Peter Galison
Peter Louis Galison (born May 17, 1955) is an American historian and philosopher of science. He is the Joseph Pellegrino University Professor in history of science and physics at Harvard University.
Also recorded as Peter Louis Galison
Peter Galison
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- Name
- Peter Galison
- Birth Name
- Peter Louis Galison
- Education
- Harvard University (BA, MA, PhD)
- Born
- 17 May 1955
- Birthplace
- New York City, U.S.
- Nationality
- United States.
- Occupation
- physicist, historian, philosopher, university teacher and film director.
- Fields
- philosophy of science and history of science.
- Honours
- Guggenheim Fellowship, MacArthur Fellows Program, Max Planck Research Award, Pfizer Award, Fellow of the American Physical Society and Abraham Pais Prize for History of Physics.
- Languages
- English.
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Peter Louis Galison (born May 17, 1955) is an American historian and philosopher of science. He is the Joseph Pellegrino University Professor in history of science and physics at Harvard University.
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Note VALÉORINE
Peter Galison (born 1955) is a film director, historian and philosopher, among other activities, of American nationality. The film director was born in New York City.
Peter Galison was educated at Harvard University and Riverdale Country School. The film director worked for Harvard University, Stanford University and Stanford University Philosophy Department and is a member of American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Activity centred on history of science and philosophy of science.
Languages used include English. Honours include Abraham Pais Prize for History of Physics, Fellow of the American Physical Society and Guggenheim Fellowship, among others.
Composed from admitted, traceable facts · 27 September 2026
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Authority files
wikidata · Q444025 · wikipedia · Peter Galison
In this article
Biography
Biography
Peter Galison studied at Harvard University and Riverdale Country School. The recorded working language is English. The field of work recorded is philosophy of science and history of science. Employment is recorded with Harvard University, Stanford University Philosophy Department and Stanford University. Distinctions recorded are Guggenheim Fellowship, MacArthur Fellows Program, Max Planck Research Award and Pfizer Award.
Peter Galison of Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, at AAAS 2025 on the panel on the panel "SARTON: Visualizing Space/Time/Matter in Physics, Film, History"
John Sears
Peter Galison of Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, at AAAS 2025 on the panel on the panel "SARTON: Visualizing Space/Time/Matter in Physics, Film, History"
John Sears
Key facts
Key facts
• Name — Peter Galison • Birth Name — Peter Louis Galison • Education — Harvard University (BA, MA, PhD) • Workplaces — Stanford University Harvard University • Discipline — Philosophy of science, history • Sub Discipline — History of science, philosophy of science • Born — 17 May 1955 • Birthplace — New York City, U.S. • Doctoral Advisor — Howard Georgi Erwin N. Hiebert • Doctoral Students — * Naomi Oreskes • Alex Wellerstein
Biography
Biography
Galison received his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D., in both physics and history of science, at Harvard University. His publications include How Experiments End (1987), Image and Logic: A Material Culture of Microphysics (1997), and Einstein's Clocks, Poincaré's Maps (2003). His most recent book, co-authored with Lorraine Daston, is titled Objectivity (2007). Before moving to Harvard, Galison taught for several years at Stanford University, where he was professor of history, philosophy, and physics. He is considered a member of the Stanford School of philosophy of science, a group that also includes Ian Hacking, John Dupré, and Nancy Cartwright. Galison wrote a film for the History Channel on the development of the hydrogen bomb, and has done work on the intersection of science with other disciplines, in particular art (along with Caroline A. Jones, his wife) and architecture. He is on the editorial board of Critical Inquiry and was a MacArthur Fellow in 1997. For his "outstanding contributions to the history of physics", Galison received the American Physical Society's Abraham Pais Prize in 2018.
Filmography
Filmography
• The Ultimate Weapon: The H-Bomb Dilemma (2000) Writer/producer, 44 minutes. Premiere: The History Channel, 2000. • Secrecy (2008) Producer/Director (with Robb Moss), 85 minutes. Premiere: The Sundance Film Festival (2008). • Containment (2015) Producer/Director (with Robb Moss), 81 minutes. Premiere: Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, Durham, North Carolina (2015). • Black Holes: The Edge of All We Know (2021) Director, 99 minutes.
Life and career
Dated record
Life and career
The full dated record · 1 entries
1955
Peter Galison born at New York City.
Philosophical work
In Image and Logic, Galison explored the fundamental rift rising in the physical sciences: whether singular, visual accounts of scientific phenomena would be accepted as the dominant language of proof, or whether statistically significant, frequently repeated results would dominate the field. This division, Galison claims, can be seen in the conflicts amongst high-energy physicists investigating new particles, some of whom offer up statistically significant and frequently replicated analysis of the new particle passing through electric fields, others of whom offer up a single picture of a particle behaving—in a single instance—in a way that cannot be explained by the characteristics of existing known particles. This image/logic distinction has been applied to explore the development of other disciplinesfor example, archaeology. His work with Lorraine Daston developed the concept of mechanical objectivity which is often used in scholarly literature, and he has done pioneering work on applying the anthropological notion of trading zones to scientific practice.
