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18 - Pure and Hybrid Detectors: Mark I and the Psi

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2010

Peter Galison
Affiliation:
Born New York City, 1955; Ph.D., 1983 (physics and history of science), Harvard University; Mallinckrodt Professor of History of Science and of Physics, Harvard University; history of science, high-energy physics (theory).
Lillian Hoddeson
Affiliation:
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Laurie Brown
Affiliation:
Northwestern University, Illinois
Michael Riordan
Affiliation:
Stanford University, California
Max Dresden
Affiliation:
Stanford University, California
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Summary

The broad sweep of theoretical claims and programs commands our attention: even the title of this book, The Rise of the Standard Model, points to theory as the capstone of physics. But outside the commitment of theorists to principles of their practice such as causality, determinism, unification, and symmetry breaking, there are commitments built into the hardware of the laboratory. Less dramatic perhaps, less often spoken of without doubt, these traditions of instrumentation shape the practice of experimental physics and embody views about the nature of acceptable empirical evidence. In this chapter, I want to explore the coming together of two great lines of instruments in the twentieth century: on one side, the image tradition instantiated in the sequence cloud chambers, nuclear emulsions, and bubble chambers. These devices make pictures, the delicate array of crisscrossed lines that have come to serve as symbols not only of particle physics but of physics more generally. On the other side, there stands a competing logic tradition, this one aiming not to make pictures but instead to produce counts – the staccato clicks of a Geiger–Müller counter rather than the glossy print from a cloud chamber. In the line of such counters came a host of other electronic devices that built their persuasive power not through the sharpness of images but through the accumulation of a statistically significant number of clicks.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Rise of the Standard Model
A History of Particle Physics from 1964 to 1979
, pp. 308 - 337
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1997

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  • Pure and Hybrid Detectors: Mark I and the Psi
    • By Peter Galison, Born New York City, 1955; Ph.D., 1983 (physics and history of science), Harvard University; Mallinckrodt Professor of History of Science and of Physics, Harvard University; history of science, high-energy physics (theory).
  • Edited by Lillian Hoddeson, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Laurie Brown, Northwestern University, Illinois, Michael Riordan, Stanford University, California, Max Dresden, Stanford University, California
  • Book: The Rise of the Standard Model
  • Online publication: 03 February 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511471094.020
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  • Pure and Hybrid Detectors: Mark I and the Psi
    • By Peter Galison, Born New York City, 1955; Ph.D., 1983 (physics and history of science), Harvard University; Mallinckrodt Professor of History of Science and of Physics, Harvard University; history of science, high-energy physics (theory).
  • Edited by Lillian Hoddeson, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Laurie Brown, Northwestern University, Illinois, Michael Riordan, Stanford University, California, Max Dresden, Stanford University, California
  • Book: The Rise of the Standard Model
  • Online publication: 03 February 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511471094.020
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Pure and Hybrid Detectors: Mark I and the Psi
    • By Peter Galison, Born New York City, 1955; Ph.D., 1983 (physics and history of science), Harvard University; Mallinckrodt Professor of History of Science and of Physics, Harvard University; history of science, high-energy physics (theory).
  • Edited by Lillian Hoddeson, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Laurie Brown, Northwestern University, Illinois, Michael Riordan, Stanford University, California, Max Dresden, Stanford University, California
  • Book: The Rise of the Standard Model
  • Online publication: 03 February 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511471094.020
Available formats
×