ANACHEM/SAS APRIL MEETING
University
of Detroit Mercy McNichols Campus
Room 118,
Chemistry Building
April
16, 2008 starting at
6:00pm
Scenes at
an Exhibition:
Revolutionary Tools and the Transformation
of Chemistry
in the 20th
Century
David C. Brock, Senior Research
Fellow
Center for
Contemporary History and
Policy
Chemical
Heritage Foundation
In describing the
dramatic changes in the practice of chemical research in the middle twentieth
century connected to new forms of physical instrumentation, many historians
use phrases like "the Second Chemical Revolution," and "the Instrumentation
Revolution." This talk is centered on a series of these "revolutionary tools"
from the collection of the Chemical Heritage Foundation and its major new
exhibition Making Modernity. The talk will use these exemplary instruments
to discuss some of the important dynamics that contributed to the profound
changes in instrumentation and their use by chemical researchers in this
era. Among these dynamics are: the rise of electronics and computing; the
exigencies of the Second World War and the Postwar economic expansion; boundary
crossings between
physics and chemistry;
the role of instrumentalists and instrumentation makers; and the extension
of the "spectral metaphor."
David C. Brock is
a Senior Research Fellow with the Center for
Contemporary History and Policy
of the Chemical Heritage Foundation. As an historian
of science and technology, he
specializes in oral history, the history
of instrumentation, and the
history of semiconductor science, technology,
and industry. Brock has studied
the philosophy, sociology, and history of science at Brown University, the
University of Edinburgh, and Princeton University (respectively and
chronologically). His most recent publication is
Understanding Moore's Law: Four
Decades of Innovation (Philadelphia: Chemical Heritage Press), 2006, which
he edited and to which he contributed. With
Christophe Lecuyer, Brock has
co-authored two articles on the broad subject of what he calls the 'chemical
history of electronics': the first, a paper for the journal History and
Technology titled 'The Materiality of Microelectronics,' and the second,
a brief biography of Gordon E. Moore for the journal
Annals of the History of Computing.
Both papers were published in the fall of 2006. In the area of public history,
Brock has curated two exhibits for the
Chemical Heritage Foundation:
an exhibit on the history of instrumentation
titled 'Revolutionary Tools:
Instrumentation and the Transformation of the Chemical Sciences' and a major
traveling exhibit on the history of women in chemistry titled 'Her Lab in
Your Life.'
Light refreshments
will be served prior to the presentation. Anyone wishing to go to dinner
with the speaker after the meeting should contact Felix Schneider at
felixschn@wowway.com |