内容简介

In the late fifteenth century, clocks acquired minute hands. A century later, second hands appeared. But it wasn’t until the 1850s that instruments could recognize a tenth of a second, and, once they did, the impact on modern science and society was profound. Revealing the history behind this infinitesimal interval, A Tenth of a Second sheds new light on modernity and illuminates the work of important thinkers of the last two centuries.

Tracing debates about the nature of time, causality, and free will, as well as the introduction of modern technologies—telegraphy, photography, cinematography—Jimena Canales locates the reverberations of this “perceptual moment” throughout culture. Once scientists associated the tenth of a second with the speed of thought, they developed reaction time experiments with lasting implications for experimental psychology, physiology, and optics. Astronomers and physicists struggled to control the profound consequences of results that were a tenth of a second off. And references to the interval were part of a general inquiry into time, consciousness, and sensory experience that involved rethinking the contributions of Descartes and Kant.

Considering its impact on much longer time periods and featuring appearances by Henri Bergson, Walter Benjamin, and Albert Einstein, among others, A Tenth of a Second is ultimately an important contribution to history and a novel perspective on modernity.

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豆瓣评论

  • L
    这是一本想用最小的时间单位来书写一整个时代的书,就真的好棒。19世纪科学实验过程中发现人对外界刺激进行反应时,会有一个时间差。在作者对现代性的叙事中,这个时间差改变了笛卡尔、康德式的思考人:思考需要时间,是存在于时间和身体中的。同理视觉也变得受制于身体的时间性。摄影和电影的前身进入科学实验,不是因为它生来就和人眼视觉相似,而是为了纠正人眼视觉无法避免的误差。所以从某种意义上来说,这个时间差把时间本身的可再现性变成了一个问题,从而也撬动了再现的边界。我们不断尝试把人眼未必能见到的图像解读为真实的再现,因而赋予了摄影客观性的特质。11-27
  • Derridager
    0.1秒作为人类反应的局限,在19世纪触发了诸如天文学、(行为)心理学、物理学和哲学的变迁:作为观察者的人类的局限在以客观性为旨归的科学中被不断克服,体现在天文学中对“个人误差”的强调和心理学中兴起的与“反应时间”相关的研究。为进一步靠近客观,自动的、机械的摄影被引入,代替观察者成为科学实验室自动铭刻设备的先驱,人类观察者被进一步抑制(不由让我们想起D&G对机械客观性的考察)。而后的干涉测量术的观测精度更是能到纳米级,使得物理学成为自然科学的显学。这些变迁与现代性紧密相关。由此,为0.1秒写史是在更大层面上描绘现代性的生发:人逐渐从科学观测中被抑制,自然与社会、人和非人、以及哲学和科学也被分开了。最后一点体现在爱因斯坦大战伯格森中(写得很流水账)。结论试图借助0.1秒重思现代的诸多二分。01-02

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