagents and methods.

 

I lived nearby for several years but didn't know this existed. Too bad.

 

Thanks for sharing.

[Skyppere]

what's an ELN?

[1maddog1]

electronic lab notebook

[Angela]

What do scientists and engineers use as notebooks today?

I use a Boorum and Pease lab notebook.

[jimhughes]

SKip: Remind Me to Show you my Engineers Field Notebooks, Hardbound 4 x 6" Level Books, Lined with 25% cotton Papers. Got the whole Native American Church Peyote Ceremony from my Ethnographic Studies back when I was an Anthro Student ( mid 1960's). Not as nice writing as James Mooney's Kiowa Notes from the Late 1800's , in the Smithsonian, but they are interesting "Lab /Field Work Notes"

[tinysnail]

What do scientists and engineers use as notebooks today?

I should ask my supervisor what he uses. We work together on a chalkboard a lot of the time. He's fond of typing things up in LaTeX. I don't know if I can call myself a scientist yet, and pure mathematicians do a different kind of science in how the "lab" is wherever you want it to be, but I like to keep all my scrap work/daily scribbles in Apica CD notebooks.

 

I did find a cool thread on math.stackexchange in which mathematicians (and probably some math students) talk about their preferred writing tools. An interesting read! http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/148785/pen-pencils-and-paper-to-write-math

[Jimmy Joe]

What do scientists and engineers use as notebooks today?

 

When I was doing engineering research, it was marbled-cover composition books, quad ruled, from the university bookstore. That was pretty normal.

[LisaN]

when I was in a commercial lab, we used duplicate page notebooks by National. Countersigned pages, etc.

ELN's are great, but are woefully inconvenient when recording in the lab.

Now I use boorum and pease record books.