Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T08:05:51.076Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Paris vs. Prague: A “Suspicion of Fraud”: Ernst Mach Argues over Photographs and Epistemological Prerequisites

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 January 2017

Christoph Hoffmann
Christoph Hoffmann*
Affiliation:
University of Lucerne, Switzerland E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Argument

In spring 1888, an anonymous critic raised severe doubts about Ernst Mach's and Peter Salcher's studies, published one year before, on the processes in the air caused by very rapid projectiles. Paraphrasing the experiments for the French popular science magazine La Nature, the critic insinuated that the photographs upon which Mach and Salcher's argument were ostensibly based must have been of such low quality that they did not allow any well-founded conclusion. The critic did not deny the phenomena Mach and Salcher had presented in their article; he denied that the photographs taken in the course of the experiments could permit any observation of the phenomena. I take the resulting quarrel as a window into the actors’ ideas on the requirements of “good observations” and the role of technical devices in this case. In particular I enquire how the various arguments relate to Lorraine Daston's and Peter Galison's framing of photography as an emblem of “mechanical objectivity.” We will see that in the case under debate, actors considered naked-eye observation, observation by telescope and photography mainly with regard to the challenges of the particular research object.

Type
Research Article
Information
Science in Context , Volume 29 , Issue 4: Topical Section: Ernst Mach , December 2016 , pp. 409 - 427
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anon. 1888a. “Photographies des Projectiles Pendant le Tir.” La Nature 16, No. 770, March 3: 210–211.Google Scholar
Anon. 1888b. “La Photographie des Projectiles Pendant le Tir.” La Nature 16, No. 781, May 19:387–388.Google Scholar
Anon. 1888c. “Expériences de Photographie des Projectiles Pendant le Tir.” Revue du Cercle Militaire 3:4–5.Google Scholar
Canales, Jimena. 2009. A Tenth of a Second: A History. Chicago, London: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Corcy, Marie-Sophie. 2009. “Le journal La Nature et la constitution de la collection de photographie scientifique du Conservatoire des arts et métier.” Documents pour l'histoire des techniques 18:131–149.Google Scholar
Daston, Lorraine, and Galison, Peter. 1992. “The Image of Objectivity.” Representations 40:81–128.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Daston, Lorraine, and Galison, Peter. [2007]2010. Objectivity. New York: Zone Books.Google Scholar
Fleck, Ludwik. [1947]1986. “To Look, to See, to Know.” In Cognition and Fact: Materials on Ludwik Fleck, edited by Cohen, Robert S. and Schnelle, Thomas, 129–151. Dordrecht: D. Reidel.Google Scholar
Fyfe, Gordon, and Law, John, eds. 1988. Picturing Power: Visual Depiction and Social Relations. London/New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Gascoigne, Bamber. 2004. How to Identify Prints: A Complete Guide to Manual and Mechanical Processes from Woodcut to Inkjet, 2nd ed. London: Thames & Hudson.Google Scholar
Hoffmann, Christoph. 2009. “Representing Difference: Ernst Mach's and Peter Salcher's Ballistic-Photographic Experiments, 1886/87.” Endeavour 33 (1):18–23.Google Scholar
Hoffmann, Christoph, and Berz, Peter, eds. 2001. Über Schall: Ernst Machs und Peter Salchers Geschoßfotografien. Göttingen: Wallstein.Google Scholar
Journée, [Félix Albert]. 1888. “Sur la vitesse de propagation du son produit par les armes à feu.” Comptes Rendus Hebdomadaires des Séances de L'Académie des Sciences 106:244–246.Google Scholar
Krehl, Peter. 2009. History of Shock Waves, Explosions and Impact: A Chronological and Biographical Reference. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.Google Scholar
Labouret, [Charles-Marcel de Muret de]. 1888. “Sur la propagation du son produit par les armes à feu.” Comptes Rendus Hebdomadaires des Séances de L'Académie des Sciences 106:934–936.Google Scholar
