2000 HSS/PSA Program 1 - History of Science Society

HSS Abstracts
the existence of the electron qua sub-atomic particle presupposed a conviction
in the existence of atoms. Thus, the complete assimilation of the electron in
the ontology of physics would have immediate repercussions for the atomism
debate. But the atomism debate remained open till the early 1910s a fact that
clearly contradicts the view that the existence of the electron had been
established, beyond doubt, by 1899. The aim of this paper is to explore the
attitudes of the anti-atomic opposition towards the ontological status of the
electron. I will argue that the investigation of the connection between the
“discovery” of the electron and the resolution of the atomism debate sheds
further light on both issues and helps us to understand more fully the launch
of microphysics in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, avoiding
simplistic discovery narratives and highlighting the complexity of the
legitimization and consolidation of microphysics.
Robert␣ G. Arns University of Vermont
Persistence of Belief in a Mechanical Ether in the Twentieth Century
Concepts of the “aether of space” took various forms for thinkers such as
Descartes, Newton, Faraday, and Maxwell, eventually becoming a mechanical
medium that served to mediate “action at a distance” and to carry light and
Maxwell’s electromagnetic waves. In an experimental program reported in
1887 (and continuing for many years) Michelson and Morley failed to detect
the motion of the earth relative to this ether and, in 1905, Einstein’s initial
paper on special relativity formulated electrodynamics in a way which made
the luminiferous ether superfluous. However, as will be shown in this paper,
various forms of belief in a mechanical medium persisted among prominent
physicists (for example, Michelson, Planck, Lorentz, J. J. Thomson) over the
next quarter century. The persistence of these beliefs will be discussed in terms
of the bases for mechanistic physics and the factors leading to the decline of
mechanism.
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Eric␣ H. Ash Princeton University
Queen v. Northumberland:
Royal Mining Rights and the Dilemma of Expertise
The case of Queen v. Northumberland is a remarkable example of the
manipulation of expert knowledge on the part of royal administrators, both
for the benefit of the crown and for their own financial gain. In 1567, Thomas
Percy, 7th Earl of Northumberland was sued by Queen Elizabeth over his
refusal to allow the Company of Mines Royal, holders of a monopoly patent
on royal mining rights, to mine copper ore on his private lands in the county