Peter Galison

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Peter Galison at the 2007 Annual History of Science Society

Peter Louis Galison (* 1955 in New York City ) is Joseph Pellegrino University Professor of the History of Science and Physics at Harvard University .

biography

Peter Galison received his PhD from Harvard University in 1983 in both physics and the history of science. From 1982 to 1992 he was Professor of History, Philosophy and Physics at Stanford University before returning to Harvard. Galison, along with Ian Hacking , John Dupré and Nancy Cartwright, is assigned to the Stanford School of Philosophy of Science and conducts research on the relationship between the natural sciences and other disciplines, in particular with art (together with his wife Caroline A. Jones ) and with architecture .

In 1992 Galison was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . He was a MacArthur Fellow in 1996 and is co-editor of Critical Inquiry . In 1998 Galison received the Pfizer Award from the History of Science Society and in 1999 the Max Planck Research Award for the Humanities . In 1999 he became a Fellow of the American Physical Society , which awarded him its 2018 Abraham Pais Prize . In 2002 he was one of the curators of the Iconoclash exhibition . Beyond the image wars in science, religion and art in the Center for Art and Media Technology (ZKM) in Karlsruhe . Since 2005 he has been a member of the American Philosophical Society . In November 2015 he spoke at the SRF broadcast Sternstunde philosophy with Stephan Klapproth about Albert Einstein .

Works

In Image and Logic: A Material Culture of Microphysics (1997), Galison deals with the fundamental discussion in the physical sciences as to whether singular and visually describable scientific phenomena or whether statistically significant, frequently repeatable results are to be regarded as decisive scientific evidence. He clarifies the problem in the conflicts between high-energy physicists who study new particles . On the one hand, statistically significant and often replicated analyzes of new particles when passing through electric fields are used as evidence, on the other hand, individual recordings of a particle that shows behavior in a single moment that cannot be explained by the characteristics of previously known particles can be. In Image and Logic, Galison developed the metaphor of the “trading zone” to explain how physicists proceeded in order to work together with one another and with engineers in the development of particle detectors and radar despite different paradigms .

In Objectivity (2007), written jointly with Lorraine Daston , the two authors developed the concept of a scientific methodology of “mechanical objectivity”, according to which it has been the duty of a scientist since the end of the 19th century to make his representations as independent as possible To keep subjectivity free.

Galison was involved in the making of several documentaries . The first, The Ultimate Weapon: The H-Bomb Dilemma , dealt with the political and scientific decisions leading up to the development of the first hydrogen bomb in the United States and was broadcast on the History Channel in 2000 . The second, Secrecy , which Galison worked with documentary filmmaker Robb Moss , deals with the societal costs and benefits of secret politics and premiered in 2008 at the Sundance Film Festival . He also shot containment together with Moss . The film, which premiered in 2015, deals with the storage of radioactive waste for thousands of years .

Publications

  • How experiments end . University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1987, ISBN 0-226-27914-6
  • Peter Galison / Bruce Hevly (eds.): Big Science. The Growth of Large-Scale Research . Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA 1992, ISBN 0-8047-2335-4
  • Peter Galison / David J. Stump (Eds.): The Disunity of Science. Boundaries, Contexts, and Power . Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA 1996, ISBN 0-8047-2562-4
  • Image and logic. A material culture of microphysics . University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1997, ISBN 0-226-27917-0
  • together with Caroline A. Jones: Picturing science, producing art . Routledge, New York 1998, ISBN 0-415-91912-6
  • Einstein's clocks, Poincarés maps. Empires of time . WW Norton, New York 2003, ISBN 0-393-02001-0 (German translation: Eineins Uhren, Poincarés Karten. The work on the order of time . S. Fischer, Frankfurt 2006, ISBN 978-3-596-17237-5 )
  • together with Lorraine Daston : Objectivity . Zone Books, Boston 2007 (German translation: Objectivity . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-518-58486-6 )
  • Peter Galison, Gerald Holton and Silvan S. Schweber : Einstein for the 21st Century. His Legacy in Science, Art, and Modern Culture . Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ 2008, ISBN 978-0-691-13520-5
  • Peter Galison, Alex Roland: Atmospheric Flight in the Twentieth Century , Springer 2000

Movies

  • Script / Production: The Ultimate Weapon: The H-Bomb Dilemma (2000). First broadcast: The History Channel, 2000 (44 minutes)
  • Production / direction (together with Robb Moss): Secrecy (2008). Premiere: The Sundance Film Festival 2008 (85 minutes)
  • Production / Direction (together with Robb Moss): Containment (2015). Premiere: Full Frame Documentary Film Festival 2015 (80 minutes)

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Caroline Jones Is Bride of Peter Galison. In: New York Times. January 12, 1987. Retrieved April 20, 2019 .
  2. ↑ Iconoclash. Beyond the Image Wars in Science, Religion and Art May 4 - September 1, 2002 (last accessed April 1, 2012)
  3. ^ Member History: Peter Galison. American Philosophical Society, accessed August 16, 2018 .
  4. ^ David Darlington: Film on Secrecy Screened at Sundance. In: Perspectives on History. March 1, 2008, accessed April 20, 2019 .
  5. ↑ Cynthia Fuchs: 'Containment' Fiercely and Poetically Lays Out the Forever Effects of Nuclear Waste. In: PopMatters. February 22, 2016, accessed April 1, 2012 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Galison, Peter
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Galison, Peter Louis
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American physicist and historian of science
DATE OF BIRTH 1955
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City