Latour, Bruno. 1990. “Drawing things together.” In Representation in Scientific Practice, edited by Lynch, Michael and Woolgar, Steve, 19–68. Cambridge MA, London: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Lynch, Michael. 1982. “Technical Work and Critical Inquiry: Investigations in a Scientific Laboratory.” Social Studies of Science 12:499–533.Google Scholar
Lynch, Michael. 1990. “The Externalized Retina: Selection and Mathematization in the Visual Documentation of Objects in the Life Sciences.” In Representation in Scientific Practice, edited by Lynch, Michael and Woolgar, Steve, 153–186. Cambridge MA, London: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Lynch, Michael. 1991. “Science in the Age of Mechanical Reprodution: Moral and Epistemic Relations Between Diagrams and Photographs.” Biology and Philosophy 6:205–226.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lynch, Michael, and Woolgar, Steve, eds. 1990. Representation in Scientific Practice. Cambridge MA, London: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Mach, Ernst. [1882]1898. “On the Economical Nature of Physical Inquiry.” In Popular Scientific Lectures, transl. by McCormack, Thomas J., 186–213. La Salle/Ill.: Open Court.Google Scholar
[Mach, Ernst]. 1886. “[Über die Abbildung der von Projectilen mitgeführten Luftmasse durch Momentphotographie].” Anzeiger der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften [Wien], Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Classe 23, 1886: 136.Google Scholar
Mach, Ernst. 1888a. “Über die Fortpflanzungsgeschwindigkeit des durch scharfe Schüsse erregten Schalles.” Sitzungberichte der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften [Wien], Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Classe 97, Abt. 2a: 1045–1052.Google Scholar
Mach, Ernst. [1888b] 2016. “Remarks on the Scientific Application of Photography.” Science in Context 29:441–442.Google Scholar
Mach, Ernst. 1898. “On Some Phenomena Attending the Flight of Projectiles.” In Popular Scientific Lectures, transl. by McCormack, Thomas J., 309–337. La Salle IL: Open Court.Google Scholar
Mach, Ernst. [1905/5th ed 1926] 1976. Knowledge and Error: Sketches on the Psychology of Enquiry, transl. by McCormack, Thomas J.. Dordrecht, Boston: D. Reidel.Google Scholar
Mach, Ernst, and Mach, Ludwig. 1889. “Weitere ballistisch-photographische Versuche.” Sitzungsberichte der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften [Wien], Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Classe 98, Abt. 2a: 1310–1326.Google Scholar
Mach, Ernst, and Salcher, Peter. 1887. “Photographische Fixirung der durch Projectile in der Luft eingeleiteten Vorgänge.” Sitzungsberichte der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften [Wien], Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Classe 95, Abt. 2: 764–780.Google Scholar
Machamer, Peter, Pera, Marcello, and Baltas, Aristides eds. 2000. Scientific Controversies: Philosophical and Historical Perspectives. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Nasim, Omar W. 2013. Observing by Hand: Sketching the Nebulae in the Nineteenth Century. Chicago, London: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Nowotny, Helga. 1975. “Controversies in Science: Remarks on the Different Modes of Production of Knowledge and their Use.” Zeitschrift für Soziologie 4: 34–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pang, Alex Soojung-Kim. 1997. “‘Stars Should Henceforth Register Themselves’: Astrophotography at the Early Lick Observatory.” British Journal for the History of Science 30:177–202.Google Scholar
Ratcliff, Jessica. 2008. The Transit of Venus Enterprise in Victorian Britain. London: Pickering & Chatto.Google Scholar
Schlich, Thomas. 2000. “Linking Cause and Disease in the Laboratory: Robert Koch's Method of Superimposing Visual and ‘Functional’ Representations of Bacteria.” History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 22:43–58.Google Scholar
Sebert, [Hippolyte]. 1888. “Sur le mode de propagation du son des détonations, d'après les expériences faites au camp de Chàlons par M. le capitaine Journée.” Séances de la Société Française de Physique: 35–61.Google Scholar