Part I Tools and Research Materials: The Industrialist as Producer

Transcription

1 Part I Tools and Research Materials: The Industrialist as Producer

2 Introduction The form and the context of scientific research are shaped by instruments and by research materials. Both are often industrially produced, or originate in an industrial setting. While in earlier periods scientists themselves produced their own equipment and reagents, or cooperated directly with instrument makers, from the mid nineteenth century, scientific instrumentation has been increasingly produced by specialized companies. This trend parallels the rise of metrology, which may be illustrated, in the late nineteenth century, by the multiplication of assays for the purity of chemical assays, the debates over the definition of electrical standards, or the creation of state institutes for defining accurate measurements. The problem of measurement linked the preoccupation of scientists and industrialists because both groups were interested in reducing the variability of human actions, and in increasing the reproducibility of procedures. The introduction of industrially produced materials and tools promotes this goal. The availability of industrially produced instruments and of industrially produced research materials, such as drugs or pure chemical products, in tum affects the direction and the outcome of scientific investigations. Three chapters are focused on measuring tools in the physical sciences: Otto Sibum studied Joule's heat measurement, Jeff Hughes the introduction of radio lamps and Geiger counters into physics laboratories in the 1920s and 1930s, and Terry Shinn the shift from local tinkering to industrially produced instruments in contemporary physics laboratories. Sibum's chapter focuses on the shared role of metrology in industrial and academic settings. Both industrialists and scientists need accurate measures. Sterotyped accounts of the 'transfer of knowledge' from the laboratory to a production site often attribute the development of instruments and techniques for accurate measurements to scientists, and perceive the development of industrial measures as applications of fundamental knowledge to practical goals. Historians of technology (e.g., Derek de Solla Price), have contested such simplified visions of interactions between science and technology and have stressed the technical origins of numerous scientific practices. Sibum's chapter points to the links between Joule's heat measurements and the traditions of brewers, extends the notion of the transfer of metrology from technological applications to basic sciences to a transfer from industry to the research laboratory, and adds to it a new dimension: the problem of the embodiment of skills. In 18

3 Introduction 19 the 1840s, Sibum explains, breweries were sites of practical knowledge concerning heat measurement, because the brewers needed to find ways to reduce the variability of the products and to control the technical decisions made by their employees. James Joule, a brewer's son, acquired his thermometric skills by building on his experience in the family enterprise. These skills included a specific gestural knowledge illustrated by the use of specially crafted precision thermometers, and an association between 'physical and mental powers'. The replication of Joule's experiments in other sites was never achieved because tacit skills embedded in complex gestures and unique pieces of equipment are difficult to transfer. Comparable achievements at first (in the 1850s and 1860s) depended on the emergence of a distinct expert culture (a 'system of precision'), which combined the uses of precision instruments and accepted gestures of accuracy. Only in the late 1870s was the combination of measuring tools and embodied skills replaced by 'blackboxed', serially produced measuring instruments, which replaced embodied and personalized knowledge with reliable machines. Hughes traces the impact of industrially produced electronic devices on new development in nuclear physics in the 1920s and 1930s. His chapter introduces two new elements: the role that amateurs - here amateur radio constructors - played in mediating between the production plant and the laboratory, and the political importance of a discourse that linked pure science with industrial activities. In the 1920s Hughes explains, industrialists who produced and marketed radio components for the construction of wireless apparatus also promoted a culture of amateur radio enthusiasts: users' clubs, specialized publications, the encouragement of interaction between inventive amateurs and engineers (one should remember that blackboxed radio sets appeared only in the early 1930s, and even then many listeners preferred to construct their own radios from kits because the commercial sets were much more expensive). Many young physicists were socialized within this industry-promoted radio amateur culture, and they 'naturally' employed radio valves to change the design of Geiger counters, which were used to count the disintegration of atoms. The interactions between the nuclear physics laboratory and industry were only partly invisible. Some physicists indeed concealed them, and presented their work as relying on 'sealing wax and string' experiments. Researchers such as Patrick Blackett and his colleagues, however, highlighted, the numerous ways in which materials and instruments from the electronics industry shaped the knowledge produced in nuclear physics laboratories. They presented close links between scientists and industrialists as a progressive enterprise. These views seem surprising today

