Abstracts of the History of Science Society 2004 Austin Meeting 18 ...

ly related to the quantity of oil it held. The problem for the U.S. Treasury became determining that quantity. In the years after the war,
the estimation techniques developed by the Oil and Gas Division were used to forecast an impending national oil “famine.” Throughout
the 1920s, public debate on the security of the oil supply was framed in terms of competing mathematical estimates. In this paper I
examine the wartime employment of oil geologists and show how the state’s imperative to mathematize nature (for tax purposes) led to
intractable political conflict and fears of an impending oil shortage.
Cibelle Celestino Silva, Universidade de Campinas, Brazil (cibelle@ifi.unicamp.br)
Saturday, 20-Nov-04, 1:30 - 3:10 PM - Texas Ballroom V
Dimensional Analysis and the Search for the True Nature of Electromagnetic Quantities:
The Contribution of Reginald A. Fessenden
Nowadays, physicists use two unit systems in electromagnetic theory, related to different dimensional views of the electromagnetic magnitudes
the electrostatic and the electromagnetic systems. Physicists usually admit that the choice between the two systems is arbitrary
and is related with the free choice of the units through which the electromagnetic quantities are expressed. However, in the late nineteenth
century the approach to physical dimensions was very distinct. Maxwell, for instance, thought that dimensional analysis could be
helpful in finding the true mechanical representation of electromagnetic quantities in terms of mechanical quantities such as mass,
length and time. A hot debate about the best dimensional system took place during the last two decades of the 19th century. Many
important physicists, such as Rudolf Clausius, Oliver Lodge, Joseph John Thomson, Hermann Helmholtz and others, discussed this
issue. The great number of published papers about this subject shows that the main issue behind the debate was the attempt to determine
the best model for the electromagnetic ether. In the transition from the 19th to the 20th century, Reginald Fessenden tried to establish,
through theoretical and experimental arguments, the true dimension and physical nature of electromagnetic quantities. In this paper,
we present and discuss Fessenden’s arguments and their context.
Rebecca Slayton, Stanford University (rms@mit.edu)
Friday, 19-Nov-04, 9:00 - 11:45 AM - Hill Country C
Between Science and Activism: Boycotting Star Wars
In the mid-1980’s, over 7,000 U.S. scientists and engineers engaged in an unusual political intervention by pledging to refuse research
funds from the “Star Wars” missile defense program, a program they called “ill-conceived and dangerous.” Here I analyze how a tension
between expertise and activism flowed throughout the scientists’ boycott – from the diverse disciplinary and institutional cultures
of the scientists and engineers, through interactions with the mass media, and back to shape the strategies of the boycott organizers. I
structure this account around three discursive engagements between scientists and the media. Each one demonstrates how the contextual
and interactive nature of science communications gave rise to variable messages. But each engagement also demonstrates a consistent
tension between discourses of activism and science, suggesting that common interpretive frames structured these interactions. I
argue that the boycott achieved legitimacy to the extent that its expertise came to be discursively identified with hopes of democracy
rather than fears of technocracy. By analyzing how discursive engagements stabilized or destabilized particular forms of political intervention,
this study extends and links studies of the relationships between and among experts, the media, and Cold War politics.
Hilary A. Smith, University of Pennsylvania (smithhil@sas.upenn.edu)
Friday, 19-Nov-04, 1:30 - 3:10 PM - Hill Country A
Does the “Early Modern” Shoe Fit? Foot qi and Chinese Nutritional Science
Foot qi (jiao qi), an ailment that modern Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) textbooks equate with biomedicine’s beriberi, is an old
disease, appearing in Chinese texts at least as early as the seventh century AD. The biomedical understanding of nutritional deficiency
diseases such as beriberi rests on the idea that a person’s everyday diet, often little different from her neighbors’ diets, can kill her. If
such an understanding represents modernity in nutritional science, do the Chinese concepts that preceded it represent early modernity?
Though the symptoms associated with foot qi have remained recognizable through the centuries, the meaning of foot qi and its perceived
relationship with diet have changed a great deal. Using foot qi as the illustration, this paper will assess how well “early modern,”
dynastic, and other common types of periodization fit the development of Chinese nutritional knowledge.
Eva Ahrén Snickare, Nobel Museum (eva.snickare@nobel.se)
Friday, 19-Nov-04, 1:30 - 3:10 PM - Texas Ballroom VII
Medicine and the Media: The Human Body on Display around 1900
This paper deals with medical and commercial displays of human bodies around the turn of the century 1900. These different types of
exhibitions are revealed as connected through a series of representing and ordering practices. They can be regarded as one and the same
visual culture, centered on the (normal and deviant) forms of the human body. However, there were also important differences between
the medical and commercial displays: both the audiences and the way these audiences were addressed differed between the professional
and the popular contexts. Exhibited artefacts communicated rather different meanings in different settings. Preparing specimens and
models for purposes of research and education was a central practice in the anatomical and pathological institutions of the 19th and
the early 20th centuries. The visualisation of bodily structures was crucial in developing as well as communicating anatomical and patho-