Yves Gingras

We describe here a series of experimental analogies between fluid mechanics and quantum mechanics recently discovered by a team of physicists. These analogies arise in droplet systems guided by a surface (or pilot) wave. We argue that these experimental facts put ancient theoretical work by Madelung on the analogy between fluid and quantum mechanics into new light. After re-deriving Madelung’s result starting from two basic fluid-mechanical equations (the Navier-Stokes equation and the continuity equation), we discuss the relation with the de Broglie-Bohm theory. This allows to make a direct link with the droplet experiments. It is argued that the fluid-mechanical interpretation of quantum mechanics, if it can be extended to the general N-particle case, would have an advantage over the Bohm interpretation: it could rid Bohm’s theory of its strongly non-local character.

This article uses the methods of citation and network analysis to map the global structure of the intellectual field and its development over time. Through the case study of Mersenne's, Oldenburg's and Darwin's correspondences, we show how looking at letters as a corpus of data can provide a global representation of the evolving conversation going on in the Republic of Letters and in intellectual and scientific fields. Aggregating general correspondences in electronic format offers a global portrait of the evolving composition of the intellectual and scientific scene, its changing foci of interests and the fortune of the intellectual discussions as expressed in cited persons in the letters. Such tools help replace a purely metaphoric use of the term network by a visible map of the intellectual relations between people on which well defined calculations of the centrality of the positions of different actors can be made as well as their evolution over time. These techniques provide welcome additions to the tool kit of scholars in an age where the computer and the web offer new ways of mapping and mining the rich store of information contained in intellectual correspondences. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

We describe a series of experimental analogies between fluid mechanics and quantum mechanics recently discovered by a team of physicists. These analogies arise in droplet systems guided by a surface wave. We argue that these experimental facts put ancient theoretical work by Madelung on the analogy between fluid and quantum mechanics into new light. After re-deriving Madelung’s result starting from two basic fluid mechanical equations, we discuss the relation with the de Broglie–Bohm theory. This allows to make a direct link with the droplet experiments. It is argued that the fluid mechanical interpretation of quantum mechanics, if it can be extended to the general N-particle case, would have a considerable advantage over the Bohm interpretation: it could rid Bohm’s theory of its non-local character.

L’intensification récente des relations entre les acteurs du champ universitaire et ceux du monde industriel a amené une montée en visibilité des questions qui touchent les conflits d’intérêts. Pratiquement toujours entendue comme une catégorie intemporelle et universelle, la notion de « conflit d’intérêts » a cependant une genèse historique et des conditions sociales d’émergence. À travers plusieurs exemples canadiens et américains du vingtième siècle, cet article montre comment émergent les conflits d’intérêts dans le champ universitaire. Alors qu’aujourd’hui ces exemples seraient probablement perçus et dénoncés comme des cas flagrants de conflits d’intérêts, cela ne semble pas avoir été le cas à l’époque. En fait, le « conflit d’intérêts » suppose d’abord l’existence d’intérêts en conflits, eux-mêmes portés par des agents qui ont intérêt à percevoir, et parfois même à générer, ces conflits.

Harry Collins' central argument about experimental practice revolves around the thesis that facts can only be generated by good instruments but good instruments can only be recognized as such if they produce facts. This is what Collins calls the experimenters' regress. For Collins, scientific controversies cannot be closed by the ‘facts’ themselves because there are no formal criteria independent of the outcome of the experiment that scientists can apply to decide whether an experimental apparatus works properly or not.No one seems to have noticed that the debate is in fact a rehearsal of the ancient philosophical debate about skepticism. The present article suggests that the way out of radical skepticism offered by the so-called mitigated skeptics is a solution to the problem of consensus formation in science.Keywords: Argumentation; Skepticism; Sociology of science; Philosophy of science; Scientific controversies.

The tendency is strong to take the notion of “conflict of interests” for granted as if it had an invariant meaning and an ethical content independent of the historical context. It is doubtful however, from an historical and sociological point of view, that many of the cases now considered as instances of “conflicts of interests” would also have been conceived and perceived as such in, say, the 1930s. The idea of a “conflict of interests” presupposes that there are indeed interests in conflict. Conversely, as long as there is a consensus among the different groups involved, they will not conceive and even less denounce a given practice as being an instance of a “conflict of interests”. In this article we will show that the content of the discussions over conflicts of interests has changed over time in close relation with the transformations of the research system. In other words: there are social conditions for the emergence of “conflicts of interests”. The changing meaning of the notion is assessed by analyzing the presence of the expression “conflicts of interests” in the magazine Science over the past century. Three different meanings emerge and their content has evolved in close link with the changing structure of the relations between the scientific community first with the State and then with industry. It moved from a situation external to the scientific community to a debate going on inside the scientific community generated by the growing relations between university and industries