The Uses of Experiment: Studies in the Natural SciencesDavid Gooding, Trevor Pinch, Simon Schaffer Cambridge University Press, 18.05.1989 - 481 Seiten Experiment is widely regarded as the most distinctive feature of natural science and essential to the way scientists find out about the world. Yet there has been little study of the way scientists actually make and use experiments. The Uses of Experiment fills this gap in our knowledge about how science is practised. Presenting 14 original case studies of important and often famous experiments, the book asks the questions: What tools do experimenters use? How do scientists argue from experiments? What happens when an experiment is challenged? How do scientists check that their experiments are working? Are there differences between experiments in the physical sciences and technology? Leading scholars in the fields of history, sociology and philosophy of science consider topics such as the interaction of experiment; instruments and theory; accuracy and reliability as hallmarks of experiment in science and technology; realising new phenomena; the believability of experiments and the sort of knowledge they produce; and the wider contexts on which experimentalists draw to develop and win support for their work. Drawing on examples as diverse as Galilean mechanics, Victorian experiments on electricity, experiments on cloud formation, and testing of nuclear missiles, a new view of experiment emerges. This view emphasises that experiments always involve choice, tactics and strategy in persuading audiences that Nature resembles the picture experimenters create. |
Inhalt
Scientific instruments models of brass and aids to discovery | 31 |
Glass works Newtons prisms and the uses of experiment | 67 |
A viol of water or a wedge of glass | 105 |
EXPERIMENT AND ARGUMENT | 115 |
Galileos experimental discourse | 117 |
Fresnel Poisson and the white sport the role of successful predictions in the acceptance of scientific theories | 135 |
The rhetoric of experiment | 159 |
REPRESENTING AND REALISING | 181 |
Justification and experiment | 299 |
THE CONSTITUENCY OF EXPERIMENT | 335 |
Extraordinary experiment electricity and the creation of life in Victorian England | 337 |
Why did Britain join CERN? | 385 |
HALLMARKS OF EXPERIMENT | 407 |
From Kwajalein to Armageddon? Testing and the social construction of missile accuracy | 409 |
The epistemology of experiment | 437 |
Select bibliography | 461 |
Magnetic curves and the magnetic field experimentation and representation in the history of a theory | 183 |
Artificial clouds real particles | 225 |
Living in the material world | 275 |
Andere Ausgaben - Alle anzeigen
The Uses of Experiment: Studies in the Natural Sciences David Gooding,Trevor Pinch,Simon Schaffer Eingeschränkte Leseprobe - 1989 |
Häufige Begriffe und Wortgruppen
acari accuracy Aitken apparatus argued argument artifacts Ben Nevis British C.T.R. Wilson Cambridge University Press Cavendish century CERN charge circular error probable claims cloud chamber Collins colours concept condensation construction context Crosse Crosse's crucial demonstration Desaguliers Dialogue diffraction discourse discovery discussed electromagnetic empirical example experiment experimental experimentum crucis explain fact Faraday Faraday's Fresnel Galileo Galison Gallinaro glass Hackmann History of Science ical important instrumental model interaction interest ions J.J. Thomson justification knowledge Kwajalein laboratory logical London magnetic material procedures mathematical means ment method methodology Michael Faraday missile Morpurgo natural philosophy Newton nuclear observation optical paper particles phenomena phenomenal models philosophers Philosophy of Science physicists physics Pickering practice prediction prisms problem produced quarks rays realised reconstruction refraction replication rhetoric Rizzetti role Royal Society Schaffer scientific scientists Shapin social techniques telescope testing theoretical theory Thomson tion Trevor Pinch trials