Constraints on Controversy: The Case of the Magnetic Monopole

Social Studies of Science

Volumn 11, Issue 1, 1981, Pages 63-93

  Pickering, Andrew ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 84972593820     PISSN: 03063127     EISSN: 14603659     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/030631278101100104     Document Type: Article

References (42)

1. I would like to thank the physicists who assisted me in this study. In particular I am grateful to L. W. Alvarez, R. A. Carrigan, M. W. Friedlander, R. Hagstrom and P. B. Price for their participation in interviews and correspondence. I would also like to thank Harry Collins, David Edge and P. K. Feyerabend for their comments on earlier versions of this paper. The research on which this paper is based was supported by the (UK) SSRC, grants HR4968 and HR6441.
2. See, for example, H. M. Collins, ‘The Seven Sexes: A Study in the Sociology of a Phenomenon, or the Replication of Experiments in Physics’, Sociology, Vol. 9 (1975), 205-24;
3. Collins and T. J. Pinch, ‘The Construction of the Paranormal: Nothing Unscientific is Happening’, in R. Wallis (ed.), On the Margins of Science: The Social Construction of Rejected Knowledge (Keele, Staffs.: University of Keele, Sociological Review Monograph No. 27, 1979), 237-70;
4. A. R. Pickering, ‘The Hunting of the Quark’, Isis, Vol. 72, No. 262 (June 1981), in press.
5. The general argument that any theory can be brought into agreement with any set of data by appropriate adjustments within the overall conceptual framework is known as the Duhem-Quine thesis. For a discussion of this argument see I. Lakatos, ‘Falsification and the Methodology of Research Programmes’, in Lakatos and A. Musgrave (eds), Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), 91-195.
6. See M. H. Israel, P. B. Price and C. J. Waddington, ‘Ultraheavy Cosmic Rays’, Physics Today, Vol. 28 (May 1975), 23-31.
7. P. H. Fowler et al., ‘The Charge Spectrum of Very Heavy Cosmic Ray Nuclei’, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Vol. A301 (1967), 39-45, and ‘The Charge Spectrum of Very Heavy Cosmic Ray Nuclei’, Vol. A318 (1970), 1-43.
8. L. S. Pinsky, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Houston (1972).
9. In a 1976 conference talk entitled ‘Experimental Searches for Magnetic Monopoles’, one reviewer cited eight papers as comprising ‘the most sensitive monopole searches’ published prior to the PSOP claim, and Price was a co-author of five of these. See R. R. Ross, in A. Perlmutter (ed.), New Pathways in High Energy Physics: Magnetic Charge and Other Fundamental Approaches (New York: Plenum Press, 1976), 151-65.
10. E. K. Shirk et al., ‘Charges and Energy Spectra of Trans-Iron Cosmic Rays’, Physical Review, Vol. D7 (1973), 3220-33.
11. P. B. Price, E. K. Shirk, W. Z. Osborne and L. S. Pinsky, ‘Evidence for Detection of a Moving Magnetic Monopole’, Physical Review Letters, Vol. 35 (1975), 487-90.
12. A. L. Robinson, ‘Particle Physics: Evidence for Magnetic Monopole Obtained’, Science, Vol. 189 (5 September 1975), 778, 815-16, at 778.
13. Interview with P. B. Price, Berkeley, 31 May 1978.
14. Letter dated 26 August 1977, L. W. Alvarez to the author. I have confirmed in correspondence with other monopole-hunters that Alvarez's response was typical. (I have documented this in an unpublished paper, ‘Discovery Claims: Case Studies in Elementary Particle Physics’, obtainable from the Science Studies Unit, Edinburgh University.)
15. L. W. Alvarez, ‘Analysis of a Reported Monopole Event’, in W. T. Kirk (ed.), Proceedings of the International Symposium on Lepton and Photon Interactions at High Energies, Stanford University, 21-27 August 1975 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, 1975), 967-79;
16. P. H. Fowler, ‘Have We Seen the Track of a Magnetic Monopole?’, in K. Pinkau (ed.), Proceedings of the 14th International Cosmic Ray Conference, Munich, Germany, 15-27 August 1975 (Munich: Max-Planck-Institute, 1975), Vol. 12, 4049-64.
17. M. W. Friedlander, ‘Comments on the Reported Observation of a Monopole’, Physical Review Letters, Vol. 35 (1975), 1167-69.
18. R. L. Fleischer and R. M. Walker, ‘Probabilities for an Alternative Explanation of the Moving Magnetic Monopole’, Physical Review Letters, Vol. 35 (1975), 1412-15.
19. See Israel, Price and Waddington, 1975. note 4.
