Deconstruction in a 'thinking' science: Theoretical physicists at work

Social Studies of Science

Volumn 27, Issue 1, 1997, Pages 73-111

  Merz, Martina ^a,b   Cetina, Karin Knorr ^a,c  

^a BIELEFELD UNIVERSITY   (Germany)

^b CERN   (Switzerland)

^c Institute for Advanced Study   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0031527193     PISSN: 03063127     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/030631297027001004     Document Type: Article

References (60)

1. Examples of laboratory studies are: Bruno Latour and Steve Woolgar, Laboratory Life: The Social Construction of Scientific Facts (London & Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1979); Karin Knorr Cetina, The Manufacture of Knowledge: An Essay on the Constructivist and Contextual Nature of Science (Oxford & New York: Pergamon Press, 1981, 2nd edn, 1984); Knorr Cetina, Epistemic Cultures (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997); Michael Lynch, Art and Artifact in Laboratory Science: A Study of Shop Work and Shop Talk in a Research Laboratory (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985); Sharon Traweek, Beamtimes and Lifetimes: The World of High Energy Physics (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988); Michael Zenzen and Sal Restivo, 'The Mysterious Morphology of Immiscible Liquids: A Study of Scientific Practice', Social Science Information, Vol. 21 (1982), 447-73.
2. Examples of laboratory studies are: Bruno Latour and Steve Woolgar, Laboratory Life: The Social Construction of Scientific Facts (London & Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1979); Karin Knorr Cetina, The Manufacture of Knowledge: An Essay on the Constructivist and Contextual Nature of Science (Oxford & New York: Pergamon Press, 1981, 2nd edn, 1984); Knorr Cetina, Epistemic Cultures (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997); Michael Lynch, Art and Artifact in Laboratory Science: A Study of Shop Work and Shop Talk in a Research Laboratory (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985); Sharon Traweek, Beamtimes and Lifetimes: The World of High Energy Physics (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988); Michael Zenzen and Sal Restivo, 'The Mysterious Morphology of Immiscible Liquids: A Study of Scientific Practice', Social Science Information, Vol. 21 (1982), 447-73.
3. Examples of laboratory studies are: Bruno Latour and Steve Woolgar, Laboratory Life: The Social Construction of Scientific Facts (London & Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1979); Karin Knorr Cetina, The Manufacture of Knowledge: An Essay on the Constructivist and Contextual Nature of Science (Oxford & New York: Pergamon Press, 1981, 2nd edn, 1984); Knorr Cetina, Epistemic Cultures (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997); Michael Lynch, Art and Artifact in Laboratory Science: A Study of Shop Work and Shop Talk in a Research Laboratory (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985); Sharon Traweek, Beamtimes and Lifetimes: The World of High Energy Physics (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988); Michael Zenzen and Sal Restivo, 'The Mysterious Morphology of Immiscible Liquids: A Study of Scientific Practice', Social Science Information, Vol. 21 (1982), 447-73.
4. Examples of laboratory studies are: Bruno Latour and Steve Woolgar, Laboratory Life: The Social Construction of Scientific Facts (London & Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1979); Karin Knorr Cetina, The Manufacture of Knowledge: An Essay on the Constructivist and Contextual Nature of Science (Oxford & New York: Pergamon Press, 1981, 2nd edn, 1984); Knorr Cetina, Epistemic Cultures (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997); Michael Lynch, Art and Artifact in Laboratory Science: A Study of Shop Work and Shop Talk in a Research Laboratory (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985); Sharon Traweek, Beamtimes and Lifetimes: The World of High Energy Physics (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988); Michael Zenzen and Sal Restivo, 'The Mysterious Morphology of Immiscible Liquids: A Study of Scientific Practice', Social Science Information, Vol. 21 (1982), 447-73.
5. Examples of laboratory studies are: Bruno Latour and Steve Woolgar, Laboratory Life: The Social Construction of Scientific Facts (London & Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1979); Karin Knorr Cetina, The Manufacture of Knowledge: An Essay on the Constructivist and Contextual Nature of Science (Oxford & New York: Pergamon Press, 1981, 2nd edn, 1984); Knorr Cetina, Epistemic Cultures (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997); Michael Lynch, Art and Artifact in Laboratory Science: A Study of Shop Work and Shop Talk in a Research Laboratory (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985); Sharon Traweek, Beamtimes and Lifetimes: The World of High Energy Physics (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988); Michael Zenzen and Sal Restivo, 'The Mysterious Morphology of Immiscible Liquids: A Study of Scientific Practice', Social Science Information, Vol. 21 (1982), 447-73.
