Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 13, 2026

Major Components of the Light Microscope
Published on: July 30, 2008
[The 1755 Lisbon earthquake: collections of eighteenth-century texts]
1Departamento de Ciências Exactas e Tecnológicas, Universidade Aberta, Lisboa, Portugal, Rua da Escola Politécnica, no 147, 1269-001 Lisboa, Portugal. famador@sapo.pt
Abstract:
This study describes three collections of texts published in the years following the 1755 earthquake in Lisbon. Housed at archives and libraries in Portugal, the texts represent a variety of literary genres and strategies of argumentation. Here they have been analyzed according to pre-established categories. They were written during a time of transition characterized by ideological hesitations and by an eclecticism of conservative bent, a time when the latest experimentalist currents coexisted alongside attempts to reconcile scholastic Aristotelianism and experimentalism. The study focuses on a narrower set of texts, of special interest to the history of science; these can be classified into one of two topics: (i) physical explanations for the earth tremors and (ii) hygienist concerns about this type of natural disaster.
Related Concept Videos
Ecological Disturbance
Lumber Defects
Shakes are minor fractures that run along or across the wood's annual rings, while wane is...
Orders of Magnitude
The order of magnitude is simply a way of rounding numbers consistently to the nearest power of 10. This makes doing rough mental math...
Conditions on Early Earth
Conditions on Early Earth
Uncertainty in Measurement: Reading Instruments

