Table Of ContentMAKING SPACE FOR SCIENCE
SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE IN MODERN HISTORY
General Editor: John V. Pickstone, Centre for the History of Science, Technology and
Medicine, University of Manchester, England
One purpose of historical writing is to illuminate the present. In the late twentieth century,
science, technology and medicine are enormously important, yet their development is little
studied. Histories of politics and literature abound, and historical biography is established
as an effective way of setting individuals in context. But the historical literature on science,
technology and medicine is relatively small, and the better studies are rarely accessible to
the general reader. Too often one finds mere chronicles of progress, or scientific
biographies which do little to illuminate either the science or the society in which it was
produced, let alone their interactions.
The reasons for this failure are as obvious as they are regrettable. Education in many
countries, not least in Britain, draws deep divisions between the sciences and the
humanities. Men and women who have been trained in science have too often been trained
away from history, or from any sustained reflection on how societies work. Those educated
in historical or social studies have usually learned so little of science that they remain
thereafter suspicious, overawed, or both.
Such a diagnosis is by no means novel, nor is it particularly original to suggest that good
historical studies of science may be peculiarly important for understanding our present.
Indeed this series could be seen as extending research undertaken over the last half-century,
especially by American historians. But much of that work has treated science, technology
and medicine separately; this series aims to draw them together, partly because the three
activities have become ever more intertwined. This breadth of focus and the stress on the
relationships of knowledge and practice are particularly appropriate in a series which will
concentrate on modem history and on industrial societies. Furthermore, while much of the
existing historical scholarship is on American topics, this series aims to be international,
encouraging studies on European material. The intention is to present science, technology
and medicine as aspects of modem culture, analysing their economic, social and political
aspects, but not neglecting the expert content which tends to distance them from other
aspects of history. The books will investigate the uses and consequences of technical
knowledge, and how it was shaped within particular economic, social and political
structures.
Such analyses should contribute to discussions of present dilemmas and to assessments
of policy. 'Science' no longer appears to us as a triumphant agent of Enlightenment,
breaking the shackles of tradition, enabling command over nature. But neither is it to be
seen as merely oppressive and dangerous. Judgement requires information and careful
analysis, just as intelligent policy-making requires a community of discourse between men
and women trained in technical specialities and those who are not.
This series is intended to supply analysis and to stimulate debate. Opinions will vary
between authors; we claim only that the books are based on searching historical study of
topics which are important, not least because they cut across conventional academic
boundaries. They should appeal not just to historians, nor just to scientists, engineers and
doctors, but to all who share the view that science, technology and medicine are far too
important to be left out of history.
Making Space
for Science
Territorial Themes in the
Shaping of Knowledge
Edited by
Crosbie Smith
Reader in History and Cultural Studies of Science
University of Kent at Canterbury
and
Jon Agar
Lecturer in the History ofTechnology
University ofM anchester
with the assistance of Gerald Schmidt
in association with
CENTRE FOR THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE
TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER
First published in Great Britain 1998 by
MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and London
Companies and representatives throughout the world
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-1-349-26326-4 ISBN 978-1-349-26324-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-26324-0
First published in the United States of America 1998 by
ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, INC.,
Scholarly and Reference Division,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010
ISBN 978-0-312-21053-3
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Making space for science : territorial themes in the shaping of
knowledge I edited by Crosbie Smith and Jon Agar.
p. em.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-312-21 053-3( cloth)
I. Science-History. 2. Technology-History. 3. Science-Social
aspects-History. 4. Technology-Social aspects-History.
I. Smith, Crosbie. II. Agar, Jon.
Q125.M314 1997
306.4'5---dc21 97-28072
CIP
Selection and editorial matter© Crosbie Smith and Jon Agar 1998
Text © Macmillan Press Ltd 1998
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made
without written permission.
No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with
written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by
the Copyright Licensing Agency. 90 Tottenham Court Road, London WI P 9HE.
Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to
criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in
accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and
sustained forest sources.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 I
07 06 05 04 03 02 0 I 00 99 98
Contents
List of Illustrations vii
Preface viii
Notes on the Contributors ix
Introduction: Making Space for Science
Crosbie Smith and Jon Agar
Part I or the Territory 25
1 Projection and the Ubiquitous Virtue of Geometry in the
Renaissance
Jim Bennett 27
2 From the Alps to Egypt (and Back Again): Dolomieu,
Scientific Voyaging, and the Construction of the Field
in Eighteenth-Century Natural History
A!ix Cooper 39
3 'I Do Know the Machinery of the Universe': System and
Individuality in Edgar Allan Poe's Eureka
Ian Higginson 64
Part II or Working Classes 85
4 'A Most Important Trespass': Lewis Gordon and the
Glasgow Chair of Civil Engineering and Mechanics, 1840-55
Ben Marsden 87
5 'Nowhere But in a Great Town': William Thomson's Spiml
of Classroom Credibility
Crosbie Smith 118
Part III or Pastoral Privileges 147
6 Physics Laboratories and the Victorian Country House
Simon Schaffer 149
7 Spatial Imagery in Nineteenth-Century Representations of
Science: Faraday and Tyndall
Alice Jenkins 181
Part IV or Metropolitan Spaces 193
8 'But Indifferently Lodged ... ':Perception and Place in
Building for Science in Victorian London
