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  • 7 - Galvanometers and the Many Lives of Scientific Instruments

  • Edited by Joshua Nall, University of Cambridge, Liba Taub, University of Cambridge, Frances Willmoth, University of Cambridge
  • Book:
    The Whipple Museum of the History of Science
    Published online:
    19 August 2019
    Print publication:
    22 August 2019, pp 159-186
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  • Summary

    Electrical measuring tools now epitomise ‘black-boxed’ technologies. Since the second half of the nineteenth century, ammeters and voltmeters have been developed that the user could apparently simply connect up to their electrical circuitry and read off a number giving them a measure of current or voltage. In this paper we illustrate what can be learnt by getting inside such black boxes. Museum collections, in particular, constitute tangible traces of how what is now black-boxed has developed. By analysing instruments carefully, in particular galvanometers, this chapter interrogates the craft of both instrument maker and user, some of the different types of user whose practices are embodied in the instruments, and the lessons we can learn from a close look at instruments and collecting practices.