Making Waves: Oliver Lodge and the Cultures of Science, 1875-1940

掀起波澜：奥利弗·洛奇和科学文化，1875-1940

• 批准号: AH/K006223/1
• 负责人: James Mussell
• 金额: $ 3.3万
• 依托单位: University of Birmingham
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2013
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2013 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FK006223%2F1
• 关键词: Making; Waves; Oliver; Lodge; Cultures

Interdisciplinarity, particularly between the arts and the sciences, is notoriosly difficult to achieve. This project takes one particular historical case study in order to understand disciplinary difference at a crucial moment in the past. Oliver Lodge (1851-1940) was a key figure in late nineteenth and early twentieth-century culture. Today, however, he remains relatively neglected, largely because of the apparent contradictions between different aspects of his career. This research network uses these contradictions as a starting point to consider the role of the disciplines in shaping knowledge. Taking Lodge as a case study allows us to understand the place of science in his period and to learn how disciplinary boundaries continue to structure research and knowledge today. Lodge has much to teach us about the place of science in culture because, in his life and career, he transcended many of the boundaries we imagine structure the cultural status of science. A pioneer of wireless telegraphy, Lodge was an internationally-acclaimed physicist and engineer, equally at home in laboratory and workshop. Alongside his commercial interests Lodge carved out a career in the new Victorian universities, becoming the first professor of physics at the University of Liverpool and then Principal of the University of Birmingham after its move to Edgbaston. Not only did Lodge help science consolidate its place at the heart of the university, but he also saw the institutionalisation of the differences between scientific disciplines. A prolific writer, speaker and, later in his life, broadcaster, Lodge was widely known as a populariser of science and commentator on current affairs. Yet in the latter part of his life, Lodge became a famous spiritualist, carrying out psychical investigations alongside his scientific research and publishing a besteller, Raymond (1916), detailing encounters with his son killed in the trenches. Focusing on Lodge can help us understand the differences between science and the arts and humanities; the place of faith and the imagination in scientific practice; and the role of the arts and humanities in popularising science. To understand a career such as Lodge's, it is necessary to take an interdsciplinary approach. The project is designed to bring together a range of scholars, archivists and museum professionals at four workshops, each focusing on a particular aspect of Lodge's career. The first will consider the place of science in the new Victorian universities; the second the many ways that signalling though space was understood in the period; the third Lodge's physics and engineering and the supposed differences between pure and applied science; the fourth scientific lives more generally, investigating different tools and methodological approaches for the study of historical scientific figures. The project will maintain a blog, enabling conversation to continue between workshops and extend the network beyond the immediate participants; it will include a public demonstration of Victorian popular science, exploring the way in which scientific ideas were communicated in the past; lastly, it will publish an edited collection, producing the first scholarly book on Lodge to bring together the various aspects of his life and career. In 1913 Lodge gave the Presidential Address at the British Association for the Advancement of Science at Birmingham. Lodge's talk was on the continuity of the physical universe in the face of relativity, but Lodge - physicist and engineer; scientist and spiritualist; entrepreneur and civic leader - was himself an exemplary demonstration of continuity. A century later, this research network will reappraise Lodge's career, tracing the connections that structured scientific practice over Lodge's lifetime and so learning how the disciplines might be restructured today.

跨学科，特别是艺术和科学之间的跨学科，是非常难以实现的。这个项目采取了一个特定的历史案例研究，以了解学科差异在过去的一个关键时刻。奥利弗·洛奇（1851-1940）是19世纪末20世纪初文化界的一个关键人物。然而，今天，他仍然相对被忽视，主要是因为他职业生涯的不同方面之间存在明显的矛盾。该研究网络以这些矛盾为出发点，考虑学科在形成知识中的作用。以洛奇为个案研究，使我们能够了解科学在他的时期的地位，并了解学科界限如何继续结构的研究和知识今天。洛奇有很多关于科学在文化中的地位的东西可以教给我们，因为在他的生活和职业生涯中，他超越了我们想象中的科学文化地位的许多界限。作为无线电报的先驱，洛奇是一位国际知名的物理学家和工程师，他在实验室和车间都同样熟悉。除了他的商业利益洛奇开辟了职业生涯中的新维多利亚大学，成为第一位物理学教授在利物浦大学，然后校长伯明翰大学后，其移动到埃奇巴斯顿。洛奇不仅帮助科学巩固其在大学的核心地位，但他也看到了科学学科之间的差异制度化。洛奇是一位多产的作家、演说家，后来又成为广播员，他以科学普及者和时事评论员而闻名。然而，在他生命的后半部分，洛奇成为一个著名的通灵者，在他的科学研究和出版最好的人，雷蒙德（1916年），详细介绍了他的儿子在战壕中丧生的遭遇。关注洛奇可以帮助我们理解科学与艺术和人文之间的差异;信仰和想象力在科学实践中的地位;以及艺术和人文在普及科学中的作用。要理解像洛奇这样的职业，有必要采取跨学科的方法。该项目旨在将一系列学者，档案管理员和博物馆专业人士聚集在四个研讨会上，每个研讨会都专注于洛奇职业生涯的一个特定方面。第一个将考虑科学在新的维多利亚大学的地方;第二个信号虽然空间在此期间被理解的许多方式;第三洛奇的物理和工程以及纯科学和应用科学之间的差异;第四个科学生活更普遍，调查不同的工具和方法论的研究历史科学人物。该项目将维持一个博客，使对话能够在讲习班之间继续进行，并将网络扩展到直接参与者之外;它将包括维多利亚流行科学的公开演示，探索过去科学思想的传播方式;最后，它将出版一本编辑过的文集，制作第一本关于洛奇的学术书籍，汇集他生活和职业生涯的各个方面。 洛奇在1913年给了总统在英国协会的科学进步在伯明翰。洛奇的演讲是关于物质宇宙在相对论面前的连续性，但洛奇--物理学家和工程师;科学家和唯灵论者;企业家和公民领袖--自己就是连续性的典范。一个世纪后，这个研究网络将重新评估洛奇的职业生涯，追踪洛奇一生中构建科学实践的联系，从而了解这些学科今天可能如何重组。