Anne Marcovich and Terry Shinn
Toward a New Dimension
Exploring the Nanoscale
Oxford University Press
2014
Présentation de l'éditeur
Over the course of the last thirty years, the investigation of objects
at the nano scale has rocketed. Nanoscale scientific research has not
only powerfully affected the amount and orientation of knowledge, it has
perhaps even more significantly redirected the ways in which much
research work is carried out, changed scientists' methodology and
reasoning processes, and influenced aspects of the structure of career
trajectory and the functioning of scientific disciplines.
This book identifies key historical moments and episodes in the birth and evolution of nanoscience, discusses the novel repertory of epistemological concerns of practitioners, and signals sociological propensities. As Galileo's telescope explored the moon's surface four hundred years ago, nano instrumentation now makes it possible to see the surface of single molecules. Moreover, practitioners are able to manipulate individual atoms and molecules at will to produce pre-designed synthetic materials, non-existent in nature. The combinatorial of heightened observational capacity and the tailoring of synthetic artificial materials exhibiting hitherto novel physical properties has widened and transformed the worlds of scientific knowledge and technical artefact. This book invites the question: to what extent does nanoscale scientific research constitute a kind of 'scientific revolution'?
This book identifies key historical moments and episodes in the birth and evolution of nanoscience, discusses the novel repertory of epistemological concerns of practitioners, and signals sociological propensities. As Galileo's telescope explored the moon's surface four hundred years ago, nano instrumentation now makes it possible to see the surface of single molecules. Moreover, practitioners are able to manipulate individual atoms and molecules at will to produce pre-designed synthetic materials, non-existent in nature. The combinatorial of heightened observational capacity and the tailoring of synthetic artificial materials exhibiting hitherto novel physical properties has widened and transformed the worlds of scientific knowledge and technical artefact. This book invites the question: to what extent does nanoscale scientific research constitute a kind of 'scientific revolution'?
Anne Marcovich is a historian and sociologist of science and medicine
based at the Paris Maison des Sciences de l'Homme. Her research work
entails studies of the relations between human body representations and
representations of the social body; the history of ideas and theories
concerning cancer, the human brain, and the processes and mechanisms of
the mental development of children; the diffusion of Chinese medicine in
the French medical context; and
form and internal structure as invariants in the organisation and
evolution of society.
Terry Shinn is a historian and sociologist
of science based at the Maison des Sciences de l'Homme. His research
covers themes such as relations between social structure and educational
hierarchy in the sciences; linkage between the organisation of research
work and the structure of scientific disciplines; correlations between
research question, reasoning modes, and intra-laboratory hierarchy and
research function; the place of "generic instrumentation" in the growth
of 20th century scientific knowledge in the physical sciences; and
transversality in the circulation of knowledge between
scientific fields.
