Exposing Electronics - Softcover

Finn B

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1900747480 ISBN 13: 9781900747486

Publisher: Science Museum, 2002

Synopsis

It is clear that artifacts have the power to provoke thought, inspire action and arouse passions. There is evidence of this in the ever-increasing number of museums as well as in the ability of those museums to stimulate controversy through exhibits. As a consequence, much has been written analyzing the interaction between objects and museum visitors. Less well recognized, or understood, is the value of objects for historical research. In this series of books we propose to show by example how artifacts can be employed in the study of the history of science and technology in ways ranging from motivating a line of research to providing hard evidence in the solution of an otherwise insoluble problem. The first volume focused on medicine; in this, the second volume, the topic our authors address is electronics. As readers will discover, there is considerable scope in the range of topics and in the range of uses of artifacts. There is also a section that suggests to readers what kind of questions they might consider when they visit electrical exhibits, and where those exhibits are to be found.

This series is sponsored by the Deutsches Museum in Munich, the Science Museum in London, and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, with help from professional historians in other museums and elsewhere.

About this title

Synopsis

This is a book for museum professionals and museology students: for serious historians who want to look beyond their usual documentary sources. It is also for anyone who is intrigued by the electronic devices that are woven into our culture (such as J A Fleming's valve, Earl Bakken's pacemaker or the supercomputers of Seymour Cray) and who sense that they have something to say about their own history. Whilst it is clear that all artefacts have the power to provoke thought, inspire action and arouse passions (as the ability of museum exhibitions to stimulate controversy shows), less well recognised or understood is the value of objects for historical research. In this volume, curators and other historians examine electronic artefacts preserved in collections around the world, demonstrating the manifold ways in which they can be employed in the study of the history of science and technology - for example by motivating a line of research or by providing hard evidence toward the resolution of a hitherto insoluble problem. In addition, there is a section devoted to the process by which electrical items are collected and the museums in which many of them are preserved.

The 'Artefacts' series is sponsored by the Science Museum in London, UK, the Deutsches Museum in Munich, Germany, and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, USA, with help from professional historians in other museums and elsewhere.

Edition details

• Publisher: Science Museum
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1900747480
• ISBN 13: 9781900747486
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 216
• Editor: Finn Bernard S., Bud Robert, Trischler Helmuth