mini post
1874 saw the opening of the most important inventions of the 19th century - The Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge. Serious science began to take off in the 1850s in universities. It was mostly applied and work aimed at solving the problems of the day - railroads and telegraph. Cambridge was late to the game, but their approach was revolutionary. Apparatus and expertise were concentrated at one location. Research cultures emerged. Not only was this cost effective, it freed up researchers to explore new classes of problems - not only hypothesis based and applied work, but true exploration. That turned out to be the fuel of scientific and technological change in the following century.
The model spread and by the 1890s and areas of deep expertise began to appear. A dramatic example is the race to zero - how experimentalists tried to achieve the lowest possible temperatures. Three institutions were deep into the game, but success and failure came down to who had the best apparatus and laboratory technicians. The experiments had become so difficult that expert technicians who built, understood and modified the experimental apparatus made all the difference.
The public often sees science as the quirky theorist standing at her slate board and, chalk in hand and on her shirt and pants, having deep thoughts. In fact most of it is very careful labor that can consume a small army of people for years to get a result that something didn't exist (that's as important as finding something!) The Nobels celebrate the principal scientists and praise is warranted, but it often misses the supporting staff. (I think the Nobels have their place as they tend to focus on the frontier rather than hypothesis driven work. I wish they were more inclusive, but another story)
Here's a short video on a tech at EGO-Virgo - the gravity wave observatory near Pisa, Italy. Three such instruments exist with a forth coming online in Japan soon and a fifth under construction in India. Able to measure distortions more than ten thousand times smaller than the diameter of a proton, these are far and away the most precise instruments ever built. The technicians responsible for various bits and running them made it all possible. I've worked with people like this - they're among the greatest craftsmen and women in the world.
Comments