Metrology: The Creation of Universality by the Circulation of Particulars

Abstract

This paper explores the recent suggestion that the universality of technoscience -its ability to bring facets of the world into the lab, and to move results achieved in the lab out into the world - is accomplished by expensive and labour-intensive metrological practices that have hitherto been overlooked in social studies of science. In three examples, this paper seeks to show how the appearance of universality is achieved, what resists this achievement, how such resistance is overcome, and how authority is established for the particular material representatives that stand for universal abstract scientific entities in local settings. Three examples of metrology are considered: the development of machines to measure body composition; the international standardization of electrical units in the late nineteenth century; and the influence of the US Department of Defence on metrological activity in the United States.