Inventing Temperature Read online

  Chang, Hasok Lecturer in the Department of Science and Technology Studies, University College London

  Inventing Temperature

  Measurement and Scientific Progress

  Publication date 2004 (this edition)

  Print ISBN-10: 0-19-517127-6

  Print ISBN-13: 978-0-19-517127-3

  doi:10.1093/0195171276.001.0001

  Abstract: This book presents the concept of "complementary science" which contributes to scientific knowledge through historical and philosophical investigations. It emphasizes the fact that many simple items of knowledge that we take for granted were actually spectacular achievements obtained only after a great deal of innovative thinking, painstaking experiments, bold conjectures, and serious controversies. Each chapter in the book consists of two parts: a narrative part that states the philosophical puzzle and gives a problem-centred narrative on the historical attempts to solve the puzzle; and the analysis part which provides in-depth analyses of certain scientific, historical, and philosophical aspects of the story.

  Keywords: complementary science, scientific knowledge, history, philosophy of science

  Inventing Temperature

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  Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Science

  General Editor: Paul Humphreys, University of Virginia

  The Book of Evidence

  Peter Achinstein

  Science, Truth, and Democracy

  Philip Kitcher

  The Devil in the Details: Asymptotic Reasoning in Explanation, Reduction, and Emergence

  Robert W. Batterman

  Science and Partial Truth: A Unitary Approach to Models and Scientific Reasoning

  Newton C. A. da Costa and Steven French

  Inventing Temperature: Measurement and Scientific Progress

  Hasok Chang

  end p.ii

  Inventing Temperature

  Measurement and Scientific Progress

  2004

  end p.iii

  Oxford New York

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  Copyright © 2004 by Oxford University Press, Inc.

  Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.

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  Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Chang, Hasok.

  Inventing temperature : measurement and scientific progress / Hasok Chang.

  p. cm.—(Oxford studies in philosophy of science)

  Includes bibliographical references and index.

  ISBN 0-19-517127-6

  1. Temperature measurements—History. 2. Thermometers—History.

  3. Interdisciplinary approach to knowledge. 4. Science—Philosophy.

  I. Title. II. Series.

  QC271.6.C46 2004

  536′.5′0287—dc22 2003058489

  2 4 6 8 9 7 5 3 1

  Printed in the United States of America

  on acid-free paper

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  To my parents

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  Acknowledgments

  As this is my first book, I need to thank not only those who helped me directly with it but also those who helped me become the scholar and person who could write such a book.

  First and foremost I thank my parents, who raised me not only with the utmost love and intellectual and material support but also with the basic values that I have proudly made my own. I would also like to thank them for the faith and patience with which they supported even those of my life decisions that did not fit their own visions and hopes of the best possible life for me.

  While I was studying abroad, there were many generous people who took care of me as if they were my own parents, particularly my aunts and uncles Dr. and Mrs. Young Sik Jang of Plattsburgh, N.Y., and Mr. and Mrs. Chul Hwan Chang of Los Angeles. Similarly I thank my mother-in-law, Mrs. Elva Siglar.

  My brother and sister have not only been loving siblings but emotional and intellectual guiding lights throughout my life. They also had the good sense to marry people just as wonderful as themselves, who have helped me in so many ways. My loving nieces and nephews are also essential parts of this family without whom I would be nothing. In the best Korean tradition, my extended family has also been important, including a remarkable community of intellectual cousins.

  The long list of teachers who deserve the most sincere thanks begins with Mr. Jong-Hwa Lee, my first-grade teacher, who first awakened my love of science. I also thank all the other teachers I had at Hong-Ik Elementary School in Seoul. I would like to record the most special thanks to all of my wonderful teachers at Northfield Mount Hermon School, who taught me to be my own whole person as well as a scholar. To be thanked most directly for their influences on my eventual intellectual path are Glenn Vandervliet and Hughes Pack. Others that I cannot go without mentioning include Jim Antal, Fred Taylor, Yvonne Jones, Vaughn Ausman, Dick and Joy Unsworth, Mary and Bill Compton, Juli and Glenn Dulmage, Bill Hillenbrand, Meg Donnelly, James Block, and the late Young Il Shin. There is something I once promised to say, and I will say it now in case I never achieve

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  anything better than this book in my life: "Northfield Mount Hermon has made all the difference."

  As an undergraduate at Caltech, I was very grateful to be nurtured by the excellent Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences. I would not have become a scholar in the humanities, or even survived college at all, without the tutelage and kindness of the humanists, especially Bruce Cain, Robert Rosenstone, Dan Kevles, Randy Curren, Nicholas Dirks, and Jim Woodward (whom I have the honor of following in the Oxford Studies series). The SURF program at Caltech was also very important. My year away at Hampshire College changed my intellectual life so significantly, and I would like to thank Herbert Bernstein and Jay Garfield particularly.

