History Survival Guide

🏳️‍⚧️ A DIY Guide to Science History 🏳️‍🌈 historysurvivalguide.com Current Research: DIY Astrolabe

[historysurvivalguide]

Summer Reading Challenge by Scientific American 📕 🔬

"The first-ever Scientific American Summer Reading Challenge begins on June 1 and ends on August 31. We challenge you to read along with the staff and check off boxes on the bingo card below"

Join the Scientific American Summer Reading Challenge

Fill your bingo card with fascinating science stories, discoveries and ideas all summer long for a chance to win prizes

If you need some inspirations, I have collected a list of my personal favorite science and science history books into a reading list based on topic

History of Astronomy and Space

History of Physics

History of Medicine

History of Mathematics

History of Biology, Chemistry, and Genetics

History of the Natural World

History of Scientific Ethics (or Lack Thereof)

[historysurvivalguide]

Chronicler: Worldbuilding Wiki Software

Found my new favorite tool for organizing concepts for projects

Chronicler | Free Offline Worldbuilding Tool & Wiki

The free, offline worldbuilding tool and local wiki for D&D campaigns and novel writing. No subscriptions, no cloud, no SaaS. Built by and f

It is a free software that works a lot like Wikipedia, by letting you organizing ideas into pages and cross-referencing them. It was designed for D&D and world building for novels but is surprisingly flexible

The nice part is that all the data is stored on your own machine so it is private

[historysurvivalguide]

“They say that he who would be its master must, little by little, inevitably become its slave”

- Lucifer (from da Bible) talking about learning science in the chemistry book I’m reading

[historysurvivalguide]

The Hardest Soviet Mission in History: The all too short life of Sputnik 1 and the Soviet team that fought to bring it to life

Ever wonder what Sputnik was doing in space?

The new video I researched and co-wrote with the Hoog team is up. It is all about Sputnik! It wasn’t actually called Sputnik, since that would be calling it “satellite”, so its official name is Sputnik-1

It was the first artificial satellite and began the dawn of the Space Age in 1957, more than a decade before humanity landed on the moon 🛰️ 🚀

Sputnik is a good story with a lot of colorful characters. However, in my research I was annoyed how often its launch was framed as an American failure rather than a Russian success. So this story focuses on the Russian side of things

The best nuggets of research came from this delightfully janky website and also this enormous tome of a book which focuses on Russian history:

It is also free on NASA’s website!

[historysurvivalguide]

Medieval inspired art I made for a wine label contest celebrating the upcoming NASA Dragonfly mission

[historysurvivalguide]

Found this surprisingly excellent and simple breakdown about how shadows on the moon appear different in different hemispheres

(The comic in question is Oddity Woods by Kay Davault)

It’s a bit hard to imagine but depending on your hemisphere you can literally be upside in perspective. This can create all sorts of weird behaviors with the sun (and defined what we mean when we say clockwise)

But it’s the same with the moon! It makes working in the southern hemisphere a huge headache, mathematically speaking

[historysurvivalguide]

Astronomy Picture of the Day: Waves on Titan 🌊 🪐

Today’s image is actually a video which shows what simulated waves on Titan look like compared to Earth

A different astronomy and space science related image is featured each day, along with a brief explanation.

This website is one of the oldest I know of that is still being updated, having started in June of 1995

[historysurvivalguide]

Astronomy Inspired Design in Media: Part 25

Warframe (2025)

Warframe has been running for over a decade now, but this is specifically from the "The Old Peace" release

It is commonly known as the "ninjas-in-space" game, but I have always been fond of its extremely weird and very busy art style. This particular part of the trailer caught my attention. It shows a moving ceiling with a clear astronomy-based design

Very beautiful, but also, very clearly inspired by astrolabes (which appears to be a common source of inspiration). You can compare it to this 1558 astrolabe (in Latin)

At some point I think this series should just be "astrolabe inspired design"

[doubtspirit]

Knowledge Wins - Public Library Books are Free, American Library Association (1918)

[historysurvivalguide]

Poem Corner

The Hangman written by Maurice Ogden

Into our town the Hangman came,

Smelling of gold and blood and flame-

And he paced our bricks with a different air

And built his frame on the courthouse square.

The scaffold stood by the courthouse side,

Only as wide as the door was wide;

A frame as tall, or little more,

Than capping still of the courthouse door.

And we wondered, whenever we had the time,

Who the criminal, what the crime,

The Hangman judged with the yellow twist,

Of knotted hemp in his busy fist.

And innocent though we were, with dread

We passed those eyes of buckshot lead;

Till one cried: “Hangman, who is he,

For whom you raise the gallows-tree?”

Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,

And he gave us a riddle instead of reply:

“He who served me the best,” said he,

“Shall earn the rope on the gallows-tree.”

And he stepped down, and laid his hands

On a man who came from another land-

And we breathed again, for another’s grief

At the Hangman’s hand was our relief.

And the gallows-frame on the courthouse lawn

By tomorrow’s sun would be struck and gone,

So we gave him way, and no one spoke,

Out of respect for his Hangman’s cloak.

The next day’s sun looked mildly down

On roof and street in our quiet town

And, stark and black in the morning air

The gallows-tree on the courthouse square.

And the Hangman stood at his usual stand

With the yellow hemp in his busy hand;

With his buckshot eye and jaw like a pike

And his air so knowing and businesslike.

And we cried “Hangman, have you not done,

Yesterday, with the alien one?”