6. Examples of laboratory studies are: Bruno Latour and Steve Woolgar, Laboratory Life: The Social Construction of Scientific Facts (London & Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1979); Karin Knorr Cetina, The Manufacture of Knowledge: An Essay on the Constructivist and Contextual Nature of Science (Oxford & New York: Pergamon Press, 1981, 2nd edn, 1984); Knorr Cetina, Epistemic Cultures (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997); Michael Lynch, Art and Artifact in Laboratory Science: A Study of Shop Work and Shop Talk in a Research Laboratory (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985); Sharon Traweek, Beamtimes and Lifetimes: The World of High Energy Physics (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988); Michael Zenzen and Sal Restivo, 'The Mysterious Morphology of Immiscible Liquids: A Study of Scientific Practice', Social Science Information, Vol. 21 (1982), 447-73.
7. Sharon Traweek provided the first ethnographic study of physicists, comparing labs and communities in the United States and Japan. For further important recent studies of physics subfields from a contemporary history perspective see: Peter Galison, How Experiments End (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1987); and Andrew Pickering, Constructing Quarks: A Sociological History of Particle Physics (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1984). Physics procedures are investigated from an anthropological point of view in Martin H. Krieger, Doing Physics: How Physicists Take Hold of the World (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1992).
8. Sharon Traweek provided the first ethnographic study of physicists, comparing labs and communities in the United States and Japan. For further important recent studies of physics subfields from a contemporary history perspective see: Peter Galison, How Experiments End (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1987); and Andrew Pickering, Constructing Quarks: A Sociological History of Particle Physics (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1984). Physics procedures are investigated from an anthropological point of view in Martin H. Krieger, Doing Physics: How Physicists Take Hold of the World (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1992).
9. Sharon Traweek provided the first ethnographic study of physicists, comparing labs and communities in the United States and Japan. For further important recent studies of physics subfields from a contemporary history perspective see: Peter Galison, How Experiments End (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1987); and Andrew Pickering, Constructing Quarks: A Sociological History of Particle Physics (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1984). Physics procedures are investigated from an anthropological point of view in Martin H. Krieger, Doing Physics: How Physicists Take Hold of the World (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1992).
10. The realm of string theory includes not only string theory itself but also closely related topics like conformai field theory (in fact, string theory is a two-dimensional conformai field theory), and superstring and quantum gravity theories.
11. Throughout the text, double quotes (". . .") are used to refer to physicists' written technical terms, and to their spoken expressions and technical language. Single quotes ('. . .') denote our notions or concepts we want to highlight. A typewriter font is used for physicists' e-mail quotes; interview excerpts are printed in italics.
12. The question in what way these theoretical physicists' work differs from that of mathematicians (other than in terms of a difference of goals and motivation) is an interesting - and unresolved - issue. Suffice it to say that such differences exist, but they are of no concern to this paper.
13. Peter Gibbins, Particles and Paradoxes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987); Bruce Gregory, Inventing Reality: Physics as Language (New York: Wiley, 1988); David Park, The How and the Why (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988); Mendel Sachs, Einstein versus Bohr (La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1988); Franco Seilen, Quantum Paradoxes and Physical Reality (Dordrecht, Boston, MA & London: Kluwer, 1990); Anthony Zee, Fearful Symmetry: The Search for Beauty in Modern Physics (New York: Macmillan, 1989).
14. Peter Gibbins, Particles and Paradoxes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987); Bruce Gregory, Inventing Reality: Physics as Language (New York: Wiley, 1988); David Park, The How and the Why (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988); Mendel Sachs, Einstein versus Bohr (La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1988); Franco Seilen, Quantum Paradoxes and Physical Reality (Dordrecht, Boston, MA & London: Kluwer, 1990); Anthony Zee, Fearful Symmetry: The Search for Beauty in Modern Physics (New York: Macmillan, 1989).
15. Peter Gibbins, Particles and Paradoxes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987); Bruce Gregory, Inventing Reality: Physics as Language (New York: Wiley, 1988); David Park, The How and the Why (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988); Mendel Sachs, Einstein versus Bohr (La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1988); Franco Seilen, Quantum Paradoxes and Physical Reality (Dordrecht, Boston, MA & London: Kluwer, 1990); Anthony Zee, Fearful Symmetry: The Search for Beauty in Modern Physics (New York: Macmillan, 1989).
