Providing Evidence: C.A. Coulomb’s “Balance Électrique” and the Culture of French Enlightened Rationality

Charles A. Coulomb, “Premier memoire sur l’electricite et le magnetism” (1785), in Memoires de l’Academie des Sciences (Paris: 1788), 569–577; “Second memoire sur l’ectricite et la magnetism” (1785), in Memoires de l’Academie des Sciences (Paris: 1788), 578–611, see also, “Recherches theoretiques et experimentales sur la force de torsion, et sur l’ectricite des fils de metal” (1784), in Memoires de l’Academie des Sciences (Paris: 1787), 229–268.

The expression reworking experiments refers to a historigraphic approach called “Experimental History of Science”, which uses the building of replicas of historical apparatus and the performance of the experiment with the replica as a complementary heuristic method. Sibum (2000); for a case study see Sibum (1995). On the attempts to rework the Coulomb experiment see, Blondel and Dörries (1994).

The method of repeating an experiment in science is called replication. It is regarded as a necessary condition for establishing a scientific fact. On replication see, Collins (1985). For a full account on the experimental results achieved in replicating Coulomb’s experiment see Peter Heering, “The Replication of the Torsion Balance Experiment. The Inverse Square Law and its Refutation by Early 19th Century German Physicists”, in Blondel and Dörries, Restaging Coulomb, 47–66; On experiment see Shapin and Schaffer (1985).

On “evidential context” see Pinch (1985). See also Schaffer (1992).

Hacking (1975). As Simon Schaffer infers this has not only become a familiar ideological theme of early modern natural philosophy, note the motto of the Royal Society of London: nullius in verba. Or see the attempts of experimental philosopher Robert Boyle who tried to gain “credit of laboratory objects at the expense of untrustworthy humans.” Schaffer, “Self Evidence”, 56–57.

For the concept of mediation see Wise (1993).

see for example Priestley (1767).

M. Walch, 1733, cited after Schimank (1974).

J. A. Nollet, Discours sur les Dispositions et sur les Qualités qu’il faut avoir pour faire du Progrès dans l’Étude de la Physique Expérimentale (Paris: 1753). German translation, Rede von der nötigen Geschicklichkeit zur Erforschung der Natur, welche er den 15. Mai 1753 bei dem Antritte seines öffentlichen Lehramtes in dem Navarrischen Collegio gehalten (Erfurt: 1755). In the German translation this latter type of scholars-the traditional scholar who studies books-was translated as “Gedächtnisgelehrte” as opposed to those new scholars who induce knowledge from sensuous experience.

See for example Cavendish (1776); on the way how physical models are used to mediate between nature and art in the field of electrical research see Schaffer (2004).

see for example Gillispie (1980); Gillmor (1972); Licoppe (1994); Sibum (1997).

C. A. Coulomb, “Premier memoire sur l’electricite et le magnetism” (1785), Memoires de l’Academie des Sciences (Paris: 1788), 569–577; “Second memoire sur l’electricite et le magnetism” (1785), Memoires de l’Academie des Sciences (Paris: 1788), 578–611.

Golinski (1995).

F. L. Holmes has shown, that the degree of precision of Lavoisiers experiment did not have the caliber than displayed publicly. Holmes (1985). The critical remarks on the places of decimals given in the publication is mentioned in Golinski (1992). The actors were fully aware of the existing tension between mathematical simplicity and errors in the practical execution of measurements. As Norton Wise explains Laplace has always opted for the gravitational force law for its very simplicity as a natural law. He knew about the difficulties to precisely determine the law in experimental practice. “Nevertheless he relied on his faith that the underlying structure of nature was both mathematical and simple in insisting that the power of the distance was a pure 2 rather than a messy 2.0001.” Wise in Horwich, 1993, 207–256, 246.

See Wise, “Mediations”, 207–256.

Wise, “Mediations”, 222.

In practice Coulomb required two minutes to perform three measurements and he even described in his publication how to avoid loss of charges during the trials in order to account for them in the final calculations.