Author: Charlotte Bigg

Title: Spectroscopic Metrologies

Abstract: Spectroscopy took widely different forms throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the result of the multiple meanings, uses and functions ascribed to spectroscopes and the evidence they produced. Spectroscopic instruments thus became embedded in and contributed to shape fields including chemistry, physics and astrophysics, as well as industrial settings such as the metallurgical or the dye industries, contexts which simultaneously imprinted themselves on the devices, conditioning their use. This process of differentiation of spectroscopy into distinct traditions of scientific practice which coexisted parallel and often independently of each other will be investigated, focussing on two of many strands in the history of spectroscopy: the development of spectrochemical analysis and multi-beam interferometry. I show in particular how the emergence of these traditions was connected to the elaboration of specific metrologies, that is, a set of rules for manipulating the devices, producing and reading data with it common to a particular community of users. The juxtaposition of these traditions further helps bring out not only their respective particularities but also the parallels in their development and the relationship existing between them.