In August, Prof. Beaver enjoyed being an invited participant at a 3 day IEEE conference on the history of computing, held at Williams, and organized by William Aspray, formerly an assistant professor of mathematics at Williams.
On October 24, Prof. Beaver gave a bag lunch talk, "Scientific Anniversaries," that reviewed significant events in the history of science and technology occurring 100, 200, 300, . . etc. years ago, beginning in 595 A.D. with the first authentic record of decimal calculation, and ending in 1895, centennial of the discovery of X-rays.
At Tyler House in November, Prof. Beaver continued with the informal presentation of the history of science, when he gave a brief talk on the 16th, "Medieval Unity: Science, Technology, and World View," followed by a discussion.
Early in 1996, Prof. Beaver published, with Prof. Eri Yagi of Toyo University and Prof. Lawrence Badash, University of California, Santa Barbara, "Derek J. deS. Price (1922-83): Historian of Science and Herald of Scientometrics," in Interdisciplinary Science Reviews. The article recounts early events in the development of scientometrics as a social scientific discipline.
Just after spring vacation, Prof. Beaver traveled to Oxford University to participate in the Society for the History of Natural History conference, "Empires of Nature," April 11-13, where he gave a paper, "Writing Natural History for Survival, 1820-1856: the career of Sarah Bowdich Lee." Mrs. Robert Lee (1791-1856) [nee Sarah Wallis, formerly Mrs. T. E. Bowdich], was the first European woman ever to discover new genera of plants, a skilled naturalist, African traveler, author, and painter.
As usual, Professor Beaver continued to review and referee scholarly work during the year for the American Journal of Physics and Spectrum , a journal of the IEEE.