The Guild of Scientific Troubadours

The Guild of Scientific Troubadours

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electrical engineering

Scientific illustration of air traffic control reading a plane's position on an instrument panel, while radar waves bounce in graphic zig-zags off an airplane flying high over a mountain range.

Science Art: Opportunities for Design & Development Engineers…, 1966.

12 March 2025 grant 0

This is the illustration from a full-page ad from the Hughes Aircraft Company in the Jan/Feb 1966 issue of Information Display magazine.

This isn’t selling a product — at least… Read the rest “Science Art: Opportunities for Design & Development Engineers…, 1966.”

Scientific illustration of early X-ray equipment, including induction coil, battery, X-Ray tube, and fluorescent screen.

Science Art: Apparatus Arranged for Taking a Radiograph, 1894.

29 September 2024 grant 0

This illustration is from an article in Science Gossip on how to set up your own “X-Ray Outfit.” As the author, James Quick, explains: “The four chief items comprising… Read the rest “Science Art: Apparatus Arranged for Taking a Radiograph, 1894.”

Scientific illustration of an electronic object that looks a little licke a pressure cooker with a cutaway side and some sort of an inditcator needle on the front. It's resting on a square stand with four tiny legs.

Science Art: The Turney Vario Variable Condenser, 1913.

19 August 2024 grant 0

This is from a photographically illustrated advertisement in Hugo Gernsback’s magazine The Electrical Experimenter.

The description of this item is as follows:

For extreme measurements

… Read the rest “Science Art: The Turney Vario Variable Condenser, 1913.”

SONG: “Communications” (a penitential Slim Gaillard cover)

7 November 2023 grant 0

SONG: “Communications” (a penitential Slim Gaillard cover). (available as .ogg here)

ARTIST: grant.

SOURCE: This isn’t based on any research. It’s a cover… Read the rest “SONG: “Communications” (a penitential Slim Gaillard cover)”

Scientific illustration of early radio equipment, in an advertisement for the Two-Step Multi-Audi-Fone, which comes with a pocket receiver and a "special head set." The M.A.F. costs $60 unless you order it after October 1, in which case it's $75. Which is quite a lot in 1916 dollars.

Science Art: Two-Step Multi-Audi-Fone ad, 1916.

16 October 2023 grant 0

This is an ad from, as Thomas Dolby put it, the Golden Age of wireless. More literally, it’s from the October, 1916, issue of The Electrical Experimenter, a Hugo Gernsback publication,… Read the rest “Science Art: Two-Step Multi-Audi-Fone ad, 1916.”

Uruguay gets 98% of its power from renewable sources.

9 October 2023 grant 0

NPR had a piece on the little South American nation that’s leading the way to a less polluted future, getting nearly all of its electricity from well-placed windmills and an economic… Read the rest “Uruguay gets 98% of its power from renewable sources.”

Making a pain-free battery: “Nickel doesn’t have child-labor issues.”

16 June 2023 grant 0

Scientific Frontline looks at a new way to create rechargeable lithium-ion batteries – the power behind electric cars, iPhones, and most of the rest of the 21st century – without… Read the rest “Making a pain-free battery: “Nickel doesn’t have child-labor issues.””

Texas expects record-setting power usage this week.

13 June 2023 grant 0

Reuters reports on a hot, hot summer that is pulling more electricity from the Texas state grid than ever before:

AccuWeather forecast high temperatures in Houston, the biggest city in

… Read the rest “Texas expects record-setting power usage this week.”

Solar panels increase crop yields, insulate reservoirs, and can help farmers.

5 March 2023 grant 0

PNAS reports on some unanticipated consequences of solar farming – but things that banks of solar panels that are unexpectedly good, not bad:

To generate as much energy as a conventional

… Read the rest “Solar panels increase crop yields, insulate reservoirs, and can help farmers.”
Scientific illustration of... well, there's a lot going on here. We've got a mythical-looking figure in a loincloth, sort of half-Zeus (his right hand is holding lightning bolts) and half-Hephaestus (his left hand, to our right, is on a large switch) Along the lower right of the image there are insets of various early 20th-century electrical devices. To the left and across the bottom is a block of text advertising a course in electrical science in the form of a book by S. Gernsback (doubtless a relative of the publisher, Hugo Gernsback) and H.W. Secor. It only costs a dollar!

