Enlightenment: error & experiment: Henry Cavendish's Electrical researches

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dc.contributor.authorMiller, Jean A.en
dc.contributor.departmentScience and Technology Studiesen
dc.date.accessioned2014-03-14T21:43:52Zen
dc.date.adate2008-08-25en
dc.date.available2014-03-14T21:43:52Zen
dc.date.issued1997en
dc.date.rdate2008-08-25en
dc.date.sdate2008-08-25en
dc.description.abstractI have attempted two major tasks in this thesis. First, I argue that Deborah Mayo’s Error Statistical epistemology makes an excellent tool for historical research into experimental episodes. This is because it focuses the historian’s eye on the nitty gritty details of experimental arguments, particularly on the generation and manipulation of data. Moreover, her hierarchy of models provides an excellent organizing tool for disentangling complex experimental narratives. I illustrate the fruitfulness of this method by contrasting John Dorling’s and Ronald Laymon’s summaries of Cavendish’s Great Globe experiment with my own account. Second, and perhaps less successfully, I have used her concept of "arguing from error" along with her attendant hierarchy of models and severity criterion to make claims for the procedural objectivity of Cavendish’s experimental tests of an inverse square force law for describing electrical attraction and repulsion. Simultaneously, I confronted Harry Collins’ experimenters’ regresses and Pickering’s view of experimenters’ "tinkering" (in his mangle of practice) and show that neither is either a necessary part of experimental practice nor holds for Cavendish’s experiments.en
dc.description.degreeMaster of Scienceen
dc.format.extentiv, 133 leavesen
dc.format.mediumBTDen
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen
dc.identifier.otheretd-08252008-162818en
dc.identifier.sourceurlhttp://scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/available/etd-08252008-162818/en
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10919/44446en
dc.language.isoenen
dc.publisherVirginia Techen
dc.relation.haspartLD5655.V855_1997.M555.pdfen
dc.relation.isformatofOCLC# 37428399en
dc.rightsIn Copyrighten
dc.rights.urihttp://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/en
dc.subject.lccLD5655.V855 1997.M555en
dc.titleEnlightenment: error & experiment: Henry Cavendish's Electrical researchesen
dc.typeThesisen
dc.type.dcmitypeTexten
thesis.degree.disciplineScience and Technology Studiesen
thesis.degree.grantorVirginia Polytechnic Institute and State Universityen
thesis.degree.levelmastersen
thesis.degree.nameMaster of Scienceen

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