Crease on Peirce in Physics Today January 28, 2010
Posted by Will Thomas in Uncategorized.Tags: Albert Michelson, Charles Sanders Peirce, Richard Staley, Robert Crease, William Thomson
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Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914)
I’d meant to link to this earlier, but something was going on with the Physics Today website, and supposedly free content was getting hidden behind a paywall, but this is now resolved. In the December issue, workhorse historian of physics Robert Crease had an article on Charles Sanders Peirce’s involvement in 19th-century metrology. Peirce (pronounced “purse”) is best-known today for his involvement with American pragmatist philosophy. However, like William Thomson, and in association with Albert Michelson (as recently discussed at length by Richard Staley), Peirce was also a key figure in the development of precision instrumentation and experimentation. The article is very timely to recent posts here, and upcoming posts as well, so do have a look if you’re at all interested.
Primer: William Thomson January 26, 2010
Posted by Will Thomas in EWP Primer.Tags: Charles Darwin, Charles Lyell, Crosbie Smith, James Clerk Maxwell, James Joule, Joseph Fourier, Michael Faraday, Norton Wise, Peter Guthrie Tate, Pierre-Simon Laplace, William Hopkins, William Thomson
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William Thompson, Age 28, Well-Established
William Thomson (1824-1907) was the son of James Thomson, an Irish professor of mathematics who moved from the University of Belfast to the University of Glasgow in Scotland in 1832. William was raised in a latitudinarian tradition of religious tolerance, and in a whig tradition of progressive social reform. In Glasgow, he was exposed to a scholarly environment from early on, and it was assumed he would follow in his father’s academic footsteps. In 1841 he departed to Cambridge, where he studied for the mathematical tripos, becoming a student of the coach William Hopkins his second year. He finished second wrangler in the January 1845 examination.
Before Thomson had even arrived at Cambridge, his father had begun the process of maneuvering him into position to take over the chair in natural philosophy at Glasgow. William duly obtained it in 1846 at the age of 22, and held it until his retirement in 1899. By the 1840s, natural philosophy had already begun a long process of transformation, which Thomson himself did much to mold. Traditionally, the basis of natural philosophy was the development of theories of the materials of the universe and their powers on each other, resulting in schemes for explaining various kinds of physical phenomena, as mediated by the power of experiment. And indeed, to qualify for the Glasgow chair, Thomson had been encouraged to seek out what limited experimental work was done at Cambridge, and, after completing the tripos, he had traveled to Paris where he assisted in the laboratory of Victor Regnault (1810-1878) at the Collège de France.
At Cambridge, meanwhile, the mathematical tripos had classically been considered an appropriate foundation of a liberal education, instilling in students analytical habits of mind. (more…)
Exemplary Episodes: The N-Rays January 19, 2010
Posted by Will Thomas in Uncategorized.Tags: Malcolm Ashmore, Mary Jo Nye, Prosper-René Blondlot, Robert Wood
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Photographic evidence of N-rays
The N-ray research program, led by respected French physicist Prosper-René Blondlot (1849-1930) and followed by many others, was of substantial significance, generating about 300 papers in the period between 1903 to 1906. N-ray researchers not only argued for the existence of N-rays, but detailed their physical properties. Their work is routinely included in the history of the new radiations of x-rays and Henri Becquerel’s radiation, and is often paired with psychologist and sociologist Gustave Le Bon’s “black light” (here not the same as UV light) as part of the discoveries of “spurious” forms of radiation. Notably, cosmic rays, discovered around the same time, were also initially very slippery to detect, and would remain in limbo for well over a decade before being fully accepted as a phenomenon of extraterrestrial origin (never mind further disputes over their composition).
Traditionally, the N-ray research program has been of interest as an exemplary episode—an instrumental use of history that imparts a lesson or principle. Because the rays do not actually exist, the historical flourishing of a research program dedicated to studying them becomes a cautionary tale to scientists. Unless the lessons of the “affair” are heeded, you, too, could end up like Blondlot, needlessly wasting research effort on a chimera. Unlike Blondlot, your follies probably won’t become a legend that lives on long after you (and after your legitimate achievements are forgotten), but it nevertheless wouldn’t do to acquire a reputation as methodologically reckless.
