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This essay describes details of one electrical experiment that Charles Grafton Page conducted in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1836. This experiment- involving spiral conductors and batteries-was an important step in the development of the induction coil. Page's experiment ignored barriers present in modern science between body and knowledge and exemplified a fluid and dynamic approach to knowledge that did not require or presuppose grounding in scientific theory. I explore Page's experiment from several angles, including historical accounts of the experiment, context provided by other accounts, and my own exploration of a spiral apparatus using modern equipment. These accounts combine to provide a story of science without barriers, a fluid attitude toward knowledge, and a sense of wonder and curiosity that eventually led to the development of the induction coil.
Routine outcomes trivialize complex means: tripping a switch that lights a room, we are oblivious to the electrical behaviors, technologies, and history that make this outcome possible. By contrast, outcomes and means merged confusingly in electrical experiments done early in the nineteenth century. How an experiment occurred mattered as much as what happened. Experimenters were literally inside the experiments they devised, even to the extent that their bodies conducted some of the electricity.
Charles Grafton Page worked resourcefully within this complex environment and made substantial contributions to instruments, experimental practice, and how people understood electromagnetism. Page (fig. 1) was still a Harvard medical student when he conducted the 1836 experiment discussed here.With it, he detected electricity where no one had expected it to be-his body. His bodily sensation of shock demonstrated its presence. Inseparable from that surprising outcome were the innovative means by which he probed electricity and expanded his research. Page opened up an electrical circuit that others had treated as closed, and he did this in multiple ways. Many possibilities emerged, both for experimental tests and for interpretation. By tolerating the ambiguity that went with all these possibilities, Page was able to continue noticing more. Thus he generated a broad base of experience that served him well in his subsequent work as U.S. Patent Examiner, and in projects such as his electromagnetically powered locomotive.1
For us to appreciate Page's experiment, it helps to recall what it is like when ways and means matter, and outcomes...