Documentary films
Galison has been involved in the production of several documentary films. The first, The Ultimate Weapon: The H-Bomb Dilemma, was about the political and scientific decisions behind the creation of the first hydrogen bomb in the United States, and it premiered on the History Channel in 2000. The second, Secrecy, which Galison directed with Harvard filmmaker Robb Moss, is about the costs and benefits of government secrecy, and premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. Also from Harvard, Ruth Lingford worked on the animation for Secrecy. Galison completed his third documentary film Containment, also directed with Robb Moss, in 2015. It premiered at the 2015 Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, and has been shown at film festivals around the world including in Brazil, Switzerland, and Australia. This documentary investigates governments' attempts to contain a hundred million gallons of deadly radioactive sludge for 10,000 years: how can people warn future generations across this immense time span during which languages, cultures and the environment will continually transform? Galison's fourth documentary, Black Holes: The Edge of All We Know, about the Event Horizon Telescope, appeared in 2021 on Netflix and Apple TV.
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Peter Louis Galison. American Academy of Arts & Sciences. 2023-08-24.
- 2.Book Peter Galison – Department of the History of Science, Harvard University. galison.scholar.harvard.edu.
- 3.Cartwright, Nancy. The Dappled World: A Study of the Boundaries of Science. Cambridge University Press. ix. 1999. 0-521-64336-8.
- 4.Ultimate Weapon: The H-Bomb Dilemma. IMDB.
- 5.University of Chicago IT Services. Critical Inquiry Editorial Staff. criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu.
- 6.Peter L. Galison. www.macfound.org.
- 7.Honan, William H. MacArthur Foundation Chooses Grant Winners. The New York Times. 1997-06-17. 0362-4331.
- 8.Peter Galison named recipient of the American Physical Society's 2018 Abraham Pais Prize. histsci.fas.harvard.edu.
- 9.Rentetzi, Maria. Reviewed Work: Image and Logic: A Material Culture of Microphysics by Peter Galison. The British Journal for the History of Science. 33. 3. 369–371. September 2000. 10.1017/S0007087499214069.
- 10.Marwick, Ben. Galisonian logic devices and data availability: revitalising Upper Palaeolithic cultural taxonomies. Antiquity. 93. 371. 1365–1367. 15 October 2019. 10.15184/aqy.2019.131.
- 11.Schmidt, Sophie C. Tool-Driven Revolutions in Archaeological Science. Journal of Computer Applications in Archaeology. 3. 1. 18–32. 28 January 2020. 10.5334/jcaa.29.
- 12.Press & Industry — Sundance Film Festival. 2007-12-07.
- 13.Containment (2015). IMDB.
- 14.Containment. Full Frame Documentary Film Festival.
- 15.Mathiesen, Karl. Sheep, Mexican farmers and Shinto priests vie for green film award. The Guardian. 2015-06-05. 0261-3077.
- 16.Black Holes: The Edge of All We Know. blackholefilm.com.
Bibliography printed in the source article · 8
- Galison, Peter. How Experiments End. University of Chicago Press. 1987. 978-0-226-27915-2.
- Galison, Peter. Big Science: The Growth of Large-Scale Research. Stanford University Press. 1992. 978-0-8047-2335-0.
- Galison, Peter. The Disunity of Science: Boundaries, Contexts, and Power. Stanford University Press. 1996. 978-0-8047-2562-0.
- Galison, Peter. Image and Logic: A Material Culture of Microphysics. University of Chicago Press. 1997. 978-0-226-27917-6.
- Galison, Peter. Picturing Science, Producing Art. Routledge. 1998. 978-0-415-91912-8.
- Galison, Peter. Einstein's Clocks and Poincaré's Maps: empires of time. W.W. Norton. 2003. 978-0-393-02001-4.
- Galison, Peter. Objectivity. Zone Books Distributed by the MIT Press. 2007. 978-1-890951-79-5.
- Galison, Peter. Einstein for the 21st Century: His Legacy in Science, Art, and Modern Culture. Princeton University Press. 2008. 978-0-691-13520-5.
References
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References
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Wikidata, structured authority record Q444025: Peter GalisonWikimedia Foundation
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The authorities additionally record the heading Peter Louis Galison. His recorded language was English. He married Caroline A. Formation and teaching. Galison studied at Harvard University and Riverdale Country School. The record notes the qualification Doctor of Philosophy. Galison worked in philosophy of science and history of science. He was employed by Harvard University, Stanford University Philosophy Department and Stanford University. He belonged to American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Galison received Guggenheim Fellowship, MacArthur Fellows Program, Max Planck Research Award, Pfizer Award, Fellow of the American Physical Society and Abraham Pais Prize for History of Physics. Recorded as physicist, historian, philosopher, university teacher and film director.
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Career and activity
Recognition and collections
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 14 August 2026.
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