For thematic volumes

Deadline for submission: 30 september 2023

The call for thematics volumes concerns numbers III-20 to III-23 (submission of texts between December 2024 and June 2026; publication in 2026 and 2027).

Interested colleagues are invited to complete the downloadable document on the “Guide for Authors”.

The Editorial board will respond to the various proposals by November 2023 at the latest. If you have any questions, please contact us cahiers-francois-viete@univ-nantes.fr

For volume III-18

Deadline for submission: 30 april 2023

Title of the volume: « Jacques Roger et l’histoire de la pensée scientifique »

Éditors : Pierre-Olivier Méthot & Angela Ferraro

see French version

For volume III-19

Deadline for submission: 15 september 2023

Title of the volume: « L’optique électronique en France après-guerre »

Éditors : Jérôme Lamy & Frédéric Soulu

Physicists at the end of the 19th century sought to explain the astonishing properties of cathode rays, observing their deviations with magnets, or the projection of the image of a metal object placed in their beam (Thomson, 1897; L'Estrange Turner, 1983; Grivet, 1965). Less than 30 years after the discovery of the electron, Louis de Broglie (1892-1987) proposed to associate a wave with the particle. Hans Busch (1884-1973), then assistant professor at the Institute of Physics at the University of Jena, demonstrated that the action of a glass lens on a light beam and that of a magnetic coil on a beam of electrons were described by the same elementary equation. The theoretical foundations of electronic optics were laid (de Broglie, 1923; Busch, 1926; Hawkes, 2004). Television in the United States of America and electron microscopy in Germany were, however, two techniques empirically developed in the 1930s (Müller, 2008; Abramson, 1987). We propose to consider these different devices through the prism of a historical sociology of science that allows for the genericity of scientific instrumentation (Shinn, 2008).

We wish to grasp the way in which these devices entered laboratories and observatories in post-war France and their effects (epistemic, theoretical, practical) on the scientific fields in which they are mobilized. The challenge is to understand the technical, disciplinary and epistemological ways in which electronic optics came to constitute a fertile field of experience within French science after 1945. The multiplicity of domains covered by electronic optics devices offers, in a new way, a broad view on the instrumental anchoring of scientific disciplines. Specifically, this thematic issue will be an opportunity to analyze the conditions of circulation between different fields (military, physics, astronomy, solid state chemistry, industry) of various electronic optical instruments that emerged after the war.

We will take advantage of the thematic issue to re-examine the socio-epistemic conditions that enabled the emergence of electronic optical instruments, namely physics from the 1930s onward. Through this prism, we wish to re-interrogate previous works (Pestre, 1984, 1999, 2004), on the articulations between theory and instrumental practices, on the thematic developments of physics and on the logics of standardization of the new observation techniques.

The articles in the issue will examine the links that may exist between the various instrumental technologies based on electronic optics (e.g. Gaston Dupouy's electronic microscope or André Lallemand's electronic camera). One of the challenges is to produce a detailed analysis of the laboratories created around these techniques and the practices that result from their implementation in the different disciplines. In particular, it is a question of understanding the different links between disciplines that share the common goal of seeking high-performance instrumentation. We know that instrumental circulation is crucial in the homogenization of disciplines. What about electronic optics, which has the property of involving many fields of investigation? Which specialties benefit from its exploitation? In which research segments has the use of electronic optics remained marginal?

Finally, the issue should make it possible to compare the French situation with that prevailing in the United States of America for similar instruments. We shall endeavor to describe the circulation between Germany, France, England and the United States of America in this field in the post-war period. The exploitation of German science at the end of the Second World War, particularly in the field of electronic optics, has been well studied (Defrance, 2001; O'Reagan, 2014). But what do the transfers of these new instruments between the Allies reveal? The technical instrumental sectors have strong national contingencies. Traditions specific to each country in the use of instruments sometimes conditioned the development of disciplines. What about electronic optics? Were there pathways between countries?

We will rely on original contributions from fellow researchers (45,000 characters), on original interviews with actors in the field, but also on records of heritage instruments (5,000 to 10,000 characters) put into service in the immediate post-war period. The instrumental memory, its formatting, conservation and exhibition are an opportunity to understand how these devices are treated from a museographic point of view. Here again, the diversity of the disciplines concerned as well as the circulation of know-how in physics allow us to question the slow sedimentation of a sometimes monumental instrumental heritage (as is the case in Toulouse for example).

