Sean F Johnston
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 1014913 |
|---|---|
| NOME | Sean F Johnston |
| PRENOMES | Sean F |
| SOBRENOME | Johnston |
| ASSINATURA | JOHNSTON S F |
| AFILIAÇÕES | University of Glasgow |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6156-9768 |
| VERIFICADO | Sim |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 24 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 12 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 25 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 1996 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2021 |
| ÍNDICE H | 2 |
Techno-Fixers
Those who have recently published a book looking at the intersection of science, technology, and society must wish that they could have delayed its appearance. As I write this in the summer of 2020, the world is dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic and is looking for a medical fix, a life-saving vaccine. The public’s faith in science and technology has never been higher. Computer “apps” that explore things such as the frequency of, and point of ori…
The Technological Fix as Social Cure-All
In 1966, a well-connected engineer posed a provocative question: will technology solve all our social problems? He seemed to imply that it would, and soon. Even more contentiously, he hinted that engineers could eventually supplant social scientists - and perhaps even policy-makers, lawmakers, and religious leaders - as the best trouble-shooters and problem-solvers for society [1]. The engineer was the Director of Tennessee's Oak Ridge National L…
Alvin Weinberg and the Promotion of the Technological Fix
The term technological fix, coined by technologist/administrator Alvin Weinberg in 1965, vaunted engineering innovation as a generic tool for circumventing problems commonly conceived as social, political, or cultural. A longtime Director of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, government consultant, and essayist, Weinberg also popularized the term big science to describe national goals and the competitive funding environment after the Second World War…
Technological parables and iconic illustrations
This paper traces the role of American technocrats in popularizing the notion later dubbed the ‘technological fix’. Channeled by their long-term ‘chief’, Howard Scott, their claim was that technology always provides the most effective solution to modern social, cultural and political problems. The account focuses on the expression of this technological faith, and how it was proselytized, from the era of high industrialism between the World Wars t…
Holograms
Holograms reached popular consciousness during the 1960s and have since left audiences alternately fascinated, bemused or inspired. Their impact was conditioned by earlier cultural associations and successive reimaginings by wider publics. Attaining peak public visibility during the 1980s, holograms have been found more in our pockets (as identity documents) and in our minds (as video-gaming fantasies and "faux hologram" performers) than in front…
Holograms
Holograms
Patently Contestable
Reviewed by: Patently Contestable: Electrical Technologies and Inventor Identities on Trial in Britain. by Stathis Arapostathis and Graeme Gooday Sean Johnston (bio) Patently Contestable: Electrical Technologies and Inventor Identities on Trial in Britain. by Stathis Arapostathis and Graeme Gooday. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2013. Pp. 294. $40. Disputes over patent rights and the more tenuous notions of “intellectual property” are perennial, as su…
Anne Marcovich and Terry Shinn, Toward a New Dimension
Mechanical to digital printing in Scotland
Mechanical to digital printing in Scotland: the Print Employers' Organisation, by John Gennard, Edinburgh, Scottish Printing Archival Trust, 2010, xxii + 480 pp., illus., £20.00 (paperback), ISBN 9
Security and the shaping of identity for nuclear specialists
Atomic energy developed from 1940 as a subject shrouded in secrecy. Identified successively as a crucial element in military strategy, national status and export aspirations, the research and development of atomic piles (nuclear chain-reactors) were nurtured at isolated installations. Like monastic orders, new national laboratories managed their specialist workers in occupational environments that were simultaneously cosseted and constrained, def…
Pursuing Power and Light
Reviewed by: Pursuing Power and Light: Technology and Physics from James Watt to Albert Einstein Sean F. Johnston (bio) Pursuing Power and Light: Technology and Physics from James Watt to Albert Einstein. By Bruce J. Hunt. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010. Pp. i+182. $45/$20. This short but excellent book provides a history of science and technology intended for undergraduate students, and is well-tailored to explore how technology…
Making the Invisible Engineer Visible
Between 1942 and the late 1950s, atomic piles (nuclear chain-reactors) were industrialized, initially to generate plutonium for the first atomic weapons and later to serve as copious sources of neutrons, radioisotopes and electrical power. These facilities entrained a new breed of engineering specialist adept at designing, operating and maintaining them. From the beginning, large companies supplied the engineering labor for this new technology, a…
Implanting a Discipline
Creating a Canadian Profession
Canada, as one of the three Allied nations collaborating on atomic energy development during the Second World War, had an early start in applying its new knowledge and defining a new profession. Owing to postwar secrecy and distinct national aims for the field, nuclear engineering was shaped uniquely by the Canadian context. Alone among the postwar powers, Canadian exploration of atomic energy eschewed military applications; the occupation emerge…
A Cultural History of the Hologram
The hologram, the novel imaging medium conceived in 1947, underwent a series of technical mutations over the following 50 years. Those successive adaptations altered the form of the medium, broadened its imaging capabilities and promoted wider perceptions of its functions and possibilities. Appropriated by disparate technical communities and presented to varied audiences, the hologram and its cultural meanings evolved dramatically. This paper rel…
Holographic Visions
This is a history of how the new science of holography developed intellectually, socially and culturally. Based on interviews with pioneer holographers and archival research, it shows how science, technology, art and wider culture are entwined in the modern world.
