BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Talks.cam//talks.cam.ac.uk//
X-WR-CALNAME:Talks.cam
BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:A history of a tenth of a second - Jimena Canales (Harvard Univers
 ity)
DTSTART:20110210T163000Z
DTEND:20110210T180000Z
UID:TALK28974@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Nicky Reeves
DESCRIPTION:In the late fifteenth century\, clocks acquired minute hands. 
 A century later\, second hands appeared. But it wasn't until the 1850s tha
 t a widespread need was felt for instruments that could recognize a tenth 
 of a second. Once they did\, the profound impact of these tiny moments was
  revealed as they related to broader conceptions about the nature of time\
 , causality\, and free will. Intimately connected to technologies that def
 ined modernity (telegraphy\, photography\, cinematography)\, this talk loc
 ates the reverberations of this perceptual moment for science\, philosophy
  and mass media. Once scientists associated the value with the speed of th
 ought\, they developed reaction time experiments with lasting implications
  for experimental psychology\, physiology and optics. Astronomers and phys
 icists struggled to control the profound consequences of results that were
  a tenth of a second off. And references to the interval were part of a ge
 neral inquiry into time\, consciousness\, and sensory experience that invo
 lved rethinking the contributions of Descartes and Kant. This talk investi
 gates how these moments defined modernity (and the place of fingers and ey
 es in it) by asking what it means to write the history of a radically diff
 erent time period.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 2\, Department of History and Philosophy of Science
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR