HPS Colloquia Series for 1997-98
The Stanford Philosophy Department presents:
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Peter Galison
Harvard University
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November 5, 1997, 8:00 pm
As we think back on the history of twentieth century physics, we are
accustomed to dividing it by the markers of theoretical changes: 1905 (special
relativity), 1915 (general relativity), 1926-27 (non-relativistic quantum
mechanics), and so on: each date seems to break up physics into periods
of continuity and sudden breaks.
Here I would like to explore how the history would look if one does
*not* assume that experimentalists, instrument makers and theorists all
march in lockstep. In particular, we can learn about what it has meant to
be an experimentalist (or to do an experiment) by tracking the history of
the material objects of the laboratory: cloud chambers, nuclear emulsions,
spark chambers, bubble chambers, and the electronic hybrid detectors that
now cost hundreds of millions of dollars. By following these detectors historically,
we can see the complex interactions experiment has had with industry, with
warfare, and with other fields of scientific inquiry. On the broadest level,
we can track the competition (and eventual union) between the long tradition
of image-making devices and the equally powerful tradition of electronic
logic devices.
To understand the links between these various physics subcultures, I
explore what it means to abandon talk of "translation" and to
adopt instead a picture of scientific trading languages, that is the scientific
equivalent of pidgins and creoles that allow the different sectors of the
community to communicate without necessarily sharing global belief.
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