PUSHING THE ENVELOPE: (Clockwise from top left) A 2005 South Korean stem-cell research stamp commemorated what was hailed as a remarkable scientific achievement and what is now remembered as an infamous case of scientific fraud. To raise concern for the environment, Australia issued a soil conservation stamp in 1988, and Russia issued a 1991 stamp depicting the effects of the Chernobyl accident five years earlier. In 1980, the People’s Republic of China issued a stamp showing mythological water nymphs—females in sheer, flowing skirts—paired with simplified technology images. The lead figure points to text indicating the year 2000 underlined by a space rocket, heralding the promise of science. While female scientists make fewer appearances in the history of science stamps, a 2003 Polish stamp duplicates a 1967 French stamp celebrating the birth centenary of Marie Curie. She has been celebrated on the stamps of Poland, her country of birth, 13 times.
View larger: JPGALL IMAGES FROM CHRISTOPHER YARDLEY'S COLLECTIONIn 1840, Great Britain printed a small square of paper with the likeness of the reigning monarch, Queen Victoria. The paper, purchased from a post office and affixed to a parcel, symbolized advance payment for delivery—and inaugurated the use of postage stamps. What began as a new medium for honoring royalty soon expanded as a way to pay homage to other deserving subjects, and nearly a century later, scientific images made their philatelic debut.
The first science and technology stamp celebrated a 1923 agricultural exhibition in Moscow, according to Christopher Yardley, a science communicator at the Australian National University and the author of a 2015 book looking at science on postage stamps. The stamp depicted a tractor, acknowledging that the Ford Company had sold 25,000 of the machines to Russia. “Four years after the Russian revolution, the Russian government issued a stamp saying, ‘We’re buying tractors. Here we are—we are using science and technology,’” says Yardley.
Governments have since printed science- and technology-related stamps to encourage a sense of civic pride or to commemorate scientific achievements—sometimes presumptuously. South Korea issued a stamp in 2005 to mark the success of stem-cell researcher Hwang Woo-suk; the stamp depicts his procedure to ...
