Article ID: CBB001211898

Electrical Technoscience and Physics in Transition, 1880--1920 (2013)

unapi

This paper examines the shifting relationship between the academic disciplines of physics and electrical engineering in Britain c.1900, focusing on their shared engagement with new electrical technologies of lighting, power, and telecommunications. It examines these disciplines' common cultures of patenting before the Great War, showing how "electricians" in these intersecting domains used patents to secure financial support and protection for their innovations. However, this common culture was put under strain by the attempts of physicists such as Oliver Lodge, to decouple their electrical researches from technological matters in order to pursue an agenda of so-called "pure science." This campaign was made especially difficult by the strategic focus on "applied science" that emerged during the Great War. We show how a newly legitimized programme of state funding for electrical research both during and after the war led to academic physics and electrical engineering dropping their reliance on patenting by the 1920s, and in the process becoming autonomous sciences -- each erasing stories of their former collaboration from disciplinary memories. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

...More
Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001211898/

Similar Citations

Book Mahon, Basil; (2009)
Oliver Heaviside: Maverick Mastermind of Electricity (/isis/citation/CBB001034386/)

Article Noakes, Richard; (2007)
Cromwell Varley FRS, Electrical Discharge and Victorian Spiritualism (/isis/citation/CBB000760046/)

Article MacLeod, Christine; (2012)
Reluctant Entrepreneurs: Patents and State Patronage in New Technosciences, circa 1870--1930 (/isis/citation/CBB001250839/)

Book Arapostathis, Stathis; Gooday, Gaeme; (2013)
Patently Contestable: Electrical Technologies and Inventor Identities on Trial in Britain (/isis/citation/CBB001500374/)

Book Cookson, Gillian; Hempstead, Colin; (2000)
A Victorian Scientist and Engineer: Fleeming Jenkin and the Birth of Electrical Engineering (/isis/citation/CBB000111811/)

Article Puche Riart, Octavio; (2002)
El ingeniero e inventor Enrique Hauser y Neuburger (1866-1938): Apuntes biográficos (/isis/citation/CBB000410670/)

Book Hunt, Bruce J.; (2010)
Pursuing Power and Light: Technology and Physics from James Watt to Albert Einstein (/isis/citation/CBB001020403/)

Book Hirt, Paul W.; (2012)
The Wired Northwest: The History of Electric Power, 1870s--1970s (/isis/citation/CBB001201248/)

Article Sumner, James; Gooday, Graeme J. N.; (2008)
Introduction (/isis/citation/CBB001023038/)

Article Arapostathis, Stathis; (2013)
Meters, Patents and Expertise(s): Knowledge Networks in the Electricity Meters Industry, 1880--1914 (/isis/citation/CBB001211901/)

Book Rabinovitz, Lauren; (2012)
Electric Dreamland: Amusement Parks, Movies, and American Modernity (/isis/citation/CBB001202125/)

Article Ramalingam, Chitra; (2010)
Natural History in the Dark: Seriality and the Electric Discharge in Victorian Physics (/isis/citation/CBB001023532/)

Article Hopwood-Lewis, Jonathan; MacLeod, Christine; (2013)
Patents, Publicity and Priority: The Aeronautical Society of Great Britain, 1897--1919 (/isis/citation/CBB001211899/)

Chapter Lyall, Kenneth; (2006)
Precision Electrical Instruments, 1870--1900 (/isis/citation/CBB000773531/)

Article Pesic, Peter; (2013)
Helmholtz, Riemann, and the Sirens: Sound, Color, and the “Problem of Space” (/isis/citation/CBB001320409/)

Book Fredrik Meiton; (2019)
Electrical Palestine: Capital and Technology from Empire to Nation (/isis/citation/CBB288424129/)

Article Franklin, Allan; (2013)
Millikan's Measurement of Plank's Constant (/isis/citation/CBB001320789/)

Authors & Contributors
MacLeod, Christine
Hunt, Bruce J.
Gooday, Graeme J. N.
Arapostathis, Stathis
Fredrik Meiton
Gooday, Gaeme
Concepts
Electricity; magnetism
Physics
Science and technology, relationships
Electrical engineering
Electric power industry
Technology
Time Periods
19th century
20th century, early
20th century
20th century, late
Places
Great Britain
United States
Germany
Pacific Northwest (North America)
Palestine
Cambridge (England)
Institutions
American Telephone and Telegraph Company
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment