Jon Agar
LightNews LightNews
jonagar.bsky.social
Jon Agar
@jonagar.bsky.social
7.8K followers 600 following 690 posts

historian of modern science and technology

Videos
Philosophy 28%
Physics 19%
Posts Replies Media Videos

jonagar.bsky.social
Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 46m
Xmas present was a UV torch, so I peered into some rock pools.

Natural light (L), UV (R)

Reveals mysterious glowing things
Rockpool photo in natural light. Some sea weed, rock and encrusting things Rockpool photo under UV, red seaweed glows red, there’s something that glows orange and something else that is yellow. The red seaweed on the right has brighter red patches too

jonagar.bsky.social
Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 4d
Spot the Woodcock

jonagar.bsky.social
Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 5d
You’ve heard of the MC5?

Here are the DSM IV

jonagar.bsky.social
Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 8d
Hologram? Magic eye picture?

Digital watches are pretty neat

jonagar.bsky.social
Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 11d
Dinosaur outside office
Big roadworks machine that looks like a dinosaur

jonagar.bsky.social
Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 14d
Fearing the worst when - alarm failure! - I had rush to lecture on Heidegger's The Question Concerning Technology at 9am on the last day of the last week of term

I needn't have worried: the students engaged, the lecture flowed, the discussion lively.

I love this course (Thinking about Technology)
Martin Heidegger's head. He is saying 'I really hat ChatGPT essays', 'They might be uncannily correct but they are not true', and 'Write your essay like an artisan would craft a silver chalice. Resist challenging forth AI text slop from the standing reserve'

jonagar.bsky.social
Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 16d
I was at the Master Shipwright’s House of the old Royal dockyard of Deptford.

Joseph Allin, Master Shipwright to the Dockyard, rebuilt 'ancient and decayed' quarters in 1707/8

Fronts onto Thames, with Isle of Dogs/Canary Wharf opposite and Greenwich south

historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-...
Former Master Shipwright's House at Royal Dockyard, Deptford, Non Civil Parish - 1213984 | Historic England
List entry 1213984. Grade II* Listing: Former Master Shipwright's House at Royal Dockyard, Deptford. May include summary, reasons for designation and history.
historicengland.org.uk

jonagar.bsky.social
Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 16d
Inside (me)

jonagar.bsky.social
Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 16d
Where am I?

jonagar.bsky.social
Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 17d
Today at @stsucl.bsky.social History of Science Reading Group we discussed Kate Brown's ‘The Chernobyl Crucible in Two Acts’, American Historical Review 130(3), 2025, plus intro written with Emily Callaci, ‘Mistakes I Dare Not Admit’ (suggested by @sarahvmarks.bsky.social) doi.org/10.1093/ahr/...
The Chernobyl Crucible in Two Acts
July 3,1986.1
doi.org

jonagar.bsky.social
Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 17d
“alpha-plus boffin drama”
matthewcobb.bsky.social Matthew Cobb @matthewcobb.bsky.social · 17d
It could have been *so* much worse…

Reposted by Jon Agar

matthewcobb.bsky.social
Matthew Cobb @matthewcobb.bsky.social · 17d
It could have been *so* much worse…

jonagar.bsky.social
Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 18d
Planting a green wall

(UCL Chemistry building)

jonagar.bsky.social
Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 18d
sodden gorse

Berkhamsted

#wildflowerhour

jonagar.bsky.social
Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 22d
This week at @stsucl.bsky.social History of Science Reading Group we discussed Tomas Bartoletti @tomasbarto12.bsky.social, “Hunting and Masculine Knowledge: a Swiss Naturalist in South America and the Coloniality of Nineteenth-Century Science”, @isisjournal.bsky.social doi.org/10.1086/733157
Hunting and Masculine Knowledge: A Swiss Naturalist in South America and the Coloniality of Nineteenth-Century Science | Isis: Vol 115, No 4
Abstract During the mid-nineteenth century, the shifting boundaries of natural history and hunting practices were at the core of debates about general and practical knowledge, science and leisure, hun...
doi.org

jonagar.bsky.social
Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 22d
On 25 November @stsucl.bsky.social History of Science Reading Group we discussed a pair of 2025 BJHS papers, by Tim Boon, ‘The Public Culture of Science through an Intermedial Lens’, doi.org/10.1017/S000... and @profjbgouyon.bsky.social , ‘Living in an Intermedial World' doi.org/10.1017/S000...
The public culture of science through an intermedial lens | The British Journal for the History of Science | Cambridge Core
The public culture of science through an intermedial lens
doi.org

jonagar.bsky.social
Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 22d
On 18 November @stsucl.bsky.social History of Science Reading Group we discussed Tanfer Tunc, 'Science and Diplomacy: Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the Third Presidential Cruise’, @isisjournal.bsky.social , 2024, 115/4. www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....

jonagar.bsky.social
Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 23d
You have zoom in to get a real sense of the detail of this map: the area west of the Royal Laboratory Department: a brass foundry, latrines, cartridge factory, machine shops, turnery, chemical department, canteen, ticket station, stores, inspection shed, cycle rack, coke bunkers, saw mills …

jonagar.bsky.social
Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 23d
We’re moving west to east. Here are the final four images of the Royal Arsenal map, going into the Erith marshes and Crossness, with the railway line (red) and the explosives stores within earthen walls.

jonagar.bsky.social
Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 23d
In the RANG (Royal Arsenal Narrow Gauge) workshop there is the most fantastically detailed map of the Royal Arsenal. It’s about 3x1m. All structures and buildings named. c1907?

This area from Woolwich to Erith was the largest technical engineering site in London.

On published maps it was blank

jonagar.bsky.social
Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 26d
Inside the cathedral of sewage…

jonagar.bsky.social
Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 26d
Followed by a short trip on a narrow gauge, pulled by “Bazalgette”

They know their audience…

jonagar.bsky.social
Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 26d
On an Exciting Day Out to “Steaming Day” at the Crossness Pumping Station

Starts with being picked up at Abbey Wood by a vintage Routemaster …

Reposted by Steven French, Jon Agar, Aileen Fyfe , and 1 more

bshsnews.bsky.social
BSHS @bshsnews.bsky.social · Nov 19
Nominations are open for the BSHS Pickstone Prize 2026, recognising the best scholarly English-language book in the history of science.
📆 Deadline: 31 Jan 2026.
Anyone may nominate (self-nominations welcome).
Submit via our online form on the BSHS website www.bshs.org.uk/the-bshs-pic...

jonagar.bsky.social
Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · Nov 19
Snow sleet and rain in London

jonagar.bsky.social
Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · Nov 18
Can confirm

jonagar.bsky.social
Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · Nov 18
Shown to me, swept from chalk grassland on Box Hill a week or so ago: purseweb spiderlings (Atypus affinis): the UK’s only wild tarantula close relative

jonagar.bsky.social
Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · Nov 18
Thank you brain for waking me up and shouting ‘Toyah Willcox is German for Expensive Wants Cook’s’

jonagar.bsky.social
Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · Nov 15
Moral guidance needed.

My son was in Brick Lane and assembled this: The Doner Bagel

Says it was delicious

But is this right? Should I intervene?

Reposted by Tim Bale

jonagar.bsky.social
Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · Nov 14
The deprivation results for my little slice of Hackney are quite stark.

The one outlier (education and skills, near the least deprived) is making me reflect