W Patrick Mccray
Biographic Data
| ID | 1047795 |
|---|---|
| NAME | W Patrick Mccray |
| GIVEN NAMES | W Patrick |
| FAMILY NAME | Mccray |
| SIGNATURE | MCCRAY W P |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of California, Santa Barbara |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 21 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 27 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 21 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2000 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
HSS, the FBI, and the Unabomber
In the mid-1990s, efforts to identify the Unabomber brought HSS and the FBI into a brief collaborative relationship until the 1996 arrest of Theodore Kaczynski. This article explores this strange syzygy of organizations and individuals. In doing so, it considers Kaczynski's own writings about science and technology—most notably, his 1995 manifesto “Industrial Society and Its Future”—and places this against a backdrop of scholarly and popular writ…
Arte Programmata: Freedom, Control, and the Computer in 1960s Italy by Lindsay Caplan
Reviewed by: Arte Programmata: Freedom, Control, and the Computer in 1960s Italy by Lindsay Caplan W. Patrick McCray (bio) Arte Programmata: Freedom, Control, and the Computer in 1960s Italy By Lindsay Caplan. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2022. Pp. 312. In the 1960s, an array of art-and-technology projects, exhibitions, and collaborations burst forth from artists' workshops, corporate laboratories, and museum galleries in the Unite…
Art Out of Order: Jack Burnham, the 1970 Software Show, and the Aesthetics of Information Systems
In 1970, curator Jack Burnham debuted the lavish exhibition Software at the Jewish Museum in New York. Conceptual artists displayed information-oriented pieces, while technical experts deployed computers, image-making, and multimedia technology in their works. Burnham's goal was to showcase contemporary techniques of computer-based command and control, allowing viewers to respond in real time to the "programmatic situations" artists presented. Wh…
D aniel B elgrad . The Culture of Feedback: Ecological Thinking in Seventies America
It is challenging to explain the sensibility of an era in a few catchwords. Capturing an entire culture is even more challenging. Daniel Belgrad first took on this task in his 1999 book The Culture of Spontaneity, which described the avant-garde worlds of art and music in the 1950s through the lens of improvisation and impulsiveness. In his newest book, he turns his eye to the 1970s (a time period Belgrad generously extends from 1963 to 1983). In…
Technocrats of the Imagination: Art, Technology, and the Military-Industrial Avant-Garde by John Beck and Ryan Bishop
Reviewed by: Technocrats of the Imagination: Art, Technology, and the Military-Industrial Avant-Garde by John Beck and Ryan Bishop W. Patrick McCray (bio) Technocrats of the Imagination: Art, Technology, and the Military-Industrial Avant-Garde By John Beck and Ryan Bishop. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2020. Pp. 240. Fifty years ago, the art world experienced an invigorating wave of projects, programs, and exhibitions connecting engineers, a…
Futures Perfect and Visioneering: A Re-Assessment
Of Gravity and Geese
June 01 2017 Of Gravity and Geese W. Patrick McCray W. Patrick McCray Professor of HistoryUniversity of California, Santa Barbara, CA, U.S.A., Email: [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Author and Article Information W. Patrick McCray Professor of HistoryUniversity of California, Santa Barbara, CA, U.S.A., Email: [email protected] Online Issn: 1530-9282 Print Issn: 0024-094X ©2017 ISA…
The Biggest Data of All: Making and Sharing a Digital Universe
Throughout the twentieth century, astronomers moved from and between different data-collection regimes, from the photographic to the electronic and, finally, to the born-digital era. At the same time, the focus of scientific discovery shifted away from the telescope itself to the hard drive, the database, and digital archives. This essay builds on the assumption that the sharing and circulation of astronomical data—as with other kinds of scientif…
Groovy Science: Knowledge, Innovation, and American Counterculture
Groovy Science: Knowledge, Innovation, and American Counterculture
How Astronomers Digitized the Sky
Starting in the 1960s, astronomers' analog view of the universe gradually transformed as scientists and engineers introduced digital computers, electronic detectors, and magnetic recording media into observatory domes and laboratories. The advantages of this were considerable: once the underlying technical architecture and social practices were in place, digital data can be more easily analyzed, manipulated, transported, and communicated. As they…
Globalization with hardware’: Iter’s fusion of technology, policy, and politics
This article explores the history of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), a fusion energy megaproject currently being built in southern France. It examines three main aspects of the project’s history, focusing largely on the European research community’s perspective. First, it explores how European scientists and science managers constructed a transnational research community around fusion energy after 1960 that was part o…
