Reckoning with Matter by Matthew L. Jones;

Author:Matthew L. Jones; [Jones, Matthew L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780226411460
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 2016-11-30T06:00:00+00:00

Practice and Politics in Embodying Theoretical Knowledge

Choosing the shape and number of teeth for gears was a central locus in the eighteenth century for the assertion of scientific authority over artisanal activity. While this assertion involved the domestication of new theoretical approaches into concrete artisanal activity, in the Genevan case, it came with calls for a more applied focus for natural philosophical inquiry. Before explaining the proper shape of teeth, the entry on “tooth” in the Encyclopédie explained, “Although machines using teethed wheels have been made for several centuries, Mechanicians have entirely neglected these considerations and left to workers the care of this aspect of the execution of machine, in which they observe no other rule than the teeth of the gears and of the little gears, so that the gearings engage with freedom and without stopping. . . . Although skilled clockmakers have solid enough notions about this question, the true figure of teeth of wheels still remains a sort of problem for them.”20 The Encyclopédie presented the gulf between the mathematical theory of gear shape and the techniques of producing them as an iconic example of the breakdown between natural philosophers and skilled artisans.

In 1778, Stanhope published, in English translation, an account of a machine “for determining the perfect Proportion between different Moveables acting by Levers and Wheel and Pinion” by a Mr. Le Cerf, a Genevan watchmaker. Le Cerf offered a “compass of proportion” that would allow watchmakers to determine the proportions and dimensions of their machines without the complex calculations the best theory required. The device would enable skilled workmen to align themselves with the best theory without necessarily understanding it. “It is to be regretted,” Stanhope wrote, “that the author does not enter into a greater and more minute detail upon the shape of the working-teeth, &c. as this, in my opinion, will, in several cases, materially affect the very simple, general rules which he has elegantly laid down.”21 While Stanhope pointed here to the limits of the theoretical discussion in Le Cerf’s account, the overall point of his translation was to supplant pervasive “arbitrary” practices for calculating the number, size, and shape of teeth with a mechanical device embodying the best sort of theory.22

The instrument and its accompanying treatise stemmed from the effort to reconfigure the relationship between propositional knowledge and practical know-how in Genevan horology. The theoretical superiority of gears with epicycloidal teeth was well known by the late eighteenth century.23 Turning this theoretical fact into knowledge capable of being put into practice epitomized the more general problem of the gap between theory and practicable manufacture. As the author explained, “However beautiful this discovery,” its worth was far less because “it is far easier to recognize the advantages” it makes one hope for “than it is to procure them through execution.”24 Making the theory practical required new instruments that would “make the formation of this curve absolutely mechanical.”25 The treatise and instrument embodied a new social formation bringing together skilled makers and natural philosophers.

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