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120József Illy, The Practical Einstein: Experiments, Patents, Inventions. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012. Pp. xi+202. ISBN 978-1-4214-0457-8. £31.00 (review)British Journal for the History of Science 47 (2): 382-383. 2014.
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131Xiang Chen, Instrumental Traditions and Theories of Light: The uses of instruments in the optical revolution. Science and philosophy, 9. dordrecht, boston and London: Kluwer academic publishers, 2000. Pp. XXIII+211. Isbn 0-7923-6349-3. £60·00, $99·00 (review)British Journal for the History of Science 35 (1): 97-123. 2002.
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127P. Klaus Hentschel and Axel D. Wittmann , The Role of Visual Representations in Astronomy: History and Research Practice. Acta historica astronomiae, 9. thun and Frankfurt am main: Verlag harri Deutsch, 2000. Pp. 148. ISBN 3-8171-1630-6. (review)British Journal for the History of Science 35 (3): 347-379. 2002.
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227Klaus Hentschel, Mapping the Spectrum: Techniques of Visual Representation in Research and Teaching. Oxford: Oxford university press, 2002. Pp. XIII+562. Isbn 0-19-850953-7. £75.00 (review)British Journal for the History of Science 36 (1): 87-127. 2003.
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162Maggie Mort, Building the Trident Network: A Study of the Enrollment of People, Knowledge, and Machines. Inside Technology. Cambridge, MA and London: MIT Press, 2002. Pp. X+217. Isbn 0-262-13397-0. £22.50 (review)British Journal for the History of Science 37 (4): 485-486. 2004.
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148Russell Burns, John Logie Baird, Television Pioneer. History of technology series, 28. London: Institution of electrical engineers, 2000. Pp. XXV+417. ISBN 0-85296-797-7. (review)British Journal for the History of Science 35 (2): 213-250. 2002.
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145Steven J. Dick, Sky and Ocean Joined: The U.S. Naval Observatory 1830–2000. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Pp. xiii+609. ISBN 0-521-81599-1. £90.00, $130.00 (review)British Journal for the History of Science 38 (2): 236-237. 2005.
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144Nicholas J. Wade, Destined for Distinguished Oblivion: The Scientific Vision of William Charles Wells . History and Philosophy of Psychology. New York, Boston, Dordrecht, London and Moscow: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2003. Pp. xi+310. ISBN 0-306-47385-2. $95.00 (review)British Journal for the History of Science 39 (2): 292-292. 2006.
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177Antony Kamm and Malcolm Baird, John Logie Baird: A life. Edinburgh: National museums of Scotland publishing, 2002. Pp. XII+465. Isbn 1-901663-76-0. 25.00 (review)British Journal for the History of Science 37 (2): 221-222. 2004.
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393Implanting a Discipline: The Academic Trajectory of Nuclear Engineering in the USA and UKMinerva 47 (1): 51-73. 2009.The nuclear engineer emerged as a new form of recognised technical professional between 1940 and the early 1960s as nuclear fission, the chain reaction and their applications were explored. The institutionalization of nuclear engineering channelled into new national laboratories and corporate design offices during the decade after the war, and hurried into academic venues thereafter proved unusually dependent on government definition and support. This paper contrasts the distinct histories of th…Read more
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321From white elephant to Nobel Prize: Dennis Gabor's wavefront reconstructionHistorical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences 36 35-70. 2005.Dennis Gabor devised a new concept for optical imaging in 1947 that went by a variety of names over the following decade: holoscopy, wavefront reconstruction, interference microscopy, diffraction microscopy and Gaboroscopy. A well-connected and creative research engineer, Gabor worked actively to publicize and exploit his concept, but the scheme failed to capture the interest of many researchers. Gabor’s theory was repeatedly deemed unintuitive and baffling; the technique was appraised by his co…Read more
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420In search of space: Fourier spectroscopy, 1950-1970In B. Joerges & T. Shinn (eds.), Instrumentation: Between Science, State and Industry, Sociology of the Sciences Yearbook, Springer. pp. 121-141. 2001.In the large grey area between science and technology, specialisms emerge with associated specialists. But some specialisms remain ‘peripheral sciences’, never attaining the status of disciplines ensconced in universities, and their specialists do not become recognised professionals. A major social component of such side-lined sciences – one important grouping of techno-scientific workers – is the research-technology community. An important question concerning research-technology is to explain h…Read more
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377Attributing scientific and technological progress: The case of holographyHistory and Technology 21 367-392. 2005.Holography, the three-dimensional imaging technology, was portrayed widely as a paradigm of progress during its decade of explosive expansion 1964–73, and during its subsequent consolidation for commercial and artistic uses up to the mid 1980s. An unusually seductive and prolific subject, holography successively spawned scientific insights, putative applications and new constituencies of practitioners and consumers. Waves of forecasts, associated with different sponsors and user communities, cas…Read more
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395The construction of colorimetry by committeeScience in Context 9 (4): 387-420. 1996.This paper explores the confrontation of physical and contextual factors involved in the emergence of the subject of color measurement, which stabilized in essentially its present form during the interwar period. The contentions surrounding the specialty had both a national and a disciplinary dimension. German dominance was curtailed by American and British contributions after World War I. Particularly in America, communities of physicists and psychologists had different commitments to divergent…Read more
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165Informing, teaching or propagandising? Combining Environmental and Science Studies for undergraduatesDiscourse: Learning and Teaching in Philosophical and Religious Studies 1 (2): 130-140. 2002.This article discusses experiences in the integrated teaching of Environmental Studies and Science Studies in a generalist curriculum at a university campus in Scotland. At the University of Glasgow Crichton Campus, a mixed curriculum has been developed to combine coherently Environmental and Science Studies, perhaps the first such curriculum in the UK and equally uncommon in America. The Crichton curricum is intentionally multi-disciplinary, drawing closely on the successful nineteenth-century …Read more
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687Holograms: The story of a word and its cultural usesLeonardo 50 (5): 493-499. 2017.Holograms reached popular consciousness during the 1960s and have since left audiences alternately fascinated, bemused or inspired. Their impact was conditioned by earlier cultural associations and successive reimaginings by wider publics. Attaining peak public visibility during the 1980s, holograms have been found more in our pockets (as identity documents) and in our minds (as video-gaming fantasies and “faux hologram” performers) than in front of our eyes. The most enduring, popular interpre…Read more
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1063Technological parables and iconic illustrations: American technocracy and the rhetoric of the technological fixHistory and Technology 33 (2): 196-219. 2017.This paper traces the role of American technocrats in popularizing the notion later dubbed the “technological fix”. Channeled by their long-term “chief”, Howard Scott, their claim was that technology always provides the most effective solution to modern social, cultural and political problems. The account focuses on the expression of this technological faith, and how it was proselytized, from the era of high industrialism between the World Wars through, and beyond, the nuclear age. I argue that …Read more
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1239The technological fix as social cure-all: origins and implicationsIEEE Technology and Society 37 (1): 47-54. 2018.On the historical origins of technological fixes and their wider social and political implications.
