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Image and Logic: A Material Culture of Microphysics

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Peter Galison presents an in-depth look at Experimental Physics in the 20th century, both to reveal its history and present an alternative view of scientific change in recent history. Starting with Wilson's first cloud chamber and progressing through WWII R&D up to and including the Superconducting SuperCollider Galison reveals major changes and redefinitions of what it means to be a practitioner of Experimental Physics. His approach applies a sociological perspective where theorists, experimentalists and instrumentalists share a dialog referred to by Galison as a "trading zone" where the previously assumed communication structures within and between Scientific disciplines are viewed as non-rigid, flexible and mutable. Along the way Galison provides fascinating examples of events and discoveries that illuminate the little known world of research and experiment in recent history. Among these examples are the fire at the Cambridge Electron Accelerator which brought about much greater regulatory involvement of the AEC. Also, the necessary use of MonteCarlo methods in the development of the H-Bomb where as Galison states "A hundred million degrees kelvin put the laboratory out of the picture..." ultimately leading to present day computer technology. For anyone within or outside of physics proper this book is truly an eye-opener to that almost invisible world of 20th century Experimental Physics.

It's 2006, have you even picked up a science book lately? Why not? Nova and Discover enough? Well maybe Peter Galison can change all that. Think of him as the ultimate insider in a world that moves too fast for journalism to keep up with its leaks, spills and brilliant mistakes. Galison doesn't condescend to readers nor does he ream them with macho scibits; he's an academic who has a knack for talking out loud in front of any size audience, consisting of anybody willing to follow his investigations into the subcultures of science, with theorists on one phenomenological side and engineers on the other. Image & Logic is already considered a masterpiece by Galison's peers but he's yet to get the popular push that Carl Sagen and Stephen J. Gould got, and that's...ok. Just as Tracy Kidder managed to wrest computer technology from the clutches of lab-elitists and their cocktail napkin philistine pimps (CNPP) with his Soul of A New Machine, Galison will eventually vaporize the CNPP and the rest of us can breath easier. So go on, wean yourself off of the philistine's big hairy factoids and get some real, science under your belt.