Category:Thematic Notes

Oratio De Utilitate Studii Historiae Scientiarum Physicarum (1819)
on June 8 1821, Franz-Peter Cassel, professor of botany and the second rector of the newly founded State University of Ghent, died. Notable, however, was his 1819 rectoral address in which he made an ardent plea for the study of the history of science.

A Belgian scientist in ‘the New World’: the nomadic evolutionism of Jean-Charles Houzeau de Lehaie
Driven by his thirst for independence, he travelled through Europe and North America and, always the rebel against his contemporaries, he frequently found himself in dire situations (he was probably one of the targets in the above picture...). In 1872 ...

The Colonial High School: an arena for discussions on the colonial sciences, administration, and elite
On 11 February 1920, the Belgian Colonial High School was established. Politicians and colonials consistently believed that the school would become the centre for colonial sciences and education in Belgium and that a colonial elite would emerge from it. What should this ...

Belgian scientists and doctors and radium: a brief but intense nuclear affair
The fact that uranium from Congolese soil ended up in the US atomic bomb via Belgian hands and accordingly changed the Second World War’s course is no longer a secret. Less well known is the important role which the Belgians played in the use of radium for ...