Abstract
The U.S. instrument community changed considerably during the first half of the twentieth century. The community was composed of two principal components: narrow-niche instrument designers, constructors and users, and instrument men whose interest lay in the theory and the development of generic multipurpose devices. Narrow-niche instrument practitioners built apparatus in response to specific problems. They worked within a professional setting in academia, industry or the state, and they rarely crossed professional or institutional boundaries. In contrast, instrument generalists, that is research-technologists, designed and built multipurpose generic devices. They focused on instrument theory and designed apparatus in such a way that basic principles could be readily dis-embedded from this equipment. The production of generic devices required them to work with many diverse audiences and thus occupy the interstices between established institutions throughout their careers. These generic devices were then tailored to specific user needs and thus re-embedded in local environments.
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Shinn, T. (2001). Strange Cooperations The U.S. Research-Technology Perspective, 1900–1955. In: Joerges, B., Shinn, T. (eds) Instrumentation Between Science, State and Industry. Sociology of the Sciences, vol 22. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-9032-2_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-9032-2_5
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
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