From X-Rays to Cog Railways: Science in Colorado Springs’ Early Years

A special Event of the .

Come learn more about the advanced scientific work being done in Colorado Springs in our town's first few decades!  Colorado Springs's founder General William J. Palmer envisioned his new town would actively promote the sciences, and it did.  The first X-rays west of the Mississippi were created here, and Pikes Peak became the country's premier location for high altitude research.  Naturalists used Colorado Springs as a sort of basecamp, including some of Charles Darwin's closest friends and colleagues.  This exciting talk will discuss all of these, and more!

Steve Ruskin is an award-winning historian of astronomy, with a PhD in History and Philosophy of Science from the University of Notre Dame. He is the author of "America's First Great Eclipse: How Scientists, Tourists, and the Rocky Mountain Eclipse of 1878 Changed Astronomy Forever", one previous book and over fifty articles, chapters, and reviews. He was a visiting researcher at Cambridge University, England, on a grant from the National Science Foundation, and is an alumnus of the Launch Pad Astronomy Workshop. He currently serves as the moderator of HASTRO-L, the long-running history of astronomy listserv, and is on the Board of Advisors for the National Space Science & Technology Institute. A native of Colorado Springs, Colorado, he occasionally writes science fiction, and has also been a mountain bike guide on Pikes Peak.

The live presentation will be held at the Manitou Springs Heritage Center, 517 Manitou Avenue Manitou Springs, Colorado 80829. Visit our free museum. For more information, call 719-685-1454, email: [email protected], or visit www.manitouspringsheritagecenter.org.

Note: The City of Manitou Springs requires Covid masking for all indoor events.

Teens & Adults, 40 max

Hosts: Cool Science & Manitou Springs Heritage Center

Host or Publisher Cool Science