This is the story of how one company created and codified a new science "on the run," away from the confines of the laboratory. By construing its service as scientific, Schlumberger was able to get the edge on the competition and construct an enviable niche for itself in a fast-growing industry.In this engaging account, Geoffrey Bowker reveals how Schlumberger devised a method of testing potential oil fields, produced a rhetoric, and secured a position that allowed it to manipulate the definition of what a technology is. Bowker calls the heart of the story "The Two Measurements That Worked," and he renders it in the style of a myth. In so doing, he shows seamlessly how society becomes embedded even in that most basic and seemingly value-independent of scientific concepts: the measurement.Bowker describes the origins and peregrinations of Schlumberger, details the ways in which the science developed in the field was translated into a form that could be defended in a patent court, and analyzes the company's strategies within the broader context of industrial science.Inside Technology series
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Book Description
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About the Author
Geoffrey C. Bowker is Regis and Dianne McKenna Professor and Executive Director of the Center for Science, Technology, and Society at Santa Clara University.
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Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Inside This Book
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First Sentence:
Some 130 years after the first American oil well began producing, the oil industry stands as perhaps the most powerful business in the world, overshadowing even the manufacture of armaments. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
surface electrical methods, electrical logging, industrial geophysics, infrastructural work, patent battle, seismic methods, spontaneous potential, industrial science Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
United States, Lane Wells, Conrad Schlumberger, Henri Doll, East Texas, Soviet Union, Marcel Schlumberger, World War, Rio Tarra, South America, Los Angeles, The Science of Petroleum, Johnson Testor, Paris School of Mines, Paul Charrin, Third World New!
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Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Some 130 years after the first American oil well began producing, the oil industry stands as perhaps the most powerful business in the world, overshadowing even the manufacture of armaments. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
surface electrical methods, electrical logging, industrial geophysics, infrastructural work, patent battle, seismic methods, spontaneous potential, industrial science Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
United States, Lane Wells, Conrad Schlumberger, Henri Doll, East Texas, Soviet Union, Marcel Schlumberger, World War, Rio Tarra, South America, Los Angeles, The Science of Petroleum, Johnson Testor, Paris School of Mines, Paul Charrin, Third World New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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8
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- Principles of Geology (Penguin Classics) by Charles Lyell on page 116, and Back Matter
- Inventing Accuracy: A Historical Sociology of Nuclear Missile Guidance (Inside Technology) by Donald Mackenzie in Front Matter, and Back Matter
- on page 129, and Back Matter
- Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers Through Society by Bruno Latour in Back Matter
- A History of the Burmah Oil Company (Vol 2) in Back Matter
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- Handbook of New Media: Social Shaping and Consequences of Icts by Leah A Lievrouw in Front Matter, and page 161
- Reinforced Concrete and the Modernization of American Building, 1900-1930 (Johns Hopkins Studies in the History of Technology) by Amy E. Slaton in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- The Science Studies Reader by Mario Biagioli in Back Matter
- The Science Studies Reader by Mario Biagioli in Back Matter
- Space in the Tropics: From Convicts to Rockets in French Guiana by Peter Redfield in Back Matter
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