Research records composed of notes and protocols have long played a role in the efforts to understand the origins of what have come to be seen as the established milestones in the development of modern science. The use of research records to probe the nature of scientific investigation itself however is a recent development in the history of science.
With Eduard Dijksterhuis, we could address them as a veritable "epistemologiCal laboratory." The purpose of a workshop entitled "Reworking the Bench: Laboratory Notebooks in the History of Science," held at the Max Planck Institute for the...