As an exemplary episode, the historical context of the N-ray program is typically analyzed in order to explain how it could have been allowed to exist at all, rather than to properly characterize its place amid contemporaneous research programs. (more…)
In Praise of Historiographical Work Horses January 16, 2010
Posted by Will Thomas in Uncategorized.Tags: Helge Kragh, Joan Lisa Bromberg, Laurie M. Brown, Lillian Hoddeson, Olivier Darrigol
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The consolidation of gains is methodologically progressive
Who are the work horses in your field? I’ve finished reviewing the data on my big web project at AIP, which at the moment consists of basic career data on over 800 physicists working in America at any point after 1945. Where the information is actually available, this tells you things like where they were and when, what special posts they held (department chairs, professional society presidencies…), and what major committees they were on. But you can also turn this around: the resource will also tell you, for certain institutions, who was there and when. But, to make the resource complete and useful, you need to have a third dimension that links people intellectually rather than institutionally, which will be done via topic guides, on which I am now working.
Unlike gathering all the basic biographical information, which mainly requires tenacity in data mongering, this last task vastly benefits from the guidance of other historians. And in the history of physics, when you want to find out the basics, it’s remarkable how the same names keep coming up again and again. Should a chronological problematic ever re-emerge as an organizational principle in historiography, I think these individuals’ methodological importance will be better appreciated.
University of Illinois professor Lillian Hoddeson is everywhere, and constantly in collaboration with physicists and other historians. She, Adrienne Kolb, and Catherine Westfall have just come out with an early history of Fermilab (2008). (more…)
Instrumental Uses of History January 9, 2010
Posted by Will Thomas in Uncategorized.6 comments
Coming off the second part of my review of Richard Staley’s Einstein’s Generation, and also to try and set a tone for this year’s blogging, I’d like to consider the question of the instrumental uses of history. I want to start with the idea that history is an inevitable component of argumentation. Some other term might prove more convenient later on, but for the moment I want to say that it is very difficult, if not impossible, to open a discussion without invoking history in some way.
The point might be made by reference to comments in a recent discussion at the History of Economics Playground blog. There one question is whether or not economists can get away with shoddy history when they start out with the claim that they “are not historians of economic thought”. Yann takes the case to an extreme by pointing out that you could say, “Well, I’m not a physicist, but here’s some thoughts about physics for my fellow economists,” and physicists would have every right to call them on their errors. However, physics is not an inevitable component of economic argumentation (as it might be for engineering argumentation), whereas it might be convenient to refer to the history of economics in making an economic argument without assuring the audience of the quality of the history.
I think this point is generalizable. Since the past provides us with the experience from example necessary to understanding the present, the past necessarily becomes a topic of conversation. In this instance, history becomes a sort of shadow philosophy, a set of exemplary episodes that demonstrate certain principles, which then can be invoked to discuss current situations. (more…)
Looking Backward, Moving Forward January 4, 2010
Posted by Will Thomas in Uncategorized.2 comments
This blog launched on New Year’s Day 2008, so for the first post of the new year it seems like a good time to try and figure out and consolidate what has been learned in the last year. Given the still-rather-uncertain place of blogs in the realm of professional history, any decision to continue on has to revolve around whether or not I am getting anything out of it personally. The answer, I think, is a resounding “yes”.
Over the past two years, Ether Wave Propaganda has made a point of exploring in a continuous and semi-systematic way the concerns, methods, and history of current historiography. While there is surely a long way to go, enormous progress has been made, which (in my opinion) puts this blog well ahead of most other commentators in trying to figure out what the sensibilities are that inform contemporary historiography. A year ago the main insight was to make a distinction between socio-epistemic and chronological problematics, and to note that the bulk of historiography of science was dedicated to the former, and that this had something to do with the public mission of historiography. I can now present a concordant, but clearer and more detailed picture. (more…)
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