How scientific research instruments change: A century of Nobel Prize physics instrumentation

Abstract

This article explores structures of intellectual, operational and institutional transformations of scientific research instrumentation in the 20th century. The study of 26 Nobel Prizes in physics instrumentation between 1901 and the present yields abundant and systematic information related to change and stability of instrument function, instrument trajectory and the social organization of instrument-related work. This yields three configurations: ‘bounded’, ‘extensionist’ and ‘linked’. One can observe for the late 20th century the emergence of an unprecedented form of instrumented-related cognitive operation that we dub ‘instrument knowledge’.