16. Peter Gibbins, Particles and Paradoxes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987); Bruce Gregory, Inventing Reality: Physics as Language (New York: Wiley, 1988); David Park, The How and the Why (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988); Mendel Sachs, Einstein versus Bohr (La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1988); Franco Seilen, Quantum Paradoxes and Physical Reality (Dordrecht, Boston, MA & London: Kluwer, 1990); Anthony Zee, Fearful Symmetry: The Search for Beauty in Modern Physics (New York: Macmillan, 1989).
17. Peter Gibbins, Particles and Paradoxes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987); Bruce Gregory, Inventing Reality: Physics as Language (New York: Wiley, 1988); David Park, The How and the Why (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988); Mendel Sachs, Einstein versus Bohr (La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1988); Franco Seilen, Quantum Paradoxes and Physical Reality (Dordrecht, Boston, MA & London: Kluwer, 1990); Anthony Zee, Fearful Symmetry: The Search for Beauty in Modern Physics (New York: Macmillan, 1989).
18. Peter Gibbins, Particles and Paradoxes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987); Bruce Gregory, Inventing Reality: Physics as Language (New York: Wiley, 1988); David Park, The How and the Why (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988); Mendel Sachs, Einstein versus Bohr (La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1988); Franco Seilen, Quantum Paradoxes and Physical Reality (Dordrecht, Boston, MA & London: Kluwer, 1990); Anthony Zee, Fearful Symmetry: The Search for Beauty in Modern Physics (New York: Macmillan, 1989).
19. What is of help is work within the new sociology of science on mathematics, particularly David Bloor, Knowledge and Social Imagery (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1976); Sal Restivo, Mathematics in Society and History (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1992); Andrew Pickering, The Mangle of Practice: Time, Agency and Science (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1995), especially Chapter 4; Eric Livingston, The Ethnomethodological Foundations of Mathematics (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986); Livingston, Making Sense of Ethnomethodology (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1987). The first three studies are based on historical materials. In its focus on practical work, Pickering's and Livingston's research is closest to the present study.
20. What is of help is work within the new sociology of science on mathematics, particularly David Bloor, Knowledge and Social Imagery (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1976); Sal Restivo, Mathematics in Society and History (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1992); Andrew Pickering, The Mangle of Practice: Time, Agency and Science (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1995), especially Chapter 4; Eric Livingston, The Ethnomethodological Foundations of Mathematics (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986); Livingston, Making Sense of Ethnomethodology (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1987). The first three studies are based on historical materials. In its focus on practical work, Pickering's and Livingston's research is closest to the present study.
21. What is of help is work within the new sociology of science on mathematics, particularly David Bloor, Knowledge and Social Imagery (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1976); Sal Restivo, Mathematics in Society and History (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1992); Andrew Pickering, The Mangle of Practice: Time, Agency and Science (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1995), especially Chapter 4; Eric Livingston, The Ethnomethodological Foundations of Mathematics (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986); Livingston, Making Sense of Ethnomethodology (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1987). The first three studies are based on historical materials. In its focus on practical work, Pickering's and Livingston's research is closest to the present study.
22. What is of help is work within the new sociology of science on mathematics, particularly David Bloor, Knowledge and Social Imagery (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1976); Sal Restivo, Mathematics in Society and History (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1992); Andrew Pickering, The Mangle of Practice: Time, Agency and Science (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1995), especially Chapter 4; Eric Livingston, The Ethnomethodological Foundations of Mathematics (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986); Livingston, Making Sense of Ethnomethodology (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1987). The first three studies are based on historical materials. In its focus on practical work, Pickering's and Livingston's research is closest to the present study.
23. What is of help is work within the new sociology of science on mathematics, particularly David Bloor, Knowledge and Social Imagery (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1976); Sal Restivo, Mathematics in Society and History (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1992); Andrew Pickering, The Mangle of Practice: Time, Agency and Science (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1995), especially Chapter 4; Eric Livingston, The Ethnomethodological Foundations of Mathematics (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986); Livingston, Making Sense of Ethnomethodology (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1987). The first three studies are based on historical materials. In its focus on practical work, Pickering's and Livingston's research is closest to the present study.
24. CERN's TH-Division hosts up to 150 theoretical physicists from all over Europe and many other countries. The scientists conduct research in a wide spectrum of theoretical particle physics topics, ranging from the construction of fundamental theories and models involving the most modern mathematics, to work closely related to current and future experiments, concerning the analysis and prediction of results.
25. We put 'reading' within quotes because it involved, besides literal reading, discussion, recalculation (trying out or following what was explained through redoing computations), bringing in further information, and so on.
