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Model Builders and Instrument Makers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Thomas P. Hughes
Thomas P. Hughes
Affiliation:
Department of History and Sociology of ScienceUniversity of Pennsylvania
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Abstract

Many inventors, engineers, and scientists think in verbal images. Elmer Sperry (1860–1930), a noted American inventor, was able to “operate” in his mind's eye the machines he was developing. For inventors, engineers, and experimental scientists, visualization is often followed by construction of a physical model of the invention, which can be an experimental apparatus. The model, or apparatus, is then tested in increasingly complex environments and changes are made in the physical artifact until it is ready to be used. Examples of this process of development are Sperry's development of a ship stabilizer for the U.S. Navy and a revolving mirror to be used by Albert Michelson in the determination of the speed of light. Thomas Edison called experimentation his development of an invention through the building and testing of a series of models. So, both scientists and inventors experiment. They are not discovering the “secrets of nature”: they are observing how artifacts – their physical creations – behave. These physical models of thought reflect the characteristics of the tools with which they were made. They are socially constructed, as well.

Type
Article
Information
Science in Context , Volume 2 , Issue 1 , Spring 1988 , pp. 59 - 75
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1988

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