Scientific Instruments: Knowledge, Practice, and Culture [Editor’s Introduction]

Authors

  • Isaac Record IHPST, University of Toronto

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.4245/sponge.v4i1.14231

Abstract

To one side of the wide third-floor hallway of Victoria College, just outside the offices of the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology, lies the massive carcass of a 1960s-era electron microscope. Its burnished steel carapace has lost its gleam, but the instrument is still impressive for its bulk and spare design: binocular viewing glasses, beam control panel, specimen tray, and a broad work surface. Edges are worn, desiccated tape still feebly holds instructive reminders near control dials; this was once a workhorse in some lab. But it exists now out of time and place; like many of the scientific instruments we study, it has not been touched by knowing hands in decades.

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Issue

Vol. 4 No. 1 (2010): Scientific Instruments: Knowledge, Practice, and Culture

Section

Focused Discussion

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