Domesticating the Magnet: Secularity, Secrecy and ‘Permanency’ as Epistemic Boundaries in Marie Curie’s Early Work.

Abstract

This paper investigates the magnet as a classic “boundary object”of modern technoscientific culture. Equally at home in the nursery,in the dynamo, in measuring instruments and in the navigationalcompass, its capricious performance nevertheless persistentlyeluded the powers of nineteenth-century electromagnetic expertsin pursuit of the completely “permanent” magnet. Instead theuntamed magnet’s resilient secularity required its makers to drawupon ancient techniques of chemical manipulation, heat treatment,and maturation eventually to render its behaviour sufficiently stablefor orderly use in modern engineering. The precise methods foraccomplishing this quasi-permanence were typically protected bytrade secrecy–that is, until Marie Sklodowska Curie’s first researchpublication in 1898 opened up this topic for rigorous comparativeresearch. Over the next quarter century, her work in this field wasgradually eclipsed by heavily gendered citation practices; the futilityof attempting to establish complete permanency in magnets waseventually substantiated by Sydney Evershed in the 1920s.