SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL STANDARDIZATION IN 19TH CENTURY MEXICO: IMPERIALISM AND SCIENCE UNIVERSALIZATION

Abstract

One of the effects of the technical exchanges and the massive circulation of merchandise, derived from the Industrial Revolution, was the requirement to standardize all measures involved in commercial operations, as well as in machines design, means of transportation and communication, and political transactions. In the field of science there was a similar requirement for the homologation of scientific instruments and their procedures, as well as measurement systems. This paper will discuss Mexico‟s participation in three scientific standardization processes that took place in the 19th Century. Considerations about their historical background, their links with the political and economic order of the world, and the epistemological arguments that were expressed around the question, will be taken into account to explain those processes.