Science Art: Experimental Electricity Course, 1916.

8 January 2023 grant 0

This is how you advertise a science book. At least, it was how Hugo Gernsback did in the pages of The Electrical Experimenter in September 1916. Is that figure in the middle Hephaestus or is… Read the rest “Science Art: Experimental Electricity Course, 1916.”

India has built an all-solar village.

1 November 2022 grant 0

Reuters reports on Modhera, Gujarat, the first 24/7, all-solar village built in India for ordinary folks to live without a local power plant:

The project in Modhera, financed by the federal

… Read the rest “India has built an all-solar village.”
Scientific illustration in the form of a 1900s comic strip parodying early electrical experiments. Cartoon shows a man on a treadmill being encouraged to lose weight while unknowingly powering up the inventor's bank of batteries.

Science Art: Reducing Apparatus, in “Phoney Patent Offizz,” The Electrical Experimenter, April 1917.

9 October 2022 grant 0

This is nerd humor from the dawn of the electric age. The “Phoney Patent Offizz” was apparently a regular column in Hugo Gernsback’s The Electrical Experimenter, a … Read the rest “Science Art: Reducing Apparatus, in “Phoney Patent Offizz,” The Electrical Experimenter, April 1917.”

Scientific illustration of a shadowy lighthouse and a dark ship sending out brilliant beams of light to illuminate the inky blackness of the shore, in an image used to sell lighting apparatus to Victorian engineers.

Science Art: Woodhouse & Rawson Electrical Lighting & Apparatus ad, 1890

14 August 2022 grant 0

Advertisements from the 1800s are usually visually striking, but this one is really something else – from the loopy lettering to the drama of the scene depicted in fields of shadow… Read the rest “Science Art: Woodhouse & Rawson Electrical Lighting & Apparatus ad, 1890”

These recycled lithium-ion batteries are outperforming new ones.

2 February 2022 grant 0

IEEE Spectrum reports on a research team that has created a new method for recycling the environmentally risky chemicals used in lithium-ion batteries – the kind of batteries used… Read the rest “These recycled lithium-ion batteries are outperforming new ones.”

Scientific illustration of early headphones used as a circuit tester in the 1900s.

Science Art: Phone Tester for Electric Circuits, Patent No. 1,187,500; issued to G. B. Raymond.

26 September 2021 grant 0

These are not headphones, exactly. This is a thing made of telephone parts designed to help electrical tinkerers do better tinkering.

It’s from a page called “Latest Patents”… Read the rest “Science Art: Phone Tester for Electric Circuits, Patent No. 1,187,500; issued to G. B. Raymond.”

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Honorary Troubadours
  • Jonathan Coulton, Contributing Troubadour for Popular Science.
  • Laura Veirs, who knows her way around a polysyllable.
  • Thomas Dolby, godfather of scientific pop.
  • Squeaky, fact-based rock about fusion containment & rocket science.
  • Cosmos II, a.k.a. Boston University astronomer Alan Marscher.
  • Dr. Fiorella Terenzi, astrophysicist who makes music from cosmic radio sources.
  • Dr. Jim Webb, astronomy professor and acoustic guitarist.
  • Artichoke, the band behind 26 Scientists, Vols. I and II.
  • They Might Be Giants, unrelenting proponents of scientific popular song.
  • Symphonies of Science, the people who make Carl Sagan and others sing.
  • Giant Squid, doom metal about the sublime horrors of marine biology.
  • Gethan Dick,6 scientists, 6 musicians, 1 great album
Related Projects
  • Squid Pro Crow
  • Grant Bandcamp
  • Grant Soundcloud
  • Penitential Originals Playlist
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"Is it a fact—or have I dreamt it—that, by means of electricity, the world of matter has become a great nerve, vibrating thousands of miles in a breathless point of time?"
— Nathaniel Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables, 1851
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