{"id":10608,"date":"2012-09-28T05:18:50","date_gmt":"2012-09-28T09:18:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/etherwave.wordpress.com\/?p=10608"},"modified":"2012-09-28T05:18:50","modified_gmt":"2012-09-28T09:18:50","slug":"at-the-eth-zurich-on-monday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rational-action.com\/etherwave\/2012\/09\/28\/at-the-eth-zurich-on-monday\/","title":{"rendered":"At the ETH Z\u00fcrich on Monday"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_10609\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-10609\" style=\"width: 150px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nobelprize.org\/educational\/physics\/observing\/emulsion-2.html\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-10609 \" title=\"powell-radiation\" src=\"http:\/\/etherwave.files.wordpress.com\/2012\/09\/powell-radiation.jpg?w=150&#038;resize=150%2C150\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-10609\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The &#8220;tau&#8221; of physics (image from nobelprize.org)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>On Monday, 1 October, at 10am, I will be giving a seminar at the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.wiss.ethz.ch\/en\/welcome.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Chair for Science Studies<\/a>\u00a0(I guess that&#8217;s what they call a department) of the ETH in Z\u00fcrich on the practices of particle detection. \u00a0I assume if you are in Z\u00fcrich and you read this blog you will already know about this, but, if not, contact the department (or <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wiss.ethz.ch\/en\/person\/pfw\/max-stadler.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Max Stadler<\/a>, a product of Imperial CHoSTM, by the way) for details.<\/p>\n<p>The seminar will be based on my new paper &#8220;Strategies of Detection: Interpretive Methods in Experimental Particle Physics, 1930\u20131950,&#8221; which is forthcoming in the November issue of\u00a0<em>Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences<\/em>. \u00a0The paper is basically a deep engagement with Peter Galison&#8217;s ideas, on his own territory of particle physics, concerning how &#8220;mesoscopic&#8221; histories of scientific practices can be written and developed. \u00a0I <a href=\"https:\/\/rational-action.com\/etherwave\/2009\/06\/08\/watch-your-language-pt-1\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">blogged<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/rational-action.com\/etherwave\/2009\/06\/14\/watch-your-language-pt-2-galison-vs-staley\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a little<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/rational-action.com\/etherwave\/2009\/07\/31\/traditions-of-practice-mesoscopy-materiality-and-intercalation\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">on this<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/rational-action.com\/etherwave\/2009\/09\/02\/objectivity-pt-2a-aesthetics-ethics-and-epistemology\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">subject<\/a> back in 2009. \u00a0At a more nitty-gritty level, the paper also makes some new points about how cloud chamber images were interpreted, how nuclear physics knowledge was used to narrow ranges of possible interpretations of experiments using all kinds of detectors, and how interpretive practices changed markedly before and after new discoveries became routine rather than resisted (I argue, in particular, that the rise of &#8220;decay mode&#8221; analysis marked a major break in interpretive practice). \u00a0I&#8217;ll write more about this here after the article&#8217;s out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Monday, 1 October, at 10am, I will be giving a seminar at the\u00a0Chair for Science Studies\u00a0(I guess that&#8217;s what they call a department) of the ETH in Z\u00fcrich on the practices of particle detection. \u00a0I assume if you are in Z\u00fcrich and you read this blog you will already know about this, but, if<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-right\"><span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Continue Reading&#8230; At the ETH Z\u00fcrich on Monday<\/span><a class=\"btn btn-secondary continue-reading\" href=\"https:\/\/rational-action.com\/etherwave\/2012\/09\/28\/at-the-eth-zurich-on-monday\/\">Continue Reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rational-action.com\/etherwave\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rational-action.com\/etherwave\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rational-action.com\/etherwave\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rational-action.com\/etherwave\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rational-action.com\/etherwave\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rational-action.com\/etherwave\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10608\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rational-action.com\/etherwave\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rational-action.com\/etherwave\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rational-action.com\/etherwave\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}