The Creation of Scientific Effects

by Buchwald, Jed Z.

• ISBN13: 9780226078885
• ISBN10: 0226078884
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1994-08-01
• Publisher: Univ of Chicago Pr

Summary

This book is an attempt to reconstitute the tacit knowledgethe shared, unwritten assumptions, values, and understandingsthat shapes the work of science. Jed Z. Buchwald uses as his focus the social and intellectual world of nineteenth-century German physics.Drawing on the lab notes, published papers, and unpublished manuscripts of Heinrich Hertz, Buchwald recreates Hertz's 1887 invention of a device that produced electromagnetic waves in wires. The invention itself was serendipitous and the device was quickly transformed, but Hertz's early experiments led to major innovations in electrodynamics. Buchwald explores the difficulty Hertz had in reconciling the theories of other physicists, including Hermann von Helmholtz and James Clerk Maxwell, and he considers the complex and often problematic connections between theory and experiment.In this first detailed scientific biography of Hertz and his scientific community, Buchwald demonstrates that tacit knowledge can be recovered so that we can begin to identify the unspoken rules that govern scientific practice.

Table of Contents

List of Figures	vii
List of Tables	xi
Preface	xiii
Introduction: Heinrich Hertz, Maker of Effects	1	(6)
Part One: In Helmholtz's Laboratory
Forms of Electrodynamics	7	(18)
Realizing Potentials in the Laboratory	25	(20)
Part Two: Information Direct from Nature
A Budding Career	45	(14)
Devices for Induction	59	(16)
Hertz's Early Exploration of Helmholtz's Concepts	75	(20)
Part Three: Berlin's Golden Boy
Rotating Spheres	95	(9)
Elastic Interactions	104	(9)
Specific Powers in the Laboratory	113	(18)
The Cathode Ray as a Vehicle for Success	131	(46)
Part Four: Studying Books
Frustration	177	(12)
Hertz's Argument	189	(14)
Assumption X	203	(14)
Part Five: Electric Waves
A Novel Device	217	(23)
How the Resonator Become an Electric Probe	240	(22)
Electric Propagation Produced	262	(37)
Electric Waves Manipulated	299	(26)
Conclusion: Restraint and Reconstruction	325	(90)
Appendixes
1. Waveguides and Radiators in Maxwellian Electrodynamics	333	(7)
2. Helmholtz's Derivation of the Forces from a Potential	340	(8)
3. Helmholtz's Energy Argument	348	(3)
4. Polarization Currents and Experiment	351	(3)
5. Convection in Helmholtz's Electrodynamics	354	(2)
6. Instability in the Fechner-Weber Theory	356	(2)
7. Hertz's First Use of the General Helmholtz Equations	358	(3)
8. Hertz on the Induction of Polarization by Motion	361	(3)
9. Hertz on Relatively Moving, Charged Conductors	364	(2)
10. Elastic Bodies Pressed Together	366	(3)
11. Evaporation's Theoretical Limits	369	(3)
12. Hertz's Model for Geissler-Tube Discharge	372	(3)
13. Propagation in Helmholtz's Electrodynamics	375	(14)
14. Forces in Hertz's Early Experiments	389	(4)
15. Hertz's Quasi Field Theory for Narrow Cylindrical Wires	393	(2)
16. Considerations regarding the Possible Background to Helmholtz's New Physics	395	(10)
17. Poincare and Bertrand	405	(2)
18. Difficulties with Charge and Polarization	407	(8)
Notes	415	(50)
Bibliography	465	(14)
Index	479