موضوعات ذات صلة
Failed Historical Scientific Instruments /
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Can a scientific instrument be regarded as a failure? Why and how? By shedding light on the complexity of these questions, the volume marks a step forward in the way historical scientific instruments can be analysed and displayed. The essays show how diverse failures can be, and how the assessment of scientific devices may change over time - some surprisingly becoming more successful. In addition to studies of how technical features led to failure, the authors examine the roles played by social bias and behaviour, commercial and economic circumstances, and political factors.
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1 online resource (272 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004689107
Forty Years of Scientific Instrument Studies : The Scientific Instrument Commission /
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Since 1981, the Scientific Instrument Commission has provided a forum for annual international discussion of topics close to the hearts of those caring for and researching historic scientific instruments. During these years, increasing professionalisation of curatorship and deepened engagement by historians have led to important changes in these roles. This volume is a cornucopia illustrating how instrument studies have changed and flourished over the past forty years. Four chapters review the work of the Scientific Instrument Commission by decade. The remaining chapters consider the historiography of instrument studies, the cataloguing of collections, historic instruments in exhibitions and educational settings, national trends, and the impact of new media. This book includes twenty smaller, in-depth "Fingerposts", or colourfully illustrated vignettes, presenting significant artefacts selected to span the spread of historical instrumentation through time and geography. They demonstrate the variety of historical questions and thematic analyses that can be explored through close inspection of particular scientific instruments. Contributors are R.G.W. Anderson, Sara J. Schechner, Richard L. Kremer, David Pantalony, Boris Jardine, A.D. Morrison-Low, Giorgio Strano, Jean-François Gauvin, Sofia Talas, Pedro Raposo, and Floor Koeleman.
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1 online resource (328 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004737587