The Chemistry of Instruments. Nuclear Magnetic Resonance and Mass Spectrometry in Chemical Research, 1950-1980

在第二次世界大战后的三十年里，物理仪器的广泛引入导致了化学研究的戏剧性变革。正如我们对物理学家和分子生物学家的情况一样，化学家采用了新颖的组织形式，并深入扩展了他们自己的研究能力的规模和范围。研究化学家、仪器制造商、化学公司和政府机构组成了一个紧密联系的网络，一个联盟，加强了跨学科边界的仪器和技术的转让。在这些过程中，化学家们积极地调整相技术，以适应他们实验培养的需要和条件。他们在营造良好的社会环境和智力环境的同时，创造了“仪器的化学”。因此，高科技仪器既成为化学研究的必备条件，也成为其向外延伸的最重要标志。这项研究广泛地借鉴了以美国科学为基础的案例研究，将现代化学史与二十世纪下半叶物理学和生物学中的大科学的历史工作相提并论。

During the three decades following World War II, the widespreadintroduction of physical instrumentation led to a dramatictransformation of chemical research. As we also the case withphysicists and molecular biologists, chemists adopted novelforms of organization and deeply expanded the scale and scopeof their own research capabilities. Research chemists,instrument manufacturers, chemical firms, and governmentagencies formed a web of close interconnections an alliancesthat enhanced the transfer of instruments and techniques acrossdisciplinar boundaries. In thes process, chemists activelyadapted phaysical techniques to the needs and conditions oftheir experimental culture. While building favorable social andintellectual environments, they created the ’chemistry ofinstruments’. As a result, high-technology instrumentationbecame both the sine qua non for chemical research and thesingle most important symbol of its outward reach. Drawingextensively on case studies based on American science, thisstudy brings the history of modern chemistry on a par withhistorical work on big science in physics and biology duringthe second half of the twentieth century.