Then we felt silent, and stood amazed:

“Oh, not for him was the gallows raised…”

He laughed a laugh as he looked at us:

“Did you think I’d gone to all this fuss

To hang one man? That’s a thing I do

to stretch the rope when the rope is new.”

Then one cried “Murderer!”

One cried “Shame!”

And into our midst the hangman came

to that man’s place

“Do you hold,” said he,

With him that was meat for the gallows-tree?”

That night we saw with dread surprise

The Hangman’s scaffold had grown in size.

Fed by the blood beneath the chute

The gallows-tree taken root.

Now as wide, or little more,

Than the steps that led to the courthouse door,

As tall as the writing, or nearly as tall,

Halfway up on the courthouse door.

The third he took – we had all heard tell

Was a usurer and infidel,

And “What,” said the Hangman, “have you to do

With the gallows-bound, and he a Jew?”

And we cried out: “Is this one he

Who has served you well and faithfully?”

The hangman smiled: “It’s a clever scheme

To try the strength of the gallows-beam.”

The fourth man’s dark, accusing song

Had scratched our comfort hard and long;

And “What concern, he gave us back,

Have you for the doomed-the doomed and Black? “

The fifth. The sixth. And we cried again:

“Hangman, is this the man?”

“It’s a trick,” he said, that we Hangmen know

For easing the trap springs slow.

And so we ceased, and asked no more

As the Hangman tallied his bloody score;

And sun by sun and night by night,

The gallons grew to monstrous height.

The wings of scaffold opened wide

Till they covered the square from side to side:

And the monster cross-beam, looking down,

Cast its shadow across the town.

Then through the town the Hangman came

And called in the empty streets my name

And I looked at the gallows soaring tall

And thought: “There is no one left at all

For hanging, and so he calls to me

To help pull down the gallows-tree.”

And I went out with right good hope

To the Hangman’s tree and the Hangman’s rope.

He smiled at me as I came down

To the courthouse square through the silent town,

And supple and stretched in his busy hand

Was the yellow twist of the hempen strand.

And he whistled his tune as he tried the trap

And it sprang down with a ready snap

And then a smile of awful command

He laid his hand upon my hand.

“You tricked me, Hangman” I shouted then,

“That your scaffold was built for other men…

And I’m no henchmen of yours, I cried,

“You lied to me, Hangman, foully lied!”

Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye:

“Lied to you? Tricked you? He said. Not I.

For I answered straight and I told you true:

The scaffold was raised for none but you.

“For who has served more faithfully

Than you with your coward’s hope?” said he.

“And where are the others that might have stood

Side by side in the common good?”

“Dead,” I whispered: and amiably

“Murdered,” the Hangman corrected me:

“First the alien, then the Jew…

I did no more than you let me do.”

Beneath the beam that blocked the sky,

None had stood so alone as I

And the Hangman strapped me, and no voice

there cried “Stay!” for me in the empty square.

[historysurvivalguide]

A Popular History of Science by Robert Routledge (1881)

Fig. 196 -- Foucault’s Pendulum Experiment

[historysurvivalguide]

A Popular History of Science by Robert Routledge (1881)

Fig. 77 -- The Magdeburg Experiment on the Large Scale

[historysurvivalguide]

So, How to Build an Astrolabe: Part Seven

The previous parts have covered the front limb and latitude plate. Unlike the latitude plate, the main body of the astrolabe (the mater) is the same across all astrolabe

The various rings on the back of the plate determine the altitude and calendars (civil and zodiac)

This is a step-by-step guide to the complete construction of an astrolabe that I think might exist. At least, in any accessible form

So, How to Build an Astrolabe: Mater - Back Plate - History Survival Guide

This week, build an astrolabe’s various calendars engraved on the back of the astrolabe   Mater: Back Plate The back of the astrolabe is whe

As always, my goal is for this to be as accessible as possible for any kind of reader, so if there are any questions, please feel free to reach out

🏳️‍🌈🚀 Enjoy! Stay safe and keep learning, fellow chrononauts 🚀🏳️‍⚧️

[historysurvivalguide]

DIY Astrolabe Update!

Assuming I don’t drop my computer into a food processor, Part Seven will be out this week (see here for previous sections or don’t, if you like a challenge)

I have lost track of how many diagrams I’ve made for the How to Build an Astrolabe series. My final diagram PNGs are about two hundred but between notes and experimenting it is probably closer to double that. I shudder to imagine how many hours it has taken—I don’t want to guess

It is hard to believe but I honestly thought this would be a quick project, maybe two months

I’ve said it before, but honestly I am almost done. The remaining sections are:

Star chart/rete

Declination ruler (will be very short)

Alidade and pin (will be extremely short)

Optional parts: shadow square, equation of time, unequal hours diagram, sin/cos scale

But then I am finally free…

Eventually I’ll return to make a page about using the thing, but only after I’ve had a chance to work on any of the dozen other projects I have sitting in my notes

This project is my passion and my curse, but I have gotten a few very nice emails about this work and have learned a lot

[historysurvivalguide]

Well, that was grim, but oddly mattered-of-fact

Sometimes if it feels like everyone is doing more than you it is just because everyone else is cheating

Retraction Watch

Tracking retractions as a window into the scientific process

[thevaultoftheatomicspaceage]

[humanoidhistory]

Space art by Kazuaki Iwasaki, Tatsushi Morimoto, Hitoshi Ikematsu, and Akira Yokoyama.

(h/t @jca-archive)