A Selection of 19th Century Scientific Verse: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

A Selection of 19th Century Scientific Verse, credited to Various, is available as a LibriVox volunteer audiobook. This guide identifies the recording, its source summary and its audio tracks.

About the work

The LibriVox catalogue summary, preserved with the recording, reads:

LibriVox recording of A Selection of 19th Century Scientific Verse by various authors. Read in English by Ruth Golding. In the 18th and early 19th centuries, it was common for discoveries in branches of science such as botany, astronomy and medicine to be described in book-length treatises in verse. By the end of the 19th century this mode of popularising science was falling from favour as the studies of science and the humanities diverged and study became more specialised. This small selection of somewhat lighter-hearted verse written by distinguished scientists and mathematicians of the day includes poems by James Clerk Maxwell, William J. Macquorn Rankine and James Joseph Sylvester. (Summary by Ruth Golding)

Recording facts

• Recording title: A Selection of 19th Century Scientific Verse
• Author credits: Various
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 13
• Listed recording duration: 47:02

Catalogue topics

• science
• mathematics
• physics
• metaphysics
• dynamics
• scientist
• poetry
• poems

Track guide

1. 01 - To F. W. F. — 9:04
2. 02 - Lines Written Under the Conviction that it is Not Wise to Read Mathematics in November After One's Fire is Out — 4:58
3. 03 - A Problem in Dynamics — 6:23
4. 04 - In Memory of Edward Wilson: Rigid Body — 1:20
5. 05 - Valentine by a Telegraph Clerk (Male) to a Telegraph Clerk (Female) — 1:28
6. 06 - Lectures to Women on Physical Science — 5:13
7. 07 - To the Chief Musician upon Nabla — 4:20
8. 08 - To the Committee of the Cayley Portrait Fund — 1:58
9. 09 - Molecular Evolution — 2:24
10. 10 - The Mathematician in Love — 3:37
11. 11 - The Three-foot Rule: a Song about Standards of Measure — 2:19
12. 12 - To a Missing Member of a Family Group of Terms in an Algebraical Formula — 1:29
13. 13 - The Infant Metaphysician — 2:29

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Source and rights

This is a record from LibriVox's official Internet Archive collection, with a public-domain licence recorded in its metadata. LibriVox's policy includes its catalogue summaries as well as its recordings. Its public-domain assessment follows United States law; copyright status can differ elsewhere. The summary and track facts are reproduced and reformatted from that record. Dates attached to the archive upload are not treated as original book publication dates.