  I went to Stanford specifically to study with Nancy Cartwright and Peter Galison, and ever since then they have been so much more than Ph.D. advisors to me. They have opened so many doors into the intellectual and social world of academia that I have completely lost count by now. What I did not know to expect when I went to Stanford was that John Dupré would leave such a permanent mark on my thinking. I would also like to thank many other mentors at Stanford including Tim Lenoir, Pat Suppes, Marleen Rozemond, and Stuart Hampshire, as well as my fellow graduate students and the expert administrators who made the Philosophy Department such a perfect place for graduate work.

  Gerald Holton, the most gracious sponsor of my postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard in 1993-94, has taught me more than can be measured during and since that time. My association with him and Nina Holton has been a true privilege. I also thank Joan Laws for all her kindness and helpful expertise during my time at Harvard.

  Many other mentors taught and supported me although they never had any formal obligation to do so. My intellectual life would have been so much poorer had it not been for their generosity. The kind interest expressed by the late Thomas Kuhn was a very special source of strength for the young undergraduate struggling to find his direction. Evelyn Fox Keller showed me how to question science while loving it. Jed Buchwald helped me eno
rmously in my post-Ph.D. education in the history of science and gave me confidence that I could do first-rate history. Alan Chalmers first taught me by his wonderful textbook and later occasioned the first articulation of the intellectual direction embodied in this book. Jeremy Butterfield has helped me at every step of my intellectual and professional development since I arrived in England a decade ago. Sam Schweber has given me the same gentle and generous guidance with which he has blessed so many other young scholars. In similar ways, I also thank Olivier Darrigol, Kostas Gavroglu, Simon Schaffer, Michael Redhead, Simon Saunders, Nick Maxwell, and Marcello Pera.

  To all of my colleagues at the Department of Science and Technology Studies (formerly History and Philosophy of Science) at University College London, I owe sincere thanks for a supportive and stimulating interdisciplinary environment. In an approximate order of seniority within the department, the permanent members are: Piyo Rattansi, Arthur Miller, Steve Miller, Jon Turney, Brian Balmer, Joe Cain, Andrew Gregory, and Jane Gregory. I also want to thank our dedicated administrators who have put so much of their lives into the department, especially Marina

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  Ingham and Beck Hurst. I would also like to thank Alan Lord and Jim Parkin for their kindness and guidance.

  My academic life in London has also been enriched by numerous associations outside my own department. A great source of support and intellectual stimulation has been the Centre for the Philosophy of the Natural and Social Sciences at the London School of Economics. I would like to thank especially my co-organizers of the measurement project: Nancy Cartwright, Mary Morgan, and Carl Hoefer. This project also allowed me to work with collaborators and assistants who helped with various parts of this book. I would also like to thank my colleagues in the London Centre for the History of Science, Medicine and Technology, who helped me complete my education as a historian, particularly Joe Cain, Andy Warwick, David Edgerton, Janet Browne, and Lara Marks.

  Many other friends and colleagues helped me nurture this brain-child of mine as would good aunts and uncles. Among those I would like to note special thanks to Sang Wook Yi, Nick Rasmussen, Felicia McCarren, Katherine Brading, Amy Slaton, Brian Balmer, Marcel Boumans, Eleonora Montuschi, and Teresa Numerico.

  There are so many other friends who have helped enormously with my general intellectual development, although they did not have such a direct influence on the writing of this book. Among those I must especially mention: the late Seung-Joon Ahn and his wonderful family, Sung Ho Kim, Amy Klatzkin, Deborah and Phil McKean, Susannah and Paul Nicklin, Wendy Lynch and Bill Bravman, Jordi Cat, Elizabeth Paris, Dong-Won Kim, Sungook Hong, Alexi Assmus, Mauricio Suárez, Betty Smocovitis, David Stump, Jessica Riskin, Sonja Amadae, Myeong Seong Kim, Ben Harris, Johnson Chung, Conevery Bolton, Celia White, Emily Jernberg, and the late Sander Thoenes.

  I must also give my hearty thanks to all of my students who taught me by allowing me to teach them, especially those whom I have come to regard as dear friends and intellectual equals rather than mere former students. Among that large number are, in the order in which I had the good fortune to meet them and excluding those who are still studying with me: Graham Lyons, Guy Hussey, Jason Rucker, Grant Fisher, Andy Hammond, Thomas Dixon, Clint Chaloner, Jesse Schust, Helen Wickham, Alexis de Greiff, Karl Galle, Marie von Mirbach-Harff, and Sabina Leonelli. They have helped me maintain my faith that teaching is the ultimate purpose of my career.