From Lab to iPod: A Story of Discovery and Commercialization in the Post–Cold War Era
The 1988 discovery, made simultaneously in two European laboratories, of giant magnetoresistance (GMR) became the basis for the Nobel prize in physics two decades later. Companies like IBM rapidly commercialized the discovery, which paved the way for major advances in data storage commonly seen in computers and portable music players. GMR also helped catalyze a new field of research known as “spintronics” and provided a rationale for a major glob…
The Telescope: Its History, Technology, and Future (review)
Reviewed by: The Telescope: Its History, Technology, and Future W. Patrick McCray (bio) The Telescope: Its History, Technology, and Future. By Geoff Andersen. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2007. Pp. 248. $29.95. Historians and astronomers have something important in common. Both endeavor to interpret past events on the basis of evidence that has survived to the present. But rather than uncovering the past in archives and via oral h…
A Scientist Who Knew Sin
Each year I teach an undergraduate course called “The History of the Atomic Age.” One of the perennial challenges is to explain, without resorting to simplification and stereotype, J. Robert Oppenheimer, the charismatic and enigmatic scientist who famously remarked after Hiroshima and Nagasaki that “the physicists have known sin.” Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin’s excellent new biography of Oppenheimer goes a long way in detailing the life—profession…
Anthropological Research at the UCSB Center for Nanotechnology in Society
On Oct 6, 2005, the National Science Foundation announced its new awards under the Nanotechnology in Society initiative. Their banner headline read "New Grants Are Awarded to Inform the Public and Explore the Implications of Nanotechnology", in an effort to "...greatly expand efforts to inform the general public about nanotechnology, and to explore the implications of that fast-moving field for society as a whole" (NSF 2005). Two new Nanoscale Sc…
Viewing America's Bomb Culture: The Atomic Testing Museum. Las Vegas,Nevada
Amateur Scientists, the International Geophysical Year, and the Ambitions of Fred Whipple
The contribution of amateur scientists to the International Geophysical Year (IGY) was substantial, especially in the arena of spotting artificial satellites. This article examines how Fred L. Whipple and his colleagues recruited satellite spotters for Moonwatch, a program for amateur scientists initiated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) in 1956. At the same time, however, the administrators with responsibility for the IGY progr…
Will small be beautiful? Making policies for our nanotech future
With the passage of the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) in 2000, US investment in nanotechnology research and development soared quickly to almost US$1 billion annually. The NNI emerged at a salient point in US history as lawmakers worked to reshape national science policies in response to growing international economic competition and the increasing commercialization of academic science. This paper examines how advocates of nanotechnolo…
Forum
Large Telescopes and the Moral Economy of Recent Astronomy
If they are successfully to carry out a research programme, astronomers need two crucial resources - access to telescopes, and sufficient time allocated on them to make observations and collect data. This paper employs the concept of the `moral economy' - the unwritten expectations and traditions that regulate and structure a community - as an analytical model to examine how astronomers and science managers allocate resources. I use the example o…
Amateur Scientists, the International Geophysical Year, and the Ambitions of Fred Whipple
The contribution of amateur scientists to the International Geophysical Year (IGY) was substantial, especially in the arena of spotting artificial satellites. This article examines how Fred L. Whipple and his colleagues recruited satellite spotters for Moonwatch, a program for amateur scientists initiated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) in 1956. At the same time, however, the administrators with responsibility for the IGY progr…
Large Telescopes and the Moral Economy of Recent Astronomy
If they are successfully to carry out a research programme, astronomers need two crucial resources - access to telescopes, and sufficient time allocated on them to make observations and collect data. This paper employs the concept of the `moral economy' - the unwritten expectations and traditions that regulate and structure a community - as an analytical model to examine how astronomers and science managers allocate resources. I use the example o…
From Lab to iPod: A Story of Discovery and Commercialization in the Post–Cold War Era