Sophie Forgan 195
v
vi Contents
9 The Premisses of Premises: Spatial Issues in the Historical
Construction of Laboratory Credibility
Graeme Gooday 216
10 Easy Transit: Crossing Boundaries Between Physics and
Chemistry in mid-Nineteenth-Century France
Mathhias Dorries 246
Part V Of Research Sites 263
11 Screening Science: Spatial Organization and Valuation at
Jodrell Bank
Jon Agar 265
12 Biotechnology's Private Parts (and Some Public Ones)
Thomas F. Gieryn 281
13 'Nobody Can Force You When You are Across the Ocean'-
Face to Face and E-mail Exchanges Between Theoretical
Physicists
Martina Merz 313
Afterword: Scientific Knowledge, Power and Space
Alex Dolby 330
Bibliography 338
Index 362
List of Illustrations
1.1 The triangulation instrument of Joost BUrgi for
range-finding 33
1.2 A sixteenth-century Flemish astrolabe 34
1.3 The projection of an astrolabe plate 35
3.1 Schematic version of Poe's analogy between divine and
mortal plots 81
6.1 Maxwell's sketches for the Cavendish Laboratory 161
6.2 Maxwell instructs Rayleigh on the construction of stable
supports for electrical instruments 165
6.3 Cragside lit by electricity, 1881 171
6.4 Siemens' house at Sherwood 175
8.1 South Kensington Museum and neighbourhood 211
8.2 Comparison of the space available for science buildings 212
9.1 Map of the principal electrical institutions and
undertakings in London, 1906 223
9.2 Engraving of electric motor testing room at the Central
Institution, 1888 235
9.3 Advertisement for Ransome's trial shop, Chelsea, 1888 236
12.1 Cornell University Biotechnology Building (CUBB) 283
12.2 Programme and project concept: 'the Bubble Diagram' 287
12.3 Early sketch showing 'public' 289
12.4 CUBB: ground floor plan 294
12.5 CUBB: first floor plan 295
12.6 CUBB: third floor plan 296
12.7 Maginot Line in the Upper Lobby 298
12.8 Maginot Line in the Lower Lobby 298
12.9 Early sketch showing 'common rooms' 299
12.10 Communal room showing space dedicated to individual
scientists 307
12.11 Masking tape demarcation between public (right) and
private (left) 308
vii
Preface
Making Space for Science brings together contributors with diverse interests in
the history. sociology and cultural studies of science and technology since the
Renaissance. In recent years there has been a growing recognition that a mature
analysis of scientific and technological activity requires an understanding of its
spatial contexts. Without these contexts, indeed, scientific practice as such is
scarcely conceivable. This volume therefore aims to provide a series of studies,
drawn from the history of science and engineering, from sociology and sociology
of science, from literature and science, and from architecture and design history.
which examines the spatial foundations of the sciences from a number of comple-
mentary perspectives. These studies, however, are framed within an introduction
and an afterword which seek to draw out the significant connections between
knowledge, power and space common to all the chapters.
Each of the contributors to this volume participated in the British Society for
the History of Science's meeting 'Making Space: Territorial Themes in the
History of Science' held at the University of Kent at Canterbury in March 1994.
The book, however, does not constitute the proceedings of the conference because
only 13 of the 50 papers presented at the meeting are included. The selected
papers have been substantially revised and, in most cases, entirely rewritten for
the purposes of this volume.
The editors owe a debt of thanks to the very many scholars who, in various
ways, have contributed to the shaping of this book. We are especially grateful to
Ben Marsden and Alex Dolby for their invaluable comments and criticisms of
draft chapters, and we thank one anonymous referee in particular for incisive and
constructive remarks on the presuppositional nature of making space for science,
suggestions which we have attempted to incorporate into the 'Introduction'.
Above all, the editors would like to express their gratitude to Gerald Schmidt
whose computing expertise, linguistic and indexing skills, and meticulous editing
ensured the rapid emergence of an orderly whole from the chaotic sum of indi-
vidual contributions. We also thank John Pickstone and, at Macmillan Press,
Aruna Vasudevan and John Smith.
CROSBIE SMITH
Canterbury
JoN AGAR
Manchester
viii
Notes on the Contributors
Jon Agar is Lecturer in the history of technology in the Centre for the History
of Science, Technology and Medicine at the University of Manchester where
he is also Associate Director of the National Archive for the History of
Computing. In 1993 he was awarded the British Society for the History of
Science's Singer Prize for an essay on Jodrell Bank Radioastronomy
Observatory and in 1994 he co-organized (with Crosbie Smith) the international
conference on 'Making space' at the University of Kent.
Jim Bennett is Keeper of the Museum of the History of Science in the University
of Oxford. He was formerly Curator of the Whipple Science Museum in the
University of Cambridge. His recent books include The Geometry of War
1500-1750 (with Stephen Johnston) and Church, State and Astronomy in Ireland.
Current research focuses on the relationship between practical mathematics and
natural philosophy in the Renaissance.
Alix Cooper is a doctoral student in the Department of the History of Science at
Harvard University and is completing a dissertation entitled 'Inventing the
indigenous: local knowledge and natural history in early modern Germany,
1580-1720'. Her research concerns early modem understandings of place and
territory as seen through the natural world. Her other interests include the history
of environmental and occupational medicine during this period.
Alex Dolby taught at the University of Leeds before moving iu 1974 to his
present position as Senior Lecturer in the Centre for History & Cultural Studies
of Science at the University of Kent at Canterbury. He has published on the
history of chemistry and psychology, on sociology of scientific knowledge, and
on marginal science. He has recently published Uncenain Knowledge: an Image
of Science for a Changing World (1996).
Matthias Dorries is a research fellow at the Forschungsinstitut fur Technik-und
Wissenschaftgeschichte (Deutsches Museum, Munich). He is co-editor of
Restaging Coulomb and Heinrich Kayser: Erinnerungen aus meinem Leben. His
publications and forthcoming book focus on the history of the physical sciences
in nineteenth-century Europe, particularly France.
Sophie Forgan combines the teaching of the history of architecture in the
Institute of Design at the University of Teeside with a strong research interest in
the history of science. She has published extensively on the history and architec-
tural planning of learned societies, universities, museums and exhibitions.
ix