20. P. B. Price, E. K. Shirk, W. Z. Osborne and L. S. Pinsky, ‘Addenda to the Paper on the Magnetic Monopole’, in Pinkau (ed.), 1975. note 14, Vol. 12, 4041-43.
21. R. A. Carrigan, Jr, interview, Fermilab, 3 June 1980.
22. R. A. Carrigan, Jr, F. A. Nezrick and B. P. Strauss, ‘Search for Misplaced Magnetic Monopoles’, Physical Review, Vol. D13 (1976), 1823-25.
23. P. B. Price, ‘Status of the Evidence for a Moving Magnetic Monopole’, in Perlmutter (ed.), Physical Review, Vol. D13 (1976. note 8, 167-214.
24. S. P. Ahlen, ‘Monopole-Track Characteristics in Plastic Detectors’, Physical Review, Vol. D14 (1976), 2935-40.
25. Price, Physical Review, Vol. D13 (1976. note 23, 208.
26. The existence of such entities had been advocated for several years by P.C.M. Yock of the University of Auckland, New Zealand: see Yock, ‘New Weakly Decaying Particles and Subnucleons’, Physical Review, Vol. D13 (1976), 1316-21, and references therein.
27. P. B. Price, E. K. Shirk, R. Hagstrom and W. Z. Osborne, ‘Further Studies of the Monopole Candidate’, LBL preprint (unpublished, 1976).
28. P. B. Price, E. K. Shirk, W. Z. Osborne and L. S. Pinsky, ‘Further Measurements and Reassessment of the Magnetic Monopole Candidate’, Physical Review, Vol. D18 (1978), 1382-421.
29. See P. H. Fowler, ‘Ultra-Heavy Cosmic Ray Nuclei — Analysis and Results’, Nuclear Instruments and Methods, Vol. 147 (1977), 183-94.
30. P. B. Price and E. K. Shirk, ‘The Skylab Ultraheavy Cosmic Ray Experiment’, in Pinkau (ed.), 1977. note 14, Vol. 1, 268;
31. Shirk and Price, ‘Charge and Energy Spectra of Cosmic Rays with Z >60: The Skylab Experiment’, Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 220 (1978), 719-33;
32. Fowler, Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 220 (1978), 719-33. note 33.
33. See Israel, Price and Waddington, Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 220 (1978), 719-33. note 4.
34. The possibility of such incommensurability between different conceptual frameworks each associated with their own set of instrumental practices was first emphasized by T. S. Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2nd edn, 1970). Since then, the ‘stabilization’ of instrumental practice within a conceptual framework has become obscured in the contemporary theory-oriented philosophical debate over incommensurability; see, for instance, the repeated reference to unproblematic ‘novel facts’ in connection with Lakatos's methodology of research programmes in C. Howson (ed.), Method and Appraisal in the Physical Sciences (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976).
35. See the work cited in note 1; also G. Holton, ‘Subelectrons, Presuppositions, and the Millikan-Ehrenhaft Dispute’, in his The Scientific Imagination: Case Studies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), 25-83;
36. A. Franklin, ‘The Discovery and Nondiscovery of Parity Nonconservation’, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, Vol. 10 (1979), 201-57;
37. S. Shapin, ‘The Politics of Observation: Cerebral Anatomy and Social Interests in the Edinburgh Phrenology Disputes’, in Wallis (ed.), 1979. note 1, 139-78;
38. B. Wynne, ‘C. G. Barkla and the J Phenomenon: a Case Study in the Treatment of Deviance in Physics’, Social Studies of Science, Vol. 6 (1976), 307-47;
39. H. M. Collins, ‘The TEA Set: Tacit Knowledge and Scientific Networks’, Science Studies, Vol. 4 (1974), 165-86; and
40. Collins and R. G. Harrison, ‘Building a TEA Laser: The Caprices of Communciation’, Social Studies of Science, Vol. 5 (1975), 441-50. For an excellent discussion of the philosophical position supported by such studies, see T. S. Kuhn, ‘The Function of Measurement in Modern Physical Science’, Isis, Vol. 52 (1961), 161-90.
41. For a case-study which supports this position, and an analysis of the processes underlying the formation of agreements over the social acceptability of novel theoretical concepts, see A. R. Pickering, ‘The Role of Interests in High-Energy Physics: The Choice Between Charm and Colour’, in K. D. Knorr, R. Krohn and R. Whitley (eds), The Social Process of Scientific Investigation, Sociology of the Sciences Yearbook, Vol. 4 (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1980), 107-38; and
42. Pickering, ‘Exemplars and Analogies: A Comment on Crane's Study of Kuhnian Paradigms in High Energy Physics’, and ‘Reply to Crane’, Social Studies of Science, Vol. 10 (1980), 497-502, 507-08.