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Stories and silences in modern physics collections: an object biography approach

Boyle, Alison; (2020) Stories and silences in modern physics collections: an object biography approach. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London). Green open access

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Abstract

This thesis explores aspects of how modern physics has been collected and displayed in the UK over the (long) 20th century, with a particular focus on the national collections in the Science Museum, London. The emergence and establishment of ‘modern physics’ roughly overlaps with the development of distinct science and technology museums. This provides an opportunity to explore how the presentation of modern physics through its material culture has been shaped by a variety of factors including scientists’ own narratives of their professional identities, institutional and museological trends and state priorities. My methodology takes an object biography approach, informed by S.J.M.M. Alberti’s 2005 call to explore objects in museums. Looking beyond (or behind) the displays allows us to take a longer view away from the particular constraints of individual exhibitions, offering a glimpse into how various publics – in museums and elsewhere – encountered artefacts of modern physics. By combining close-up object inspections with archival sources, the thesis follows the stories of a variety of object types: equipment associated with famous experiments, models made for industry displays, components of large-scale scientific infrastructure, and everyday lab and teaching equipment. These are tracked through the worlds of professional physics and public displays. In addition to exploring objects’ stories I also explore silences: considering aspects of modern physics which have not been well-represented in museum displays, whether due to deliberate omission or not being suited to the medium of object collections. I also examine forgotten objects, languishing in museum storage, as a test of the object biography approach. Exploring silences allows for a consideration of agnotology in museums, asking whether the construction of ignorance might have novel applications for artefacts and museums, which have mainly been studied in terms of the construction of knowledge.

Type: Thesis (Doctoral)
Qualification: Ph.D
Title: Stories and silences in modern physics collections: an object biography approach
Event: UCL (University College London)
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
Language: English
Additional information: Copyright © The Author 2020. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request.
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences > Dept of Science and Technology Studies
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10113201
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