{"id":476,"date":"2021-06-15T12:23:31","date_gmt":"2021-06-15T12:23:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hnr2021.historicalnetworkresearch.org\/?page_id=476"},"modified":"2021-06-21T13:04:13","modified_gmt":"2021-06-21T13:04:13","slug":"the-dynamics-of-socio-epistemic-networks-case-study-the-history-of-general-relativity-1925-1970","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/hnr2021.historicalnetworkresearch.org\/?page_id=476","title":{"rendered":"The dynamics of socio-epistemic networks \u2013 case study: the history of General Relativity, 1925-1970"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Roberto Lalli<\/em> and Dirk Wintergr\u00fcn<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Time and Place:<\/strong> Thursday, 01.07., 14:45\u201315:05, Room 1
Session:<\/strong> Co-authorship and Citations<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keywords: <\/strong>Socio epistemic networks; History of general relativity; Historical epistemology; History of science <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This talk will present a conceptual and methodological framework for analyzing the evolution of  scientific systems developed by the Department 1 of the Max Planck Institute for the History of  Science. Building on the advances in multi-layer network analysis, the proposed methodology aims  at uncovering the dynamical transformations of intra- and inter-connections within and between  different layers of the scientific enterprise, from its social dimension to the material condition of  knowledge production, up to conceptual transformations. In order to create a unified conceptual  framework we define knowledge networks as being composed of three different layers: the social  network, the semiotic network, and the semantic network. The first is defined as the collection of  relations involving individuals and institutions. The semiotic network is defined as the collection of  the material or formal representations of knowledge. The semantic layer is the collection of  knowledge elements and their relations. We call the interlinked set of these three levels socio epistemic networks.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As an illustration of this methodology results drawn from our work on the history of general\u00a0 relativity between 1925 and 1970 will be presented. Our computational approach is used to\u00a0 uncover the mechanism of the passage between the low-water-mark of general relativity\u2014\u00a0roughly from the mid-1920s to the mid-1950s\u2014and the so-called renaissance of the theory after\u00a0 the mid-1950s. To investigate this passage we first analyze the social layer using a definition of\u00a0 collaboration networks broader than the co-authorship relations retrievable from online datasets.\u00a0 In addiction to these kinds of datasets we used manually taken biographical data from a variety of\u00a0 historical sources. Starting from these data we constructed a multilayer social network, in which\u00a0 each layer represents a different kind of collaboration. After having analyzed the evolution over\u00a0 time of specific parameters of the co-authorship network, we investigated the effects of adding\u00a0 one type of collaboration edge at a time, in a cumulative fashion, on the values of these\u00a0 parameters and on the topology of the collaboration network through time, including rapid shifts\u00a0 in the dynamic evolution of the largest component. This analysis provides robust quantitative\u00a0 evidence that a shift in the structure of the relativity collaboration network occurred between the\u00a0 late 1950s and the early 1960s, when a giant component started forming. We interpret this shift\u00a0 as the central social dynamic of the renaissance process and then identify its central actors. The\u00a0 analysis of time series of the co-citation network, used as proxy of the semiotic layer, and the co occurring words in titles, abstracts and full-texts, used as a proxy of the semantic layer completes\u00a0 our study. It shows how the transformation at the social level corresponded to the emergence of\u00a0 new topics and research agendas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our analysis disproves common explanations of the renaissance process. It shows that this\u00a0 phenomenon was not a consequence of astrophysical discoveries in the 1960s, nor was it a simple\u00a0 by-product of socio-economic transformations in the physics landscape after World War II. We\u00a0 argue instead that the renaissance has to be understood as a two-phase process both at the social\u00a0and at the epistemic level. The first occurred between the second half of the 1950s and the early\u00a0 1960s, when a growing community of physicists redirected their interest toward physical problems\u00a0 in general relativity, while the previous period was characterized by a dispersion of research\u00a0 agendas aimed substituting the they with a different and more general one. We call this first\u00a0 phase the theoretical renaissance general relativity. The second phase, which we call the\u00a0 astrophysical turn, was instead an experiment-driven process that started with the discovery of\u00a0 quasars and was characterized by the emergence of relativistic astrophysics and physical\u00a0 cosmology as well as the early phases of gravitational-wave astronomy.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bibliography<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lalli, Roberto, Riaz Howey, and Dirk Wintergr\u00fcn. 2019. \u201cThe Dynamics of Collaboration Networks and the History of General Relativity, 1925\u20131970.\u201d Scientometrics, December. doi:10.1007\/s11192-019-03327-1<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Renn, J\u00fcrgen, Dirk Wintergr\u00fcn, Roberto Lalli, Manfred Laubichler, and Matteo Valleriani. 2016. \u201cNetzwerke als Wissensspeicher.\u201d In Die Zukunft der Wissensspeicher : Forschen, Sammeln und Vermitteln im 21. Jahrhundert, edited by J\u00fcrgen Mittelstra\u00df and Ulrich R\u00fcdiger, 7:35\u201379. Konstanzer Wissenschaftsforum. M\u00fcnchen: UVK Verlagsgesellschaft Konstanz. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wintergr\u00fcn, Dirk. 2019. \u201cNetzwerkanalysen und semantische Datenmodellierung als heuristische Instrumente f\u00fcr die historische Forschung.\u201d Erlangen: Friedrich-Alexander Universit\u00e4t Erlangen-N\u00fcrnberg. https:\/\/nbn-resolving.org\/urn:nbn:de:bvb:29-opus4-111899<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Roberto Lalli and Dirk Wintergr\u00fcn Time and Place: Thursday, 01.07., 14:45\u201315:05, Room 1Session: Co-authorship and Citations Keywords: Socio epistemic networks; History of general relativity; Historical epistemology; History of science This talk will present a conceptual and methodological framework for analyzing the evolution of  scientific systems developed by the Department 1 of the Max Planck Institute for the History of  Science.<\/p>\n

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