Społeczno-techniczne determinanty odkrycia kosmicznych źródeł promieniowania gamma

The paper deals with the problem of technical and social conditions of scientific discovery. Exemplified by the discovery of cosmic gamma radiation, the role of develop ment of technology in founding of new branches of astronomy (gamma- ray astronomy) is here presented. Some important social factors, which significantly accelerated the for mation of the gamma-ray astronomy, were also recognized in the paper. Above all, how ever, the concept of scientific discovery was supported in the paper - a concept of a scientific discovery as a multi-threaded, technical and social project which, due to its complexity and phasality, is not subject to reconstruction as a simple event to which we may assign authorship of a particular person or accurately determine the coordinates of the time. Modern science is, among others, characterized by the fact that any research projects taken up within its framework are highly complex and require cooperation of not only scholars from different research and scientific centers, but also engineers and technicians whose contribution to scientific discovery is comparable to the contribution of the scholars themselves.