You can send your proposal (title, abstract up to 300 words and brief CV) to Jérôme Lamy and Frédéric Soulu before September 15, 2023, in one of the 4 axes of the thematic issue:

Contributions may be submitted in French or in English, in one of the 4 axes of the thematic issue:

• socio-history and epistemology of French physics between the wars,

• case study of an electronic optics instrument circulating in the disciplines linked to post-war French physics in the scientific or industrial field,

• emergence of electronic optics and circulation in places other than France,

• the legacy of this instrumental efflorescence (contextualized portraits).

CALENDAR

The collection of contributions will take place in three stages:

- Before September 15, 2023: a document of intent will be sent to the editors of the issue (jerome.lamy@laposte.net; frederic.soulu@gmail.com). This text (.doc or .pdf) will explain in 5,000 characters (including spaces) the content of the article by referring to the terms and axes of the call for contributions. The authors will be informed of the admissibility of their proposal during October 2023.

- End of May 2024: for accepted proposals, authors will send their articles (between 30,000 and 50,000 characters, spaces included, list of references not included). Authors⋅e⋅s are asked to take note of the Cahiers François Viète publication charter and to follow the journal's editorial guidelines. As a reminder, the articles will be reviewed by two rapporteurs according to the double-blind procedure.

- May 2025: submission of the finalized articles for publication online and on paper in October 2025.

Abramson Albert (1987), The History of Television. 1881 to 1941, Jefferson, McFarlan.

Broglie Louis de (1923), « Ondes et quanta », Comptes rendus hebdomadaires des séances de l’Académie des sciences, vol. 177, p. 507-510.

Busch Hans (1926), « Berechnung der Bahn von Kathodenstrahlen im axialsymmetrischen elektromagnetischen Felde », Annalen der Physik, vol. 386, n^o 25,‎ p. 973-993.

Defrance Corinne (2001), « La mission du CNRS en Allemagne (1945-1950) », La revue pour l’histoire du CNRS, n° 5, http://journals.openedition.org/histoire-cnrs/3372

Grivet Pierre (1965), Electron Optics, Oxford, Pergamon Press.

Hawkes Peter (2004), « Recent Advances in Electron Optics and Electron Microscopy », Annales de la Fondation Louis de Broglie, vol. 29, Hors série 1, 2004, p. 837-855.

L’Estrange Turner Gerard (1983), Nineteenth-Century Scientific Instruments, Londres, Berkeley, Sotheby Publications, University of California Press, p. 194-196.

Müller Falk (2008), « The Birth of a Modern Instrument and Its Development during World War II: Electron Microscopy in Germany from the 1930s to 1945 », dans A. Maas, H. Hooijmaijers, (éds.), Scientific Research in World War II: What Scientists Did in the War, Londres, Routledge, 2008, p. 121-146. 

O'Reagan Douglas Michael (2014), Science, Technology, and Know-How: Exploitation of German Science and the Challenges of Technology Transfer in the Postwar World, Thesis Dissertation, UC Berkeley, https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3w65f1hm

Pestre Dominique (1984), Physique et physiciens en France, 1918-1940, Paris, Éditions des Archives contemporaines.

Pestre Dominique (1999), « Guerre, renseignement scientifique et reconstruction, France, Allemagne et Grande-Bretagne dans les années 1940 », dans A. Guillerme (éd.), De la diffusion des sciences à l'espionnage industriel xv^e-xx^e siècle : Actes du colloque de Lyon (30-31 mai 1996) de la SFHST. Cahiers d'histoire et de philosophie des sciences n°47, Lyon, ENS Éditions, 1999, p. 183-201. 

Pestre Dominique, « Sciences physiques et recherche industrielle et militaire en France : un changement historique de régime », dans Amy Dahan & Dominique Pestre (éds.), Les sciences pour la guerre 1940-1960, Paris, Éditions de l’École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, p. 317-341.

Shinn Terry (2008), Research-Technology and Cultural Change. Instrumentation, Genericity, Transversality, Oxford, Bardwell.

Thomson J. J. (1897), « XL. Cathode Rays », The London, Edinburgh, and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science, vol. 44, n°269, p. 293-316; Pierre Grivet, Electron optics, Oxford, Pergamon press, 1965.