A traditional scientific distinction divides ‘observation’ and ‘experiment’ based on the capacity to intervene. Intervention has two related functions: isolating a target system and creating novel scenarios. This enables experimenters to manipulate variables and identify confounders in ways non-experimental scientists might not (Hacking 1983, Cleland 2001, Currie & Levy 2019). Considered in this way, the major difference between Newton’s optics and mechanics is that the former is primarily experimental and the latter is primarily observational (Currie & Walsh 2018). Further, Newton’s optical experiments are well-designed insofar as the interventions they underwrite generate crisp, clear results (Ivanova 2023). In recent work with Alice Murphy, we have developed an account of experimental design based on how scientists are situated within experimental contexts. Here, good experimental design turns on how effectively the situated scientists can enact their epistemic and aesthetic agency (Murphy, Currie & Walsh forthcoming). On this kind of agency-centred approach to science, how should we distinguish between ‘experimental’ and ‘observational’ science? To answer, we build on this work, developing our notion of ‘experimental distance’, which concerns the accessibility of experimental phenomena to the scientist’s experience. ‘Experimental distance’, we claim, provides an alternative (possibly complementary) distinction to the traditional ‘experiment-observation’ distinction. Another way of conceiving the difference between Newton’s optics and his mechanics is in terms of their relative experimental distance.

Coffee, tea, cake and fruit will be served before the colloquium @2 pm.