The sociological turn in the history of science: Review of a conference on ‘Experimentalkulturen’, Berlin, December 2001

Abstract An experiment is an empirical test conducted in a laboratory to prove or disprove a hypothesis. So your science teacher taught you. Recent work in the history of science, however, shows that science is rarely disciplined in such a Boylean manner. Experimentation instead is a process of exploration, in which experimenters frequently have no idea what the outcome will be. The laboratory might actually be a room set apart for scientific purposes, but into that room are brought objects from daily life, technological gadgets designed with no scientific purpose in mind, and the thorougly unscientific concerns and dispositions of observers and participants alike.