William Henry Bragg in Adelaide

Beginning Research at a Colonial Locality

Bibliographic Data

ID3567271
AuthorsJohn Jenkins (0000-0003-3264-9130), J G Jenkins (corresponding author), J G Jenkin (La Trobe University, corresponding author), John Jenkin
Year2004
Volume95
Issue1
Pages58-90
Publication date2004-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueIsis (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0021-1753 • E-ISSN: 1545-6994
PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1086/423511
PMID15301067
OpenAlexW2054104243
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited24

This essay presents an account of W. H. Bragg's earliest research program in Australia during the years 1904-1907: a study of the behavior of alpha particles from radioactive decay. It is suggested that problems associated with distance and isolation played a pivotal role in Bragg's thinking and acting during this period and that his use of two "advocates," Ernest Rutherford and Frederick Soddy, was essential to the success of the program. It is further argued that this account supports a substantial amendment of the center-periphery model of colonial science to embrace a much closer attention to place and locality; that is, it supports a polycentric model (in which the center might still be prominent

Center (category theory · Locality · Political science · Australian History and Society · Australian Indigenous Culture and History · Chemistry · History of Science and Natural History · Law · Philosophy

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