Trading with beamtime: Temporal economy in experimental physics

• In Event: ‘Doing Time’: Temporal Imaginaries, Performances, Practices, Infrastructures

Abstract

In experimental physics, time – specifically experimental time, or ‘machine time’ – acquires amended and qualitatively different significance that go beyond the subjective temporal experience of being busy or running out of time. In various subfields of experimental physics – especially where experiments are conducted through the usage of beamlines – a crucial operational unit is that of beamtime. This study, drawing on ethnographic research conducted in large-scale experimental physics facility, argues that beamtime is fundamental resource that translates into epistemic capital (cf Fochler 2016). Even if beamtime cannot usually be directly purchased and/or exchanged as monetary instrument (apart from commercial users conducting proprietary research), its (un)availability structures research conduct, results and opportunities. Subsequently, experimental physicists craft unique strategies how to secure, maintain and gain beamtime. Following pioneering anthropological work in experimental physics (most notably Traweek 1988 and Law 1994), this study addresses temporal economy and temporal strategies that accompany competition, possession and the use of beamtime as well as the very epistemic implications resulting therefrom. The analysis pays attention to a significant transformation in experimental physics from a relatively small single-purpose particle physics labs to large-scale multi-purpose infrastructural centres, also referred to as ‘big science facilities’ (Hallonsten 2016). This shift and technologies of beamtime allocation re-open the question of the scope and manifestations of epistemic capitalism in contemporary experimental physics.

Author

• Filip Vostal, Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences