Compare, Standardize and Settle Agreement

Abstract

Historical and sociological studies have shown that precision measurement and metrology play an important social and scientific role. This paper contrasts the dynamics of four metrological configurations. The first concerns an instrument for routine car repair. It displays the network of institutions, conventions and procedures allowing for the conservation of legal metrological precision. Such resources are not yet available during the genesis of an instrument. Very often in scientific laboratories, instruments and their metrology are elaborated simultaneously. The three other case studies analyze this construction by looking at ordinary metrological operations: the collective elaboration of standards; the translation of scientific instruments in metrological laboratories; and the intercomparison of instruments. It appears that the diversity and heterogeneity of resources associated with metrological networks result in different ways of articulating the natural and conventional character of precision measurement.

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