The Development of the Laboratory: Essays on the Place of Experiments in Industrial Civilization

272 Pages·1989·27.913 MB·English

by  Frank A. J. L. James (eds.)

The Development of the Laboratory
For Joasia
THE DEVELOPMENT OF
THE LASORA TORY
Essays on the Place of Experiment in Industrial Civilization
Edited and Introduced by
Frank A. J. l. James
M
MACMILLAN
PRESS
Scientific & Medical
© The editor and the contributors 1989
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1989978-0-333-48331-2
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First published 1989
Published by
THE MACMILLAN PRESS LID
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS
and London
Companies and representatives
throughout the world
Filmset by Wearside Tradespools,
FulweIl, Sunderland
ISBN 978-1-349-10608-0 ISBN 978-1-349-10606-6 (eBook)
DOl 10.1 007/978-1-349-10606-6
Contents
Page
List of Illustrations Vll
List of Tables ix
Notes on Contributors x
Foreword Professor John M. Thomas, FRS xiv
~a ~
Introduction Frank A. J. L. James 1
Section 1 Chemical Laboratories 9
1 Humphry Davy: Fund Raiser June Z. Fullmer 11
2 The Lectureship in Chemistry and the Chemical Laboratory,
University of Glasgow, 1747-1818 David V. Fenby 22
3 Amusement Chests and Portable Laboratories: Practical
Alternatives to the Regular Laboratory Brian Gee 37
Section 2 The Extension or Laboratories to Physics 61
4 History in the Laboratory: Can We Tell what Really Went
on? David Gooding 63
5 The Spirit of Investigation: Physics at Harvard University,
187~191O Lawrence Aronovitch 83
6 J. J. Thomson and 'Cavendish' Physics Isabel Falconer 104
7 Astronomical Observatories as Practical Space: The Case of
Pulkowa Mari E. W. Williams 118
8 The Geopolitics and Architectural Design of a Metrological
Laboratory: The Physikalisch-Technische Reichsanstalt in
Imperial Germany David Cahan 137
VI CONTENTS
9 Building England's First Technical College: The Laboratories of
Finsbury Technical College, 1878--1926 W. H. Brock 155
Section 3 The Large Physics Laboratories 171
Abbreviations 173
10 Pragmatism in Particle Physics: Scientific and Military Interests
in the Post- war United States Andrew Pickering 174
11 Fermilab: Founding the First US 'Truly National
Laboratory' Catherine Westfall 184
12 The CERN Beam-transport Programme in the Early
1960s John Krige 218
13 'Monsters' and Colliders in 1961: The First Debate at CERN on
Future Accelerators Dominique Pestre 233
Collected Bibliography 242
Bibliographical Note 242
Index 255
List of Illustrations
Page
4.1 The first page of John Herschel's letter of 9 November 1845
to William Heseldine Pepys 68
4.2 The first two pages of Faraday's notebook record of
experiments conducted on 3 September 1821 72
4.3 The third and fourth pages of Faraday's notebook entry for 3
September 1821 74
5.1 View of the Jefferson Physical Laboratory from the south at
the turn of the century 90
5.2 Cross-sections of the Jefferson Physical Laboratory 91
5.3 Plans of the basement and first floor of the Jefferson Physical
Laboratory 92
5.4 Plans of the second and third floors of the Jefferson Physical
Laboratory 93
6.1 Recruitment to the Cavendish Laboratory from Cambridge
and elsewhere 111
6.2 Breakdown of the 'out of Cambridge' recruitment after 1894 112
6.3 Number of publications in different areas of physics coming
from the Cavendish Laboratory 114
7.1 Pulkowa Observatory. Plan de situation 122
7.2 Pulkowa Observatory. Plan general 124
7.3 Pulkowa Observatory. Fa<;ade septentrionale; fa<;ade
meridionale 126
7.4 Pulkowa Observatory. Plan d'observatoire: dans la coupe
horizontale au dessus du socle 128
Vlll LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
7.5 Pulkowa Observatory. Plan d'observatoire: second etage et
toit 130
7.6 Pulkowa Observatory. Plan des souterrains de l'observatoire 132
8.1 Layout of the Reichsanstalt 143
8.2 The Reichsanstalt's Observatorium or main scientific
building 144
8.3 Cross-section of the Reichsanstalt's Observatorium 145
8.4 The main building of the Technical Section 150
9.1 Finsbury Technical College, 1883--1926 162
9.2 Finsbury Technical College, basement plan 163
9.3 Finsbury Technical College. A laboratory for first-year
electrical engineering students 163
9.4 Finsbury Technical College. Second-floor plan showing
Chemistry laboratories 165
9.5 Finsbury Technical College. Chief Chemistry Laboratory on
the north side of the top floor 165
11.1 Federal obligation for basic physics research as a fraction of
the total federal budget 193
11.2 Comparison of 1968 National Accelerator Laboratory
Design and 1965 Berkeley design 204
12.1 Layout of Kl Beam in the North Hall of the CERN PS 221
List of Tables
Page
Table 3.1 Advertisement from Henry (1806) 42
Table 3.2 Range of portable chests from Accum (1817) 43
Table 3.3 Full range of Ede's portable laboratories in 1843 49
Table 6.1 Summary of the main characteristics of experimental
physics at the Cavendish Laboratory under Rayleigh
and Rutherford 107
Table 6.2 List of FRSs educated under Thomson 116
Table 8.1 Costs of establishing the Reichsanstalt, 1887-97 148
Table 12.1 The first order of magnets placed by CERN and BNL 223
Table 12.2 Beams and detectors used to discover some of the
most important resonances with accelerators at the
end of the 1950s and early 1960s 225