ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Ancestries of Data Asymmetries in Physics: How the Diplomacy of Standards Prefigured CODATA’s Activities

• In Event: Shifting Perspectives on Data: Revealing Imbalances in Global Scientific Networks_1

English Abstract

Techno-scientific standardization emerged as a key endeavor of international scientific organizations during the interwar period, laying the groundwork for subsequent global agreements. However, the diplomatic dimensions of negotiations on international standards—and their influence on Cold War data-sharing practices—remain an underexplored topic. This paper addresses that gap by examining the period from the 1930s to the 1960s, focusing on what I call the diplomacy of standardization: the negotiations surrounding electrical units and fundamental atomic constants conducted within an evolving ecosystem of national and international institutions. Drawing on extensive archival research in Europe and the United States, the paper shows that the establishment of universal physical standards was not merely a scientific exercise but a deeply diplomatic process in which epistemic authority, metrological infrastructures, national interests, and emerging industrial priorities were co-produced. These negotiations generated forms of data evaluation, validation, and circulation that prefigured—conceptually and institutionally—the practices later formalized by ICSU’s Committee on Data for Science and Technology (CODATA), created in 1966. By uncovering these “ancestries” of data asymmetries in physics, the paper argues that the global imbalances characteristic of Cold War–era data sharing, including the prominent role of U.S. institutions in defining authoritative datasets, have roots in much earlier struggles over standardization. Reframing physical standards as diplomatic objects thus opens new perspectives for understanding the historical formation of global data infrastructures, contributing to the broader aims of the ERC project NEWORLD@A.

Author

• Sara Bassanelli, Politecnico di Torino