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SUMMARY:Toward an integrated socio-epistemic narrative of the history of 
 20th century physics
DTSTART:20180530T090000
DTEND:20180530T094500
DTSTAMP:20260916T041426Z
UID:16cb1e1970ac90e8a4abc2ad9b6d088ac1aabc616ce12d0da4c58e16
CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars
DESCRIPTION:Roberto Lalli\, Max Planck Institute for the History of Scien
 ce\, Berlin\nOne of the most recurring questions in the historiography of
  modern physics is how to address the dichotomy of universalism and conte
 xtualism in the exact sciences: while\, on the one hand\, exact sciences a
 spire to universality by virtue of their rigorous formal and experimental 
 methods\, on the other hand\, like any human activity\, they depend on sit
 uated historical and political contexts. How to tackle this question\, bot
 h from the conceptual and methodological standpoints\, has tremendous impa
 cts on the narrative historians are able to reconstruct. \nIn the talk\, 
 I will present two of my current projects in order to show the advantage o
 f developing historical narratives that fully integrate the social and epi
 stemic aspects of science. The first is the momentous return of Einstein
 ’s theory of gravitation to the mainstream of physics in the post-WWII p
 eriod\, which has become known as the “renaissance of general relativity
 .” The second is the evolution of the refereeing practices employed by 
 The Physical Review in a period of tremendous social transformations of t
 he American physics community during the 1930s. \nI will conclude the pre
 sentation by discussing future research plans. It is proposed a new method
 ological approach based on the development and employment of concepts and 
 tools of multi-level network analysis as powerful ways for modeling the hi
 storical dynamics of interconnected networks of very different nature (soc
 ial\, material\, conceptual). This approach—combined with other digital 
 humanities tools and traditional methods of the historian’s toolkit—wi
 ll be applied to examine the history of international\, nongovernmental sc
 ientific institutions\, such as the International Union for Pure and Appli
 ed Physics and the European Physical Society\, with a twofold goal: to und
 erstand how political and scientific factors shaped the activities of thes
 e institutions and\, in turn\, to elucidate the role such institutions pla
 yed in the evolution of 20thcentury physics. \n\nRoberto Lalli is a hist
 orian of modern physical sciences whose work focuses on the interconnectio
 ns between social and epistemic factors in the production and circulation 
 of novel products in theoretical physics as well as in the international s
 tandardization of scientific practices during the 20thcentury. After havin
 g received a master degree in physics (2007)\, Roberto Lalli earned a PhD 
 in International History at the University of Milan in 20011 with a disser
 tation on the controversial reception of relativity theories in France and
  the US. From 2011 to 2013\, he has been a postdoctoral fellow at the STS 
 Program of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology under the supervision
  of David Kaiser. Since 2013 he is Research Scholar at the Department I of
  the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin. He has bee
 n a visiting researcher and lecturer in various international institutions
 \, including the Center for the History of Physics of the American Institu
 te of Physics\, the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute\, the Research Program on
  the History of the Max Planck Society\, and the Technical University of B
 erlin. Roberto Lalli has published extensively on the history of relativit
 y theories\, on the inter-national and inter-institutional transfer of qua
 ntum theory\, and on the evolution of editorial practices in physics publi
 shing. Currently\, he is elaborating new methodologies based on the concep
 ts and tools of the network theory in order to jointly analyze the evoluti
 on of knowledge in physics\, the creation of transnational scientific comm
 unities and the developments of scientific institutions.\n 
LOCATION:BC 420 https://plan.epfl.ch/?room==BC%20420
STATUS:CONFIRMED
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