Susan E. Cozzens

The social locus of scientific instruments

The organizing question I chose for this paper goes to the heart of my conception of the relations of instruments to science: what would you expect to find in the work organization or system for the production of scientific knowledge of late 20th-century advanced science? And how would instruments be utilized in this process? How would they be integrated? Similarly, of course, you can ask the same for earlier periods of the history of modern societies in which science was being produced. Recent studies, including several important ones in this volume, have addressed the question of the production of science in the period of the Scientific Revolution, the advanced industrial revolution of the 19th century, and the large-scale science after post-World War II decades.

Scientific techniques and learning: laboratory signatures and the practice of oceanography

We tend to think of techniques as practical means for getting things done in the world, moving objects from here to there, looking more deeply into some sample of tissue, or measuring the salinity of water samples. However, I want to argue in this chapter that techniques are also and importantly means for projecting meaning into the world by acting upon it. When a scientist studies a sample of seawater for chemical components, water in the area where the sample was collected is given qualities that it did not have before. It gains a scientific identity based upon quantitative and qualitative measures that come from science. The chemicals were there already, but the meaning of the chemicals was not. In the acts of gathering and measuring, nature is laden with the culture of science.

Scientific instrumentation as an element of U.S. science policy: National Science Foundation support of chemistry instrumentation

Two fundamental trends have characterized scientific research in the United States since World War II: the first is the steady and dramatic rise in its costs, and the second is the federal governments willingness to underwrite ever larger percentages of those costs. Many factors have helped multiply the expenses of research, and few loom larger than the growing costs of sciences capital base, including instrumentation. Despite the critical role of such instrumentation, however, academic research administrators have not always given it high priority, sometimes preferring--when federal R&D funding has temporarily declined--to defer capital investments in favor of unbroken support for personnel.

The NSF surveys of academic research instrumentation and academic research facilities: a study in data collection and analysis and policy formulation

This paper tracks the evolution of public support for scientific instrumentation from an undifferentiated part of general growth of publicly supported R&D, to a separate and publicly visible sector of R&D policy and support. Comparisons are made to parallel policy developments in the area of academic research facilities. The emergence of a complex data system about instrumentation is described. An Appendix displays examples from the NSF 1989/90 survey of the kinds of policy- relevant information now regularly generated about the supply, utilization and condition of U.S. academic research instrumentation.

Present and future applications of NMR to medicine and materials science

The phenomenon of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) was first observed in the immediate post second -world -war period by two American physicists, working independently: Bloch at Stanford and Purcell at Harvard. Their observations were reported in 1946 in the same volume of Physical Review and led to the joint award of the 1952 Nobel Prize for Physics. Once the details of the interaction had been worked out, and the chemical specificity had been appreciated, a period of instrumentational refinement followed before NMR took its place as arguably the most powerful analytical technique available to the organic chemist. The historical development of NMR and the basis of its analytical power are described in the companion article by Dr. J. Feeney. NMR spectroscopy serves many needs, including routine chemical analysis, determination of protein structures, in situ diagnosis of in -born errors of metabolism and medical imaging. Although the same NMR phenomenon is observed by scientists working in these disparate disciplines, their instrumentational requirements differ widely, and there is often rather little interaction between the different NMR communities. Many specialist international societies have evolved and their annual meetings are extremely well attended in the case of magnetic resonance imaging by typically several thousand participants. The growing diversity of applications, coupled with a unique ability to address certain key contemporary questions (for example the solution structure of biological macromolecules, especially proteins), has made NMR spectrometers the most requested of large scientific instruments. Their high unit cost means that they also account for a substantial fraction of the research budgets of national scientific funding agencies. Of necessity, the scope of this article must be limited. It focuses primarily on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and discusses basic principles, present applications and possible development pathways, together with some of the implications these may have for future healthcare policy. The driving force behind the rapid and highly successful development of MRI instrumentation has been, and will remain clinical in

Institutional problems surrounding the acquisition of detectors in high-energy physics at CERN in the early 1970s

The paper describes the conflict between CERN staff and visitors over who should build heavy detectors to be used at the new 300 GeV accelerator, due to be commis- sioned in 1976. The arguments used by the protagonists are described, as well as some of the deeper forces at work in the debate. It is suggested that the conflict could only be resolved when detectors became so large that CERN and its outside users had no option but to collaborate in building them.

Development of high resolution NMR spectroscopy as a structural tool

The discovery of the nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) phenomenon and its development and exploitation as a scientific tool provide an excellent basis for a case-study for examining the factors which control the evolution of scientific techniques. Since the detection of the NMR phenomenon and the subsequent rapid discovery of all the important NMR spectral parameters in the late 1940s, the method has emerged as one of the most powerful techniques for determining structures of molecules in solution and for analysis of complex mixtures. The method has made a dramatic impact on the development of structural chemistry over the last 30 years and is now one of the key techniques in this area. Support for NMR instrumentation attracts a dominant slice of public funding in most scientifically developed countries. The technique is an excellent example of how instrumentation and technology have revolutionised structural chemistry and it is worth exploring how it has been developed so successfully. Clearly its wide range of application and the relatively direct connection between the NMR data and molecular structure has created a major market for the instrumentation. This has provided several competing manufacturers with the incentive to develop better and better instruments. Understanding the complexity of the basics of NMR spectroscopy has been an ongoing challenge attracting the attention of physicists. The well-organised specialist NMR literature and regular scientific meetings have ensured rapid exploitation of any theoretical advances that have a practical relevance. In parallel, the commercial development of the technology has allowed the fruits of such theoretical advances to be enjoyed by the wider scientific community.

Models of sophistication or instruments of decline? Quantifying the state of academic research equipment

Increased demand and constrained funding for research equipment have led to a requirement for quantitative data. This paper examines two aspects of the state of equipment: the sophistication factor, that is whether the real cost of equipment is rising because of demands of scientific progress; and the state of scientific equipment in British academic institutions. Findings are based on a census of academic research equipment performed in 1987 and a sample study performed in 1990. A positive but declining sophistication factor is noted. The period of study was characterised by significant acquisitions of equipment but scientists continue to perceive deficiencies. Recommendations are made on policies to improve the situation within the constraint of existing resources.

Equipment funding at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

Funding of research equipment is a central aspect of the scientific policy of countries, institutions, and laboratories. In this paper, we wish to bring new insights to the question, using information related to the main French research institution, the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS).