Berkman Luncheon Series >

sep
11
2007

Using Linguistic Anthropology to See How Scientific Disciplines Talk

Peter Galison, Harvard's Department of the History of Science

The Berkman Center kicked off 2007's Luncheon Series with a stimulating presentation from world renowned physicist and professor at Harvard's Department of the History of Science, Peter Galison.

Peter is the Joseph Pellegrino University Professor at Harvard University, as well as a MacArthur Fellow, and used this opportunity to address his work around the de-localized production of scientific knowledge - on the ways in which "trading zones" form at the boundary between different scientific languages and practices.  Peter summarized the kind of work he has done on contemporary, massive, spatially dispersed collaborations in physics experiments, and more recent work on the early telegraph networks that so shaped the early formulation of relativity theory.

If you are wondering how that connects to our work here at the Berkman Center, David Weinberger gives a great summary of the luncheon, especially the Q & A, on his blog and Ethan Zuckerman, provides a great play-by-play and bridge to Berkman work in his own blogpost.