Abstract

The idea that experimentation is autonomous is widely shared amongst the New Experimentalists. However, it is not precisely stated how we should understand this thesis, or how to interpret it. In consequence, the aim of this paper is to explicate the different ways in which the autonomy of experiment thesis could be read, and to suggest, taking into account an analysis of the process by which an experimental result is constituted and exemplifying this process by the means of the study of an experiment, the measurement of the speed of light, how this thesis could be clarified and how to establish its scope and limits.