Attributing Scientific and Technological Progress
Holography, the three‐dimensional imaging technology, was portrayed widely as a paradigm of progress during its decade of explosive expansion 1964–73, and during its subsequent consolidation for commercial and artistic uses up to the mid 1980s. An unusually seductive and prolific subject, holography successively spawned scientific insights, putative applications and new constituencies of practitioners and consumers. Waves of forecasts, associated…
Shifting Perspectives
In November 1964, a bemused magazine journalist recorded this scene in a crowded Boston hotel suite
Telling Tales
The history of holography, the technology of three-dimensional imaging that grew rapidly during the 1960s, has been written primarily by its historical actors and, like many new inventions, its concepts and activities became surrounded by myths and myth-making. The first historical account was disseminated by the central character of this paper, George W. Stroke, while a professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Michigan. His claim…
Professional identity and organisation in a technical occupation
The emergence in Britain of chemical engineering, by mid‐century the fourth largest engineering specialism, was a hesitant and drawn out process. This article analyses the organisational politics behind the recognition of the technical occupation and profession from the First World War through to the end of the 1920s. The collective sense of professional identity among nascent ‘chemical engineers’ developed rapidly during this time owing to assoc…
British Society for the History of Science. Report of Council for the year 1996
Objects The primary objective for which the Society is established is to promote and further the study of the history and philosophy of science. Secondary objectives include the provision of facilities, the arrangement of meetings, the promotion of research and the publishing of papers; full details of all the objectives may be found in the Society's Memorandum of Association . Policies The main policy of the Society is to provide the infrastruct…
The Construction of Colorimetry by Committee
The ArgumentThis paper explores the confrontation of physical and contextual factors involved in the emergence of the subject of color measurement, which stabilized in essentially its present form during the interwar period. The contentions surrounding the specialty had both a national and a disciplinary dimension. German dominance was curtailed by American and British contributions after World War I. Particularly in America, communities of physi…
Making Light Work
Light measurement, a hybrid subject straddling science and technology, was shaped by, and in turn shaped, its cultural environment and disparate communities of investigators. This orphan subject, while not the success story commonly singled out for historical analysis, had developmental features that may be common to other twentieth-century subjects
Revisiting the history of relativity
Alvin Weinberg and the Promotion of the Technological Fix
The term technological fix, coined by technologist/administrator Alvin Weinberg in 1965, vaunted engineering innovation as a generic tool for circumventing problems commonly conceived as social, political, or cultural. A longtime Director of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, government consultant, and essayist, Weinberg also popularized the term big science to describe national goals and the competitive funding environment after the Second World War…
The Construction of Colorimetry by Committee
The ArgumentThis paper explores the confrontation of physical and contextual factors involved in the emergence of the subject of color measurement, which stabilized in essentially its present form during the interwar period. The contentions surrounding the specialty had both a national and a disciplinary dimension. German dominance was curtailed by American and British contributions after World War I. Particularly in America, communities of physi…
Holograms
