Scientific American in 1925: Solar Eclipses, Seances and Some Strange Inventions

Science Quickly

Scientific American

Science

4.4 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 28 April 2025

⏱️ 9 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We’re taking a break from our usual weekly news roundup to do a little time travel. In 1925 Scientific American covered a total solar eclipse that featured some surprising solar shadow play and a prediction about today’s eclipses. Plus, we review some long-gone sections of the magazine that tried to verify mediums and show off zany inventions! Recommended reading: You can read more from our archives here: https://www.scientificamerican.com/archive/issues/ E-mail us at sciencequickly@sciam.com if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover! Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Naeem Amarsy and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman. Our show is edited by Alex Sugiura with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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0:35.5	Happy Monday listeners. For Scientific American Science quickly, I'm Rachel Thalpin.
0:52.8	I was out of the office taking a little break last week, so I didn't have the chance to write and record our usual news roundup.
0:59.6	Instead, I thought it would be fun to dive back into the Scientific American archives for the first time in a while.
1:05.1	Let's see what Siam was up to 100 years ago.
1:08.9	The April 1925 issue of Scientific American had more in common with our coverage in 2024 than
1:15.1	you might expect.
1:16.5	99 years apart, everyone was going gaga over eclipses.
1:21.0	While the January 1925 total solar eclipse didn't quite hit the same swath of the U.S.
1:26.3	as the one we got to enjoy last year.
1:28.5	It did treat folks in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut,
1:34.7	Rhode Island, and Massachusetts to totality. According to Siam's April 1925 article on the subject,
1:41.2	the weather was pristine for eclipse viewing. The article also details
1:45.2	some apparently very eerie visual effects that showed up during the eclipse. Apparently,
	...

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