This PDF file contains the front matter associated with SPIE Proceedings Volume 10309, including the Title Page, Copyright information, Table of Contents, and Conference Committee listing.

This introduction covers the next section of papers

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.

Much scientific work helps make experiments into governable instruments. For example, during the 1660s trials by Wren and Hooke using the height of mercury in glass tubes to study the relation between the air's spring, tidal height and weather resulted in barometers and weather glasses. In the 1770s, Priestley's experimental technique for estimating the phlogiston content of airs by mixing samples with nitrous air was transformed by Italian chemists into a workable eudiometer. During the 1820s, Oersted's dramatic experiments on the magnetic effect of a current-carrying wire became embodied in the routine laboratory use of galvanometers.' Experiments with many possible messages are changed into tools with apparently straightforward, unproblematic functions.

Physics, biology, geology, and chemistry all have had significant observational components in the course of their development. Chemistry projects the image of an experimental discipline par excellence. Its emergence depended so heavily on the use of scientific instruments that analytical chemistry was deemed "the mother of modern chemistry".1 While this paper stems from a long-term interest in the history of chemistry, its scope has been broadened beyond the confines of one discipline.

History is a respected branch of learning, as is archaeology. However, although both deal with the past, they approach it from different angles and, thus, see different things. Unfortunately, the interaction between the two disciplines is weak. One of the most famous historians of our times, Lynn White, observed this phenomenon and won renown by integrating archaeological knowledge of mediaeval artefacts with academic knowledge'. Following White other historians rewrote parts of the economic and political history of the Middle Ages. The picture that emerged was quite different from the one that existed before2. Not only did the 'dark ages' become less dark, in some aspects they even seemed to be more enlightened than the early Renaissance. It became apparent that, in these so-called dark ages consistent use was made of ancient knowledge. Gimpel showed, for example, that mediaeval engineers had a fairly good knowledge of the works and writings of their counterparts in ancient Rome. The scholarly writers of the period, who are the main sources for students of history, were not aware of this. The fate of Vitruvius' work illustrates this point. The Ten books on Architecture by this Roman engineer who lived at the time of Emperor Augustus were 'rediscovered' in 1414 by the humanist Poggio. Renaissance scholars believed them to have been lost during the Middle Ages. They were wrong, however, for 55 examples of the book still exist today, which were copied between the 10th and 15th century. In other words, mediaeval engineers knew and used Vitruvius' work, but their scholarly contemporaries were unaware of its existence.

This introduction covers the next section of papers

Looking back over their professional lives, eminent scientists often contrast current laboratory practices with those of their own early years. 'In those days,' they tell us, 'it was usual to build one's own equipment. Today no on starts work without the most advanced equipment money can buy.' This essay takes this observation as its starting point, and suggests that it results from two rather different kinds of phenomena.

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.

This paper explores an episode in the development of instrumentation in modern astronomy. It describes how five groups of researchers embarked on the process of uesigning and building infrared cameras incorporating 58 x 62 element InSb mosaic arrays, and reports on the situation reached by mid-1986. These detector arrays were originally manufactured for military purposes, but were made available to a wider market in the early 1980s. Several astronomers realised their potential, and engaged in something of a 'race' to exploit it. However, their aims were different, and the resulting `competition' was complex. A range of factors led to a variety of designs, with each group giving its own instrument a distinctive 'signature'. The paper investigates the origins of this variety.

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.

This paper concerns the introduction of a new class of experimental techniques into the instrumentation space of two scientific domains. It reports on the progress of a collaborative research effort between French and American teams' on how the introduction of laser-based optical techniques modified the organizational and cognitive structures of the domains of turbulence and turbulent combustion.

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.

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.

This introduction covers the next section of papers

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 government's 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 science's 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.

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.

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).

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.