Holograms reached popular consciousness during the 1960s and have since left audiences alternately fascinated, bemused or inspired. Their impact was conditioned by earlier cultural associations and successive reimaginings by wider publics. Attaining peak public visibility during the 1980s, holograms have been found more in our pockets (as identity documents) and in our minds (as video-gaming fantasies and "faux hologram" performers) than in front…
Implanting a Discipline
Shifting Perspectives
In November 1964, a bemused magazine journalist recorded this scene in a crowded Boston hotel suite
Making Light Work
Light measurement, a hybrid subject straddling science and technology, was shaped by, and in turn shaped, its cultural environment and disparate communities of investigators. This orphan subject, while not the success story commonly singled out for historical analysis, had developmental features that may be common to other twentieth-century subjects
The Construction of Colorimetry by Committee
The ArgumentThis paper explores the confrontation of physical and contextual factors involved in the emergence of the subject of color measurement, which stabilized in essentially its present form during the interwar period. The contentions surrounding the specialty had both a national and a disciplinary dimension. German dominance was curtailed by American and British contributions after World War I. Particularly in America, communities of physi…
Making Light Work
Light measurement, a hybrid subject straddling science and technology, was shaped by, and in turn shaped, its cultural environment and disparate communities of investigators. This orphan subject, while not the success story commonly singled out for historical analysis, had developmental features that may be common to other twentieth-century subjects
British Society for the History of Science. Report of Council for the year 1996
Objects The primary objective for which the Society is established is to promote and further the study of the history and philosophy of science. Secondary objectives include the provision of facilities, the arrangement of meetings, the promotion of research and the publishing of papers; full details of all the objectives may be found in the Society's Memorandum of Association . Policies The main policy of the Society is to provide the infrastruct…
Professional identity and organisation in a technical occupation
The emergence in Britain of chemical engineering, by mid‐century the fourth largest engineering specialism, was a hesitant and drawn out process. This article analyses the organisational politics behind the recognition of the technical occupation and profession from the First World War through to the end of the 1920s. The collective sense of professional identity among nascent ‘chemical engineers’ developed rapidly during this time owing to assoc…
Telling Tales
The history of holography, the technology of three-dimensional imaging that grew rapidly during the 1960s, has been written primarily by its historical actors and, like many new inventions, its concepts and activities became surrounded by myths and myth-making. The first historical account was disseminated by the central character of this paper, George W. Stroke, while a professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Michigan. His claim…
Attributing Scientific and Technological Progress
Holography, the three‐dimensional imaging technology, was portrayed widely as a paradigm of progress during its decade of explosive expansion 1964–73, and during its subsequent consolidation for commercial and artistic uses up to the mid 1980s. An unusually seductive and prolific subject, holography successively spawned scientific insights, putative applications and new constituencies of practitioners and consumers. Waves of forecasts, associated…
Shifting Perspectives
In November 1964, a bemused magazine journalist recorded this scene in a crowded Boston hotel suite
Holographic Visions
This is a history of how the new science of holography developed intellectually, socially and culturally. Based on interviews with pioneer holographers and archival research, it shows how science, technology, art and wider culture are entwined in the modern world.
