The Laboratory
Schmidgen, Henning
Central Europe
Western Europe
Education, Sciences
Economy, Technology
215
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530
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The laboratory is an exemplary site of modernity. In it, human and machine, organisms and mechanisms, body and technology combine and contrast with one another in order to produce new scientific facts. However, the beginnings of the laboratory are to be found in the early modern period. In particular, the workshops of alchemists and apothecaries were referred to as laboratories from the 17th century onwards. In the context of the university reforms of the 19th century, laboratories for chemistry, physics and biology increasingly became genuine sites of research. In the process, the distinct laboratory cultures in the various countries enriched each other, but also competed with one another, as the example of Franco-German relations shows. The laboratory and its iconography continue to define our understanding of scientific practice up to the present. At the same time, the laboratory is undergoing a process of dissolution and dispersal, as demonstrated by international macro-projects such as the Human Genome Initiative or the gigantic particle accelerators of current physics research. The laboratory has created history largely as an enclosed space. However, its future appears to be open.
IEG(http://www.ieg-mainz.de)
Lisa Landes
Helmuth Trischler
Niall Williams
2011-08-08
Text
text/html
/en/threads/crossroads/knowledge-spaces/henning-schmidgen-laboratory
urn:nbn:de:0159-2011080805
http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/746841762
EGO(http://www.ieg-ego.eu)
en
1450-1870
Central Europe
Western Europe
CC by-nc-nd Henning Schmidgen