26. K. Knorr Cetina, 'Epistemic Cultures: Forms of Reason in Science', History of Political Economy, Vol. 23, No. 1 (1991), 105-22;
27. Knorr Cetina (1997), op. cit. note 1.
28. See also Livingston, op. cit. note 6.
29. K. Knorr Cetina, 'The Couch, the Cathedral, and the Laboratory: On the Relationship between Experiment and Laboratory in Science', in A. Pickering (ed.), Science as Practice and Culture (Chicago, IL & London: The University of Chicago Press, 1992), 113-38.
30. Compare H.M. Collins, Artificial Experts: Social Knowledge and Intelligent Machines (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990).
31. Jacques Derrida, Speech and Phenomena, and Other Essays on Husserl's Theory of Signs (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1973); Derrida, Of Grammatology (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977); Derrida, Writing and Difference (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978). All three books were first published in French in 1967.
32. Jacques Derrida, Speech and Phenomena, and Other Essays on Husserl's Theory of Signs (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1973); Derrida, Of Grammatology (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977); Derrida, Writing and Difference (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978). All three books were first published in French in 1967.
33. Jacques Derrida, Speech and Phenomena, and Other Essays on Husserl's Theory of Signs (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1973); Derrida, Of Grammatology (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977); Derrida, Writing and Difference (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978). All three books were first published in French in 1967.
34. Barbara Johnson, A World of Difference (Baltimore, MD & London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987); Johnson, 'Writing', in Frank Lentricchia and Thomas McLaughlin (eds.), Critical Terms for Literary Study (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1990), 39-49; Christopher Norris, Deconstruction, Theory and Practice (London & New York: Routledge, 2nd edn, 1991).
35. Barbara Johnson, A World of Difference (Baltimore, MD & London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987); Johnson, 'Writing', in Frank Lentricchia and Thomas McLaughlin (eds.), Critical Terms for Literary Study (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1990), 39-49; Christopher Norris, Deconstruction, Theory and Practice (London & New York: Routledge, 2nd edn, 1991).
36. Barbara Johnson, A World of Difference (Baltimore, MD & London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987); Johnson, 'Writing', in Frank Lentricchia and Thomas McLaughlin (eds.), Critical Terms for Literary Study (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1990), 39-49; Christopher Norris, Deconstruction, Theory and Practice (London & New York: Routledge, 2nd edn, 1991).
37. John M. Ellis, Against Deconstruction (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989).
38. It would be impossible for Derrida to argue that meaning is inescapably deferred in writing, and simultaneously to insist that such is not the case in his own texts. See also Norris, op. cit. note 14, 136ff.
39. For an illustration in the case of a poem see Johnson (1990), op. cit. note 14, 44ff. A social scientific text would be seen, within a supplementary logic, simultaneously to bridge and to widen the gap between the described phenomena and what it says about them. The closest to deconstructionism in science studies is the reflexive programme: see Steve Woolgar and Malcolm Ashmore, 'The Next Step: An Introduction to the Reflexive Project', in Woolgar (ed.), Knowledge and Reflexivity (London: Sage, 1988), 1-11.
40. For an illustration in the case of a poem see Johnson (1990), op. cit. note 14, 44ff. A social scientific text would be seen, within a supplementary logic, simultaneously to bridge and to widen the gap between the described phenomena and what it says about them. The closest to deconstructionism in science studies is the reflexive programme: see Steve Woolgar and Malcolm Ashmore, 'The Next Step: An Introduction to the Reflexive Project', in Woolgar (ed.), Knowledge and Reflexivity (London: Sage, 1988), 1-11.
41. Christian Artigues, Yolande Bellecave and Pierre-Henri Terracher, MATH analyse, 1res S et E (Paris: Hachette, 1991).
42. Johnson (1990), op. cit. note 14, 45.
43. Ibid.
44. See for example: Sylvia Scribner and Michael Cole, The Psychology of Literacy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981); Jean Lave, Cognition in Practice: Mind, Mathematics and Culture in Everyday Life (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988); Lave and Etienne Wenger, Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).
45. See for example: Sylvia Scribner and Michael Cole, The Psychology of Literacy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981); Jean Lave, Cognition in Practice: Mind, Mathematics and Culture in Everyday Life (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988); Lave and Etienne Wenger, Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).
46. See for example: Sylvia Scribner and Michael Cole, The Psychology of Literacy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981); Jean Lave, Cognition in Practice: Mind, Mathematics and Culture in Everyday Life (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988); Lave and Etienne Wenger, Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).