  Over the years I received gratefully occasional and more than occasional help on various aspects of this project from numerous other people. I cannot possibly mention them all, but they include (in alphabetical order): Rachel Ankeny, Theodore Arabatzis, Diana Barkan, Matthias Dörries, Robert Fox, Allan Franklin, Jan Golinski, Graeme Gooday, Roger Hahn, Rom Harré, John Heilbron, Larry Holmes, Keith Hutchison, Frank James, Catherine Kendig, Mi-Gyung Kim, David Knight, Chris Lawrence, Cynthia Ma, Michela Massimi, Everett Mendelsohn, Marc-Georges Nowicki, Anthony O'Hear, John Powers, Stathis Psillos, Paddy Ricard, George Smith, Barbara Stepansky, Roger Stuewer, George Taylor, Thomas Uebel, Rob Warren, Friedel Weinert, Jane Wess, Emily Winterburn, and Nick Wyatt.

  Various institutions have also been crucial in supporting this work. I could have not completed the research and writing without a research fellowship from the

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  Leverhulme Trust, whom I thank most sincerely. I would like to thank the helpful librarians, archivists, and curators at many places including the following, as well as the institutions themselves: the British Library, the London Science Museum and its Library, University College London, Harvard University, Yale University, the Royal Society, the University of Cambridge, and the National Maritime Museum.

  This book would not have come into being without crucial and timely interventions from various people. The project originated in the course of my postdoctoral work with Gerald Holton. Peter Galison initially recommended the manuscript for the Oxford Studies in the Philosophy of Science. Mary Jo Nye made a crucial structural suggestion. Three referees for Oxford University Press provided very helpful comments that reoriented the book substantially and productively, as well as helped me refine various details. Carl Hoefer and Jeremy Butterfield provided much-needed last-minute advice. Paul Humphreys, the series editor, encouraged me along for several years and guided the improvement of the manuscript with great patience and wisdom. Peter Ohlin and Bob Milks directed the process of reviewing, manuscript preparation, and production with kind and expert attention. Lynn Childress copyedited the manuscript with meticulous and principled care.

  Finally, I would like to record my deep thanks to Gretchen Siglar for her steadfast love and genuine interest in my work, with which she saw me through all the years of labor on this project as well as my life in general.

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  Contents

  Note on Translation xv

  Chronology xvii

  Introduction 3

  1.

  Keeping the Fixed Points Fixed 8

  Narrative: What to Do When Water Refuses to Boil at the Boiling Point 8

  Blood, Butter, and Deep Cellars: The Necessity and Scarcity of Fixed Points 8

  The Vexatious Variations of the Boiling Point 11

  Superheating and the Mirage of True Ebullition 17

  Escape from Superheating 23

  The Understanding of Boiling 28

  A Dusty Epilogue 35

  Analysis: The Meaning and Achievement of Fixity 39

  The Validation of Standards: Justificatory Descent 40

  The Iterative Improvement of Standards: Constructive Ascent 44

  The Defense of Fixity: Plausible Denial and Serendipitous Robustness 48

  The Case of the Freezing Point 53

  2.

  Spirit, Air, and Quicksilver 57

  Narrative: The Search for the "Real" Scale of Temperature 57

  The Problem of Nomic Measurement 57

  De Luc and the Method of Mixtures 60

  Caloric Theories against the Method of Mixtures 64

  The Calorist Mirage of Gaseous Linearity 69

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  Regnault: Austerity and Comparability 74

  The Verdict: Air over Mercury 79

  Analysis: Measurement and Theory in the Context of Empiricism 84

  The Achievement of Observability, by Stages 84

  Comparability and the Ontological Principle of Single Value 89

  Minimalism against Duhemian Holism 92

  Regnault and Post-Laplacian Empiricism 96

  3.

  To Go Beyond 103

  Narrative: Measuring Temperature When Thermometers Melt and Freeze 103

  Can Mercury Be Frozen? 104

  Can Mercury Tell Us Its Own Freezing Point? 107

  Consolidating the Freezing Point of Mercury 113

  Adventures of a Scientific Potter 118

  It Is Temperature, but Not As We Know It? 123

  Ganging Up on Wedgwood 128

  Analysis: The Extension of Concepts be
yond Their Birth Domains 141

  Travel Advisory from Percy Bridgman 142

  Beyond Bridgman: Meaning, Definition, and Validity 148

  Strategies for Metrological Extension 152

  Mutual Grounding as a Growth Strategy 155