| Description |
1 online resource |
| Contents |
Cover; Contents; List of Illustrations; Abbreviations; 1. Introduction: Commercial Influence on Scientific Knowledge: Entity Realism; Target; Entity realism; Entity realism of social and cultural origin; The structure of the ionosphere in the interwar years; The structure of the Earth's crust; Simplicity; Confluence of traditions; Academic science and corporate science; Organization; PART I IONOSPHERIC PHYSICS AND THE RADIO INDUSTRY; 2. The Realist Interpretation of the Atmosphere; Introduction; Discovery and invention; Pre-1920 conceptualizations of the upper atmosphere |
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As formulated by geomagneticiansAs formulated by radio engineers and physicists; Heaviside-Kennelly layer and atmospheric reflection; Surface diffraction; Eccles' ionic refraction model; Watson's synthesis of reflection and diffraction; Commercial modelling of the upper atmosphere, 1920-1924; The advent of shortwave; The U.S. Navy and the 'skip zone effect'; The Marconi Company's beam system; Marconi engineers' beam tests; Directional wireless: commercial and imperial contexts; Modelling by optical analogy; Eckersley and the detection of sky waves |
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Vertical angle of incidence and elimination of night errorsThe height of the upper layer in measurements on signal strength; Audibility; Influence on physicists circa 1924; Reactions of radio scientists to shortwave; Larmor's ionic refraction theory; AT & T and ionospheric research. A new magneto-ionic refraction theory; Directivity and security: Rivalry between Marconi and the fighting services; Emulation and adaptation; Hypostatization of the ionospheric layer; Appleton's hypostatization; Breit and Tuve's pulse-echo method and beam system; Tuve's critical realism |
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Engineering ends versus scientific endsHypostatization of invention; Operational realism; Conclusion; 3. Epitome of the Realist Interpretation: The Parabolic Model; Introduction; Seeing the layers: Gilliland's automatic ionosphere sounder; Electron density profiles; The valley ambiguity; Appleton's parabolic layer model; Adaptation of knowledge to the necessity for ionospheric prediction; The legitimization of the realist conception; Conclusion; PART II CRUSTAL SEISMOLOGY AND THE AMERICAN OIL INDUSTRY; 4. The Alteration of an Epistemic Paradigm by a Commercial Environment; Introduction |
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Simplicity as an epistemic framework in seismologyThe crust of the Earth as deduced by seismologists before World War II; Emil Wiechert and the Göttingen school; The Mohorovicˇic ́discontinuity; Harold Jeffreys' two-layered model; The theory of propagation of seismic waves; Compositional inference as an ontological attribute; Reservations from Harvard's department of geology; The simplicity postulate; Espousals of simplicity; Keith Edward Bullen; Robert Stoneley; Perry Byerly; Beno Gutenberg; Adaptation of knowledge to a commercial environment |
| Summary |
Did industry and commerce affect the concepts, values and epistemic foundations of different sciences? If so, how and to what extent? This book suggests that the most significant influence of industry on science in the two case studies treated here had to do with the issue of realism. Using wave propagation as the common thread, it simultaneously analyses the emergence of realist attitudes towards the entities of the ionosphere and of the Earth's crust. However, what led physicists and engineers to adopt realist attitudes? This book suggests that a new kind of realism - a realism of social and cultural origins - is the answer: a preliminary, entity realism responding to specific commercial and engineering interests, and a realism that was neither strictly instrumental nor exclusively operational |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index |
| Notes |
Vendor-supplied metadata |
| Subject |
Geophysics -- 20th century
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Realism -- 20th century
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SCIENCE -- Earth Sciences -- General.
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SCIENCE -- Physics -- Geophysics.
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Geophysics
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Realism
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| Form |
Electronic book
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| ISBN |
9780191071386 |
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0191071382 |
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9780191816529 |
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0191816523 |
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