Screen LibraryVelvet Revolution at the synchrotron：biology, physics, and change in science
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| Main Authors: | |
|---|---|
| Published: |
The MIT Press,
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| Publisher Address: | Cambridge, MA |
| Publication Dates: | c2009. |
| Literature type: | Book |
| Language: | English |
| Series: |
Inside technology |
| Subjects: | |
| Carrier Form: | viii, 152 p.: ill. ; 21 cm. |
| ISBN: |
9780262042550 (hardcover : alk. paper) 026204255X (hardcover : alk. paper) |
| Index Number: | C912 |
| CLC: | C912.3 |
| Call Number: | C912.3/D657 |
| Contents: |
Includes bibliographical references ( p. 145-149) and index. Birth of a hybrid laboratory -- Practice and product : analyzing science -- "Lab hands" and the "Scarlet O" : operators, scientists, and a feel for the equipment -- From ion trapping to intensive tuning : the particle group, the x-ray lab, and a re-negotiation of "normal" running -- The absorption correction: biologists, physicists, and a re-definition of proper experimentation -- Epistemic politics and scientific change: the rise of the crystallographers. After World War II, particle physics became a dominant research discipline in American academia. At many universities, alumni of the Manhattan Project and of Los Alamos were granted resources to start (or strengthen) programs of high-energy physics built around the promise of a new and more powerful particle accelerator, the synchrotron. The synchrotron was also a source of very intense x-rays, useful for research in solid-state physics and in biology. As synchrotron x-ray science grew, the experimental practice of protein crystallography (used to determine the atomic structures of proteins and viruses), garnered funding, prestige, and acclaim. In Velvet Revolution at the Synchrotron, Park Doing examines the change in scientific practice at a synchrotron laboratory as biology rose to dominance over physics. Drawing on his own observations and experiences at the Cornell University synchrotron, he considers the implications of that change for the status of scientific claims. |