ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book discusses the delivery of a video analysis of a conventional kind via the textual transcription of the filmed activity and its detailed inspection. In the early 1980s, the technique had opened up the unprecedented possibility of visual representation of atomic surface structures, atom by atom. From a methodological point of view, the current situation of ethnomethodological inquiry into the natural sciences proves ambivalent in another respect. Scanning Tunneling Microscopy (STM) has become, over the last 30 years, a widespread technique of electronic probe microscopy in the nanometer range. The investigated STM lab is located at the physics department of a leading, public university in Europe and, at the peak of its activity, counted up to 15 members. Research at the lab, as far as its experimental aspects were concerned, was primarily conducted by PhD students.