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755Vaunting the independent amateur: Scientific American and the representation of lay scientistsAnnals of Science 75 (2): 97-119. 2018.This paper traces how media representations encouraged enthusiasts, youth and skilled volunteers to participate actively in science and technology during the twentieth century. It assesses how distinctive discourses about scientific amateurs positioned them with respect to professionals in shifting political and cultural environments. In particular, the account assesses the seminal role of a periodical, Scientific American magazine, in shaping and championing an enduring vision of autonomous sci…Read more
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778Alvin Weinberg and the promotion of the technological fixTechnology and Culture 59 (3): 620-651. 2018.The term “technological fix”, coined by technologist/administrator Alvin Weinberg in 1965, vaunted engineering innovation as a generic tool for circumventing problems commonly conceived as social, political or cultural. A longtime Director of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, government consultant and essayist, Weinberg also popularized the term “Big Science” to describe national goals and the competitive funding environment after the Second World War. Big Science reoriented towards Technological F…Read more
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128Crowd-sourced science: societal engagement, scientific authority and ethical practiceJournal of Information Ethics 26 (1): 49-65. 2017.This paper discusses the implications for public participation in science opened by the sharing of information via electronic media. The ethical dimensions of information flow and control are linked to questions of autonomy, authority and appropriate exploitation of knowledge. It argues that, by lowering the boundaries that limit access and participation by wider active audiences, both scientific identity and practice are challenged in favor of extra-disciplinary and avocational communities such…Read more
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6Scaling Up: The Institution of Chemical Engineers and the Rise of a New ProfessionKluwer Academic. 2000.Chemical engineering - as a recognised skill in the workplace, as an academic discipline, and as an acknowledged profession - is scarcely a century old. Yet from a contested existence before the First World War, chemical engineering had become one of the 'big four' engineering professions in Britain, and a major contributor to Western economies, by the end of the twentieth century. The subject had distinct national trajectories. In Britain - too long seen as shaped by American experiences - the …Read more
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19Holograms: A Cultural HistoryOxford University Press. 2015.Holograms have been in the public eye for over a half-century, but their influences have deeper cultural roots. No other visual experience is quite like interacting with holograms; no other cultural product melds the technological sublime with magic and optimism in quite the same way. As holograms have evolved, they have left their audiences alternately fascinated, bemused, inspired or indifferent. From expressions of high science to countercultural art to consumersecurity, holograms have repres…Read more
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20A History of Light and Colour Measurement: Science in the ShadowsInstitute of Physics Press. 2001.2003 Paul Bunge Prize of the Hans R. Jenemann Foundation for the History of Scientific Instruments Judging the brightness and color of light has long been contentious. Alternately described as impossible and routine, it was beset by problems both technical and social. How trustworthy could such measurements be? Was the best standard of intensity a gas lamp, an incandescent bulb, or a glowing pool of molten metal? And how much did the answers depend on the background of the specialist? A Histor…Read more
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7The Neutron's Children: Nuclear Engineers and the Shaping of IdentityOxford University Press. 2012.The first nuclear engineers emerged from the Manhattan Project in the USA, UK and Canada, but remained hidden behind security for a further decade. Cosseted and cloistered by their governments, they worked to explore applications of atomic energy at a handful of national labs. This unique bottom-up history traces how the identities of these unusually voiceless experts - forming a uniquely state-managed discipline - were shaped in the context of pre-war nuclear physics, wartime industrial managem…Read more
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65Environmental Ethics and Behavioural ChangeRoutledge. 2017.Environmental Ethics and Behavioural Change takes a practical approach to environmental ethics with a focus on its transformative potential for students, professionals, policy makers, activists, and concerned citizens. Proposed solutions to issues such as climate change, resource depletion and accelerating extinctions have included technological fixes, national and international regulation and social marketing. This volume examines the ethical features of a range of communication strategies and …Read more
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5Holographic Visions: A History of New ScienceOxford University Press UK. 2006.Holography exploded on the scientific world in 1964, but its slow fuse had been burning much longer. Over the next four decades, the echoes of that explosion reached scientists, engineers, artists and popular culture. Emerging from classified military research, holography evolved to represent the power of post-war physics, an aesthetic union of art and science, the countercultural meanderings of holism, a cottage industry for waves of would-be entrepreneurs and a fertile plot device for science …Read more
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