Location
Age
Area of FocusAbout Peter's Work
Peter Galison is a physicist and a historian of science.
Galison's study of the history of science draws mainly from the events of twentieth-century physics, with a special focus on the interacting subcultures of experimentation, instrumentation, and theory. In his first book, How Experiments End (1987), he explores the impact of laboratory practices on the course of the discipline. In his book, Big Science: The Growth of Large-Scale Research (1992), he traces the increasing technical sophistication of physical apparatus and the impact of this refinement on the nature of scientific collaboration. Borrowing from anthropological research, he introduces the notion of trading zones to experimental physics in order to explain how results from different traditions are shared. Galison is also the author of Image and Logic: A Material Culture of Microphysics (1997) and Einstein’s Clocks, Poincaré’s Maps (2003). He is the co-producer of the documentary film, Ultimate Weapon: The H-Bomb Dilemma (2000).
Biography
Galison is the Mallinckrodt Professor of the History of Science and of Physics at Harvard University. He also served on the faculty of Stanford University (1982-92).
Galison received a B.A. (1977), an M.A. (1977), and a Ph.D. (1983) from Harvard University. He also holds an M.Phil. (1978) from the University of Cambridge.
Last updated January 1, 2005
Published on July 1, 1997