The 1988 discovery, made simultaneously in two European laboratories, of giant magnetoresistance (GMR) became the basis for the Nobel prize in physics two decades later. Companies like IBM rapidly commercialized the discovery, which paved the way for major advances in data storage commonly seen in computers and portable music players. GMR also helped catalyze a new field of research known as “spintronics” and provided a rationale for a major glob…
How Astronomers Digitized the Sky
Starting in the 1960s, astronomers' analog view of the universe gradually transformed as scientists and engineers introduced digital computers, electronic detectors, and magnetic recording media into observatory domes and laboratories. The advantages of this were considerable: once the underlying technical architecture and social practices were in place, digital data can be more easily analyzed, manipulated, transported, and communicated. As they…
Futures Perfect and Visioneering: A Re-Assessment
The Biggest Data of All: Making and Sharing a Digital Universe
Throughout the twentieth century, astronomers moved from and between different data-collection regimes, from the photographic to the electronic and, finally, to the born-digital era. At the same time, the focus of scientific discovery shifted away from the telescope itself to the hard drive, the database, and digital archives. This essay builds on the assumption that the sharing and circulation of astronomical data—as with other kinds of scientif…
Viewing America's Bomb Culture: The Atomic Testing Museum. Las Vegas,Nevada
Forum
Large Telescopes and the Moral Economy of Recent Astronomy
If they are successfully to carry out a research programme, astronomers need two crucial resources - access to telescopes, and sufficient time allocated on them to make observations and collect data. This paper employs the concept of the `moral economy' - the unwritten expectations and traditions that regulate and structure a community - as an analytical model to examine how astronomers and science managers allocate resources. I use the example o…
Will small be beautiful? Making policies for our nanotech future
With the passage of the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) in 2000, US investment in nanotechnology research and development soared quickly to almost US$1 billion annually. The NNI emerged at a salient point in US history as lawmakers worked to reshape national science policies in response to growing international economic competition and the increasing commercialization of academic science. This paper examines how advocates of nanotechnolo…
A Scientist Who Knew Sin
Each year I teach an undergraduate course called “The History of the Atomic Age.” One of the perennial challenges is to explain, without resorting to simplification and stereotype, J. Robert Oppenheimer, the charismatic and enigmatic scientist who famously remarked after Hiroshima and Nagasaki that “the physicists have known sin.” Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin’s excellent new biography of Oppenheimer goes a long way in detailing the life—profession…
Anthropological Research at the UCSB Center for Nanotechnology in Society
On Oct 6, 2005, the National Science Foundation announced its new awards under the Nanotechnology in Society initiative. Their banner headline read "New Grants Are Awarded to Inform the Public and Explore the Implications of Nanotechnology", in an effort to "...greatly expand efforts to inform the general public about nanotechnology, and to explore the implications of that fast-moving field for society as a whole" (NSF 2005). Two new Nanoscale Sc…
Viewing America's Bomb Culture: The Atomic Testing Museum. Las Vegas,Nevada
Amateur Scientists, the International Geophysical Year, and the Ambitions of Fred Whipple
The contribution of amateur scientists to the International Geophysical Year (IGY) was substantial, especially in the arena of spotting artificial satellites. This article examines how Fred L. Whipple and his colleagues recruited satellite spotters for Moonwatch, a program for amateur scientists initiated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) in 1956. At the same time, however, the administrators with responsibility for the IGY progr…
The Telescope: Its History, Technology, and Future (review)
Reviewed by: The Telescope: Its History, Technology, and Future W. Patrick McCray (bio) The Telescope: Its History, Technology, and Future. By Geoff Andersen. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2007. Pp. 248. $29.95. Historians and astronomers have something important in common. Both endeavor to interpret past events on the basis of evidence that has survived to the present. But rather than uncovering the past in archives and via oral h…
From Lab to iPod: A Story of Discovery and Commercialization in the Post–Cold War Era
The 1988 discovery, made simultaneously in two European laboratories, of giant magnetoresistance (GMR) became the basis for the Nobel prize in physics two decades later. Companies like IBM rapidly commercialized the discovery, which paved the way for major advances in data storage commonly seen in computers and portable music players. GMR also helped catalyze a new field of research known as “spintronics” and provided a rationale for a major glob…
