Transferring Formal and Mathematical Tools from War Management to Political, Technological, and Social Intervention (1940-1960)

Abstract

In characterizing the 1940s and 1950s, historians of science and technology have often stressed the importance of the university-military-industrial complex. In this framework, science (and especially the physical sciences) has generally been considered as the producer of a (disciplinary) knowledge that was relevant to technology and led to the development of material devices (like lasers) or military instruments (the Bomb or radar). Scientific milieus were at the core of the great East-West conflict known as the Cold War, and the profound changes in their material and cultural conditions have been emphasized. The effects of this new alliance on knowledge itself (for example in theoretical physics) have been precisely documented, and the centrality of instrumentation and production of all types of material devices underscored. By insisting on hardware, technological systems, and military “gadgets”, these analyses have shown their great significance. No war, to be sure, is ever won by technology and science alone, but in the 1940s and 1950s they have played a role that can hardly be overstated’.