Thrifty Science: Making the Most of Materials in the History of Experiment

摘要

Thrifty Science takes the reader on a fascinating and novel tour of early modern science, wending its way through homes and gardens, auction houses, and instrument shops. In unpacking notions of thrift-in their many guises of maintenance, repair, repurposing, reuse, and exchange-Werrett asks how early modern scientific practitioners adopted and adapted the materials for their experiments. Here "thrift was as much moral as material" (p. 21) and reflected the way "experimenters were keen to explore a variety of uses of mundane material objects that were ready to hand in order to learn about nature" (p. 16). The book is foremost a contribution to the growing literature on the material culture and practice of science, with an analysis rooted in notions of circulation. At the same time, it speaks eloquently to recent work on the early modern home, convincingly locating many of the thrifty practices of science in ideas of oeconomy and the management of the household. Canonical figures like Robert Boyle, Robert Hooke, and Isaac Newton thus naturally appear, but the focus on the home also opens up a more diverse cast of men and women, including family members and domestic servants, as participants in early modern science.