Globalization with hardware’: Iter’s fusion of technology, policy, and politics
This article explores the history of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), a fusion energy megaproject currently being built in southern France. It examines three main aspects of the project’s history, focusing largely on the European research community’s perspective. First, it explores how European scientists and science managers constructed a transnational research community around fusion energy after 1960 that was part o…
How Astronomers Digitized the Sky
Starting in the 1960s, astronomers' analog view of the universe gradually transformed as scientists and engineers introduced digital computers, electronic detectors, and magnetic recording media into observatory domes and laboratories. The advantages of this were considerable: once the underlying technical architecture and social practices were in place, digital data can be more easily analyzed, manipulated, transported, and communicated. As they…
Groovy Science: Knowledge, Innovation, and American Counterculture
Groovy Science: Knowledge, Innovation, and American Counterculture
Futures Perfect and Visioneering: A Re-Assessment
Of Gravity and Geese
June 01 2017 Of Gravity and Geese W. Patrick McCray W. Patrick McCray Professor of HistoryUniversity of California, Santa Barbara, CA, U.S.A., Email: [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Author and Article Information W. Patrick McCray Professor of HistoryUniversity of California, Santa Barbara, CA, U.S.A., Email: [email protected] Online Issn: 1530-9282 Print Issn: 0024-094X ©2017 ISA…
The Biggest Data of All: Making and Sharing a Digital Universe
Throughout the twentieth century, astronomers moved from and between different data-collection regimes, from the photographic to the electronic and, finally, to the born-digital era. At the same time, the focus of scientific discovery shifted away from the telescope itself to the hard drive, the database, and digital archives. This essay builds on the assumption that the sharing and circulation of astronomical data—as with other kinds of scientif…
Technocrats of the Imagination: Art, Technology, and the Military-Industrial Avant-Garde by John Beck and Ryan Bishop
Reviewed by: Technocrats of the Imagination: Art, Technology, and the Military-Industrial Avant-Garde by John Beck and Ryan Bishop W. Patrick McCray (bio) Technocrats of the Imagination: Art, Technology, and the Military-Industrial Avant-Garde By John Beck and Ryan Bishop. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2020. Pp. 240. Fifty years ago, the art world experienced an invigorating wave of projects, programs, and exhibitions connecting engineers, a…
D aniel B elgrad . The Culture of Feedback: Ecological Thinking in Seventies America
It is challenging to explain the sensibility of an era in a few catchwords. Capturing an entire culture is even more challenging. Daniel Belgrad first took on this task in his 1999 book The Culture of Spontaneity, which described the avant-garde worlds of art and music in the 1950s through the lens of improvisation and impulsiveness. In his newest book, he turns his eye to the 1970s (a time period Belgrad generously extends from 1963 to 1983). In…
Art Out of Order: Jack Burnham, the 1970 Software Show, and the Aesthetics of Information Systems
In 1970, curator Jack Burnham debuted the lavish exhibition Software at the Jewish Museum in New York. Conceptual artists displayed information-oriented pieces, while technical experts deployed computers, image-making, and multimedia technology in their works. Burnham's goal was to showcase contemporary techniques of computer-based command and control, allowing viewers to respond in real time to the "programmatic situations" artists presented. Wh…
Arte Programmata: Freedom, Control, and the Computer in 1960s Italy by Lindsay Caplan
Reviewed by: Arte Programmata: Freedom, Control, and the Computer in 1960s Italy by Lindsay Caplan W. Patrick McCray (bio) Arte Programmata: Freedom, Control, and the Computer in 1960s Italy By Lindsay Caplan. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2022. Pp. 312. In the 1960s, an array of art-and-technology projects, exhibitions, and collaborations burst forth from artists' workshops, corporate laboratories, and museum galleries in the Unite…
HSS, the FBI, and the Unabomber
In the mid-1990s, efforts to identify the Unabomber brought HSS and the FBI into a brief collaborative relationship until the 1996 arrest of Theodore Kaczynski. This article explores this strange syzygy of organizations and individuals. In doing so, it considers Kaczynski's own writings about science and technology—most notably, his 1995 manifesto “Industrial Society and Its Future”—and places this against a backdrop of scholarly and popular writ…
Political science (9 works) · Computer Science (7 works) · History (7 works) · Law (7 works) · Sociology (7 works) · Art (6 works) · Art history (6 works) · History and Developments in Astronomy (6 works) · Physics (6 works) · Engineering (5 works)