4 20 Tools and Research Materials because of the developments after the Second World War, when major injections of public funds in fundamental research were legitimized by the promise that fundamental research would increase general well-being (cheaper energy, better health, improved living conditions). Industry was then viewed by the Left as representing heartless greed. In the 1930s, the images of both industry and research was different. Basic physical research conducted in highly selective English universities was perceived by some radical scientists as an elitist occupation which indirectly helped to widen the class gap. Industry, on the other hand, was viewed as representing rational production and utility. For left-wing physicists in places such as the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge, the explicit recognition of links between physics and industrial practice thus served two goals. The presentation of physics as a craft practice that involves merely a specialized application of widely available materials and practices was seen as an important means of making science accessible to wider publics. In addition, the explicit recognition of the presence of the laboratory in industry and industry in the laboratory was, for many scientists, a vital sign of the relevance of academic science to the wider polity. Shinn studies the more recent effects of the introduction of industrially produced instruments in physics laboratories. From the 1920s, turbulence studies relied on the 'hot wire', a problematic instrument which needs extended calibration in situ. In the 1980s, specific skills and local tinkering with the 'hot wire' were replaced by lasers. Industrially produced lasers have reduced the need to fine-tune instruments and have facilitated rapid results. Though some old-timers complained about the loss of scientific creativity, and some young researchers have attempted - mostly unsuccessfully - to open the 'black box' of the laser in order to change its uses, most scientists are pleased with the replacement of labourconsuming equipment with highly efficient industrial packages, since this means more time for what they view as 'interesting' and cost-effective research. A complete blackboxing of instruments is not always the rule. Shinn describes hydrodynamics laboratories where researchers have also used other industrially produced instruments, but these instruments are frequently 'unpacked' by the scientists and adapted to local uses. Although the degree of blackboxing of instruments may be contingent to laboratory cultures, the growing confidence in industrially produced tools has been a constant trait of twentieth-century technical culture. The massive introduction of industrial equipment into the physics laboratory, Shinn argues, modified the standards of 'good scientific practice'. This trend also changed the division of labour within the laboratory, delegating to indus-

5 Introduction 21 try some of the tasks previously undertaken by scientists. Finally, according to Shinn, in some domains, the fundamental role of instruments led to appearance of 'research technology systems', a dense web of interaction between scientists and industrialists. The rise of these systems, Shinn proposes, resulted in the development of a distinct professional community - the 'research technology community' - committed to the manufacture of 'generic instruments' which may be sold to different users and adapted to local uses. Chapters 4 and 5 deal with the production and isolation of research materials, namely substances produced by the chemical and pharmaceutical industries. Both the chemical and the pharmaceutical industry are exceptional, in so far as they developed historically through unusually close association with academic research; or, to be more exact, the chemical industry developed this way, then the pattern was enthusiastically adopted by pharmaceutical firms. Anthony S. Travis focuses on the history of synthetic dyes in the mid nineteenth century. His case-study illustrates the difficulty in separating academic and industrial research in chemistry. The mingling of industry and science is epitomized in the careers of individual researchers, who often worked between universities and production plants, but it is also seen in the trajectories of molecules produced by these researchers. Research materials used by professional chemists were often industrial products. Thus, Travis shows that the availability of large quantities of purified rosolic acid facilitated the development of new lines of basic research. Commercial and semi-commercial structures, such as international exhibitions, provided additional opportunities for purchasing industrial samples as research materials. For the nineteenth-century chemist, academic publication was a career asset in industry, while patent application reinforced one's status in academia. This duality of careers was reflected in the double nature of the substances they produced: molecules, that could embody new chemical knowledge as well as be marketable (and profitable) commodities. The multifunctionality of products and careers was particularly visible during patent trials, where leading academic chemists served as expert witnesses for chemical firms. Industry, Travis argues, continued to shape this development in the 1860s. Jordan Goodman analyses the role of medical drugs - that is, saleable commodities - in the development of biochemical research in the twentieth century. Certain pharmaceutical products, such as hormones or growth inhibitors, which were originally scientific concepts in academic laboratories, became material entities with commercial uses. Later these products were returned to the laboratories as ready-made research materials, that

6 22 Tools and Research Materials is, pure chemical compounds that could be easily purchased on the market, and which were starting points for new basic research. The complex biological effects of drugs were often a fruitful point of departure for advanced inquiries. Thus, compounds like ergotamine and taxol, first studied in therapeutic contexts, were later adopted by biologists and opened avenues for new physiological and biochemical research. On the other hand, studies centered on drug activity mechanisms remained related to industrial research and were affected by industrial interests. Unlike reagents and tools geared exclusively to the research circuit, drugs serve the specialized market for researchers and general market for patients. These markets may be linked by a shared need for pure products, that is for large-scale production of purity and uniformity. The title of Goodman's chapter, 'Can It Ever Be Pure Science?', alludes to the notion of scientificity attached to the production of purity, and to the 'impure' ways through which this purity is achieved, that is, to the inseparable mixture of cognitive and commercial interests in the chemical and pharmaceutical industry.