Instrumentation in the theory and practice of science : scientific instruments as evidence and as aid to discovery / Willem D. Hackmann.
Abstract:
Scientific instruments are indispensable to the gathering of new data and to the verification of hypotheses. Hence, these artefacts should be regarded by the historian interested in scientific development as a valuable source material. The study of scientific instrumentation can take a number of forms, depending on the questions we are trying to answer. Detailed morphological and taxonomic studies can assist with dating, with assigning instruments to particular workshops, with the authentication of doubtful specimens, with determining the output of different workshops and the organization of the instrument-maker's trade, and with elucidating the routes along which technical information was disseminated. Some of these questions may appear more 'antiquarian' than others, but all are relevant in the broad loom of history. We shall examine some of the answers that scientific instruments can give us - but there are also pitfalls of which we have to beware.
Annali dell'Istituto e Museo di storia della scienza di Firenze A. 10, fasc. 1 (1985), p. 87-115