The coming into being and the passing away of a scientific object

Blåmann is a simple magnetized torus that was used for research and training in plasma physics at the University of Tromsø, Norway. (The name is taken from a characteristic mountain close to the town). The ideas of such an instrument emerged among the physicists in Tromsø in the early 1980s, the work began in 1985, and the machine was up and running in February 1990 in a laboratory located at the Auroral Observatory. Actually, the aurora can be described as a natural plasma. After 16 years in service, resulting in about 50 scientific papers, 6 Ph.D.’s and a series of Master degrees, it was decided to close down the experiment and remove the equipment from the lab. The machine itself, however, survived. The university got several requests from other laboratories that would like to take over the device; the lucky one became the Physics Department at University of West Virginia, USA.
Blåmann can be regarded as a scientific object. But so can also the idea of having such an instrument at the lab, with the motivations, interests, enthusiasm and intentions of the plasma physics group, doing a particular kind of research with a particular kind of equipment for a limited period of time. For a future historian of science, wishing to study this activity, a possible starting point could be to follow the trajectory of the device itself. Series of issues within sociology of science, research politics, local infrastructure at the University of Tromsø, as well as trends in physics can be studied through the life of this machine. In addition to examine the scientific products (the papers and the doctoral thesis), an investigation of everything on the machine from the first ideas and sketches in the 1980s, through debates and discussions on purpose, design, and funding in the construction phase, further through local laboratory life in the productive period, and finally on Norwegian research politics that lead to the demise, will reveal series of aspects on scientific practice. Even the story about its removal and shipping says something about how experiments end. I think the Blåmann-project can be seen as a scientific object coming into being and passing away, while the actual hardware becomes revived in a new location with a slightly different spelling (‘Blåmann’ becomes ‘Blaaman’ in English).
As responsible for the construction of the machine, I got familiar with a in series of modern technologies required in experimental physics, like high-power technology, cooling systems, vacuum technology, control systems, etc. The most complicated component was the torus itself, a doughnut-shaped chamber in stainless steel, built according to UHV (Ultra High Vacuum) standards and with small mechanical tolerances. Later, these experiences in vacuum technology proved crucial for another project that I got responsible for: the restoration of Professor Birkeland’s vacuum chamber for aurora-simulations from 1913.