A Global History of Scientific Instruments

Abstract This essay applies lessons learned from researching Thrifty Science to propose a more extensive view of the history of scientific instruments. In the first section I explain how the research for Thrifty Science made evident how a great variety of objects could become scientific instruments in early modern England, when they were incorporated into bricolages of things to enable some experimental inquiry. Similarly, the personnel involved in early modern experiments were diverse, including family members, servants, neighbours, and visitors. In the second section I consider how this broader view of the social and material culture of experiment might be used to examine the history of instruments in other times and places around the world, to suggest a more global history of scientific instruments.