A Cultural History of the Hologram
The hologram, the novel imaging medium conceived in 1947, underwent a series of technical mutations over the following 50 years. Those successive adaptations altered the form of the medium, broadened its imaging capabilities and promoted wider perceptions of its functions and possibilities. Appropriated by disparate technical communities and presented to varied audiences, the hologram and its cultural meanings evolved dramatically. This paper rel…
Implanting a Discipline
Creating a Canadian Profession
Canada, as one of the three Allied nations collaborating on atomic energy development during the Second World War, had an early start in applying its new knowledge and defining a new profession. Owing to postwar secrecy and distinct national aims for the field, nuclear engineering was shaped uniquely by the Canadian context. Alone among the postwar powers, Canadian exploration of atomic energy eschewed military applications; the occupation emerge…
Security and the shaping of identity for nuclear specialists
Atomic energy developed from 1940 as a subject shrouded in secrecy. Identified successively as a crucial element in military strategy, national status and export aspirations, the research and development of atomic piles (nuclear chain-reactors) were nurtured at isolated installations. Like monastic orders, new national laboratories managed their specialist workers in occupational environments that were simultaneously cosseted and constrained, def…
Pursuing Power and Light
Reviewed by: Pursuing Power and Light: Technology and Physics from James Watt to Albert Einstein Sean F. Johnston (bio) Pursuing Power and Light: Technology and Physics from James Watt to Albert Einstein. By Bruce J. Hunt. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010. Pp. i+182. $45/$20. This short but excellent book provides a history of science and technology intended for undergraduate students, and is well-tailored to explore how technology…
Making the Invisible Engineer Visible
Between 1942 and the late 1950s, atomic piles (nuclear chain-reactors) were industrialized, initially to generate plutonium for the first atomic weapons and later to serve as copious sources of neutrons, radioisotopes and electrical power. These facilities entrained a new breed of engineering specialist adept at designing, operating and maintaining them. From the beginning, large companies supplied the engineering labor for this new technology, a…
Mechanical to digital printing in Scotland
Mechanical to digital printing in Scotland: the Print Employers' Organisation, by John Gennard, Edinburgh, Scottish Printing Archival Trust, 2010, xxii + 480 pp., illus., £20.00 (paperback), ISBN 9
Holograms
Patently Contestable
Reviewed by: Patently Contestable: Electrical Technologies and Inventor Identities on Trial in Britain. by Stathis Arapostathis and Graeme Gooday Sean Johnston (bio) Patently Contestable: Electrical Technologies and Inventor Identities on Trial in Britain. by Stathis Arapostathis and Graeme Gooday. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2013. Pp. 294. $40. Disputes over patent rights and the more tenuous notions of “intellectual property” are perennial, as su…
Anne Marcovich and Terry Shinn, Toward a New Dimension
Holograms
Technological parables and iconic illustrations
This paper traces the role of American technocrats in popularizing the notion later dubbed the ‘technological fix’. Channeled by their long-term ‘chief’, Howard Scott, their claim was that technology always provides the most effective solution to modern social, cultural and political problems. The account focuses on the expression of this technological faith, and how it was proselytized, from the era of high industrialism between the World Wars t…
Holograms
Holograms reached popular consciousness during the 1960s and have since left audiences alternately fascinated, bemused or inspired. Their impact was conditioned by earlier cultural associations and successive reimaginings by wider publics. Attaining peak public visibility during the 1980s, holograms have been found more in our pockets (as identity documents) and in our minds (as video-gaming fantasies and "faux hologram" performers) than in front…
The Technological Fix as Social Cure-All
In 1966, a well-connected engineer posed a provocative question: will technology solve all our social problems? He seemed to imply that it would, and soon. Even more contentiously, he hinted that engineers could eventually supplant social scientists - and perhaps even policy-makers, lawmakers, and religious leaders - as the best trouble-shooters and problem-solvers for society [1]. The engineer was the Director of Tennessee's Oak Ridge National L…
Alvin Weinberg and the Promotion of the Technological Fix
The term technological fix, coined by technologist/administrator Alvin Weinberg in 1965, vaunted engineering innovation as a generic tool for circumventing problems commonly conceived as social, political, or cultural. A longtime Director of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, government consultant, and essayist, Weinberg also popularized the term big science to describe national goals and the competitive funding environment after the Second World War…
Techno-Fixers
Those who have recently published a book looking at the intersection of science, technology, and society must wish that they could have delayed its appearance. As I write this in the summer of 2020, the world is dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic and is looking for a medical fix, a life-saving vaccine. The public’s faith in science and technology has never been higher. Computer “apps” that explore things such as the frequency of, and point of ori…
Revisiting the history of relativity
Sociology (18 obras) · Political science (17 obras) · Law (14 obras) · Aesthetics (9 obras) · Philosophy (9 obras) · Physics (9 obras) · Art (8 obras) · Epistemology (8 obras) · History (8 obras) · Computer Science (7 obras)