Instruments and Arguments: Traditions of Laboratory Practice in Particle Physics

仪器和论证：粒子物理实验室实践的传统

• 批准号: 8911508
• 负责人: Peter Galison
• 金额: $ 4万
• 依托单位: Stanford University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 1989
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1989-10-01 至 1991-03-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=8911508&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Instruments; Arguments; Traditions; Laboratory; Practice

The history of 20th century particle physics has typically been periodized around the epochal breaks of theory: quantum discontinuity (1900), special relativity (1905), general relativity (1915), quantum mechanics (1926), quantum field theory (1948) and so on. Dr. Galison argues, both in his prior work supported by his Presidential Young Investigator Award, and in this project, that there are traditions of instrumentation with the same degree of complexity and partial autonomy that we usually ascribe only to high theory. Furthermore, these instrumental traditions carry with them characteristic forms of experimental demonstration and therefore play a primary role in the acceptance and rejection of new empirical phenomena. Dr. Galison is also investigating two interrelated features of instrumentation: 1) the split of particle physics detectors early in the 20th century into an instrument tradition that produces highly resolved "Golden Events" (e.g. the cloud chamber, the nuclear emulsion, the bubble chamber), and a competing instrument tradition that produces "high statistics" -- vast numbers of events with relatively little information contained about each event (e.g. the Geiger-Muller counter, the spark chamber, the wire chamber); 2) the profound division of research labor, beginning in the 1930's and accelerated in wartime weapon projects) that prevents one person from participating in all aspects of the experimental enterprise. Together the enormous expansion in scale and the tension between two traditions provide a framework in which to locate a history of particle detectors. Particle physics detectors are the site where experimental work in physics has undergone the greatest mutation. By tracing the history of this inner sanctum of the experimental physicist, one gains insight not only into the changing historical sense of the very term "experiment," one also sees in a different light the connections between physics and the wider technological culture in which it is situated.

20世纪世纪粒子物理学的发展史是典型的 围绕着理论的划时代的突破：量子 不连续性（1900），狭义相对论（1905），广义相对论 相对论（1915），量子力学（1926），量子场论 （1948）等等。Galison博士认为，无论是在他之前的工作， 在他的总统青年研究员奖的支持下， 这个项目，有传统的仪器， 同样程度的复杂性和部分自主性， 通常只归因于高理论。 而且这些 工具性传统带有独特的形式， 实验示范，因此发挥主要作用， 接受和拒绝新的经验现象。 Galison博士还在研究两个相互关联的特征， 仪器：1）粒子物理探测器的分裂 在世纪早期， 产生高分辨率的“黄金事件”（例如云 室，核乳胶，气泡室），和 竞争工具的传统，产生“高统计”-- 大量的事件和相对较少的信息 包含关于每个事件（例如，盖革-穆勒计数器， 火花室、丝室）; 2)深刻的分歧 研究工作，开始于20世纪30年代， 战时武器项目），防止一个人 参与试点企业的各个方面。 规模的巨大扩张和 两种传统提供了一个框架， 粒子探测器 粒子物理探测器是实验工作 经历了最大的变化 通过跟踪 实验物理学家这个密室的历史，一 不仅洞察到不断变化的历史意义， 非常术语“实验”，人们也看到在不同的光， 物理学与更广泛的技术文化之间的联系 它所处的位置。