47. Klaus Amann and Karin Knorr Cetina, 'Thinking Through Talk: An Ethnographic Study of a Molecular Biology Laboratory', Knowledge and Society: Studies in the Sociology of Science Past and Present, Vol. 8 (1989), 3-26.
48. Martina Merz, '"Nobody can force you when you are across the ocean" - Face to Face and E-mail Exchanges between Theoretical Physicists', in Jon Agar and Crosbie W. Smith (eds), Making Space for Science (London: Macmillan Press, forthcoming).
49. The models are 'simplistic' in the sense that they are only two-dimensional, instead of incorporating all four dimensions of 'real' space-time. Two-dimensional theories have less degrees of freedom and are easier to solve. Even these models, however, are mathematically non-trivial and of extreme structural complexity.
50. It is difficult to provide an intuitive understanding of what kind of object a BRST-operator is. We will therefore not make the attempt within the space of this paper.
51. To enhance the readability of the paper, we have simplified the physics 'language' as much as possible. For the interested reader a physicist's definition of the "physical states" follows: "In the context of BRST-quantization, physical states are given by the cohomology of the BRST-operator A. The cohomology is defined by Ker A/Im A. So, in order to find the cohomology, you do not only have to solve the equation Ax = 0, but also identify solutions which differ by an 'exact' state, i.e. a state in the image of A. This is essentially the requirement of gauge invariance. Two solutions which differ by an exact state represent the same physical state."
52. BRST is the abbreviation of Becchi, Rouet, Stora and Tyutin.
53. 2 - 4x - 5 = 0'; or it can refer to a much more complex set of procedures whose outcome is a physical quantity, and which may include the formulation and proof of a mathematical theorem. A cohomology computation is a problem of this kind. To avoid misunderstandings, it also needs to be mentioned that the notion of 'computation' does not per se refer to numerical calculations performed on a computer.
54. 'Pact with objects' is a notion somewhat analogous to the 'contrat naturel' recently developed by Michel Serres in Le Contrat Naturel (Paris: Editions François Bourin, 1990). For discussion of object relations see also Michel Callon, 'Some Elements of a Sociology of Translation: Domestication of the Scallops and the Fishermen of St Brieuc Bay', in John Law (ed.), Power, Action and Belief: a New Sociology of Knowledge? (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986), 196-229; and Bruno Latour and Jim Johnson, 'Mixing Humans with Non-Humans: Sociology of a Door-Opener', in Leigh Star (ed.), Special Issue on 'Sociology of Science', Social Problems, Vol. 35 (1988), 298-310.
55. 'Pact with objects' is a notion somewhat analogous to the 'contrat naturel' recently developed by Michel Serres in Le Contrat Naturel (Paris: Editions François Bourin, 1990). For discussion of object relations see also Michel Callon, 'Some Elements of a Sociology of Translation: Domestication of the Scallops and the Fishermen of St Brieuc Bay', in John Law (ed.), Power, Action and Belief: a New Sociology of Knowledge? (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986), 196-229; and Bruno Latour and Jim Johnson, 'Mixing Humans with Non-Humans: Sociology of a Door-Opener', in Leigh Star (ed.), Special Issue on 'Sociology of Science', Social Problems, Vol. 35 (1988), 298-310.
56. 'Pact with objects' is a notion somewhat analogous to the 'contrat naturel' recently developed by Michel Serres in Le Contrat Naturel (Paris: Editions François Bourin, 1990). For discussion of object relations see also Michel Callon, 'Some Elements of a Sociology of Translation: Domestication of the Scallops and the Fishermen of St Brieuc Bay', in John Law (ed.), Power, Action and Belief: a New Sociology of Knowledge? (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986), 196-229; and Bruno Latour and Jim Johnson, 'Mixing Humans with Non-Humans: Sociology of a Door-Opener', in Leigh Star (ed.), Special Issue on 'Sociology of Science', Social Problems, Vol. 35 (1988), 298-310.
57. Paul H. Ginsparg, '@xxx.lanl.gov - First Steps Toward Electronic Research Communication', Los Alamos Science, No. 22 (1994), 156-65.
58. The complete collection of e-mails (all in English) exchanged between N, P and A and related to the W-gravity computation was available to us for analysis. However, without N acting as interpreter, the e-mails would have remained Double Dutch to us!
59. Peter Bouwknegt, Jim McCarthy and Krzysztof Pilch, 'Semi-infinite Cohomology of W-algebras', Utters in Mathematical Physics, Vol. 29 (1993), 91-102.
60. Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1962, 2nd edn, 1970), esp. section 5 of the Postscript, 198ff.