Perfect Mechanics

[Dave Monroe]

Perfect Mechanics: Instrument Makers at the Royal Society of London in
the Eighteenth Century

Richard Sorrenson

Perfect Mechanics captures the excitement of Georgian “big science”
and the starring roles played by London instrument makers in the
scientific expeditions to measure the shape of the earth, to find and
map unknown lands in the Pacific, and to explore the heavens.  Yet
these indispensible practitioners of “mixed mathematics,” recognized
and honored by the Royal Society through fellowship and the awarding
of the Copley Medal, became increasingly marginalized by the
gentlemanly FRS after 1800 and the essential tensions between commerce
and science, mechanical and craft production, and social classes
brought an abrupt halt to this dynamic and inventive period.

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