Cathedrals of Science: The Personalities and Rivalries That Made Modern Chemistry
by Patrick Coffey
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Book Summary Information
Author: Patrick CoffeyEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-08-29
ISBN: 0195321340
Number of pages: 400
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Book Reviews of Cathedrals of Science: The Personalities and Rivalries That Made Modern Chemistry
Book Review: Persosnalities in Science
Summary: 5 Stars
I enjoyed the book, and relished the little nuggets of knowledge such as :
G.N. Lewis invented "activity","fugacity", "ionic strength" and "photon" as terminology. "Lewisite" was named for a different Lewis.
I had not realized how involved he was in heavy water and isotopic labeling.
The material on Haber was interesting, but much of it was available elsewhere.
I had never read much about Langmuir before- his life was fascinating:
the mountain climbing, the connection with Kurt Vonnegut etc., and of course his work on chemical bonding and surface chemistry. I was impressed that he spoke fluent French and German.
Nernst I want to read more about, and Ostwald.
A theme throughout the book was the extreme sensitivity of many of these scientists to personal slights, quarrels over priority and the like.
Academic advancement depends on reputation-makes people crazy over things
many of the rest of us would let pass.
Dorothy Wrinch was new to me. Feminists may find her story pathetic, but possibly less so than that of Rosalind Franklin.
The assertion (p.209) that the first transmutation of an isotope of one element into that of another was done at Berkeley is most likely incorrect. I also found confusing the statement that an isotope had been
formed by bombarding something with neutrons in a cyclotron. I suspect some technicalities were left out in respect of general readers.
Summary of Cathedrals of Science: The Personalities and Rivalries That Made Modern Chemistry
In Cathedrals of Science, Patrick Coffey describes how chemistry got its modern footing-how thirteen brilliant men and one woman struggled with the laws of the universe and with each other. They wanted to discover how the world worked, but they also wanted credit for making those discoveries, and their personalities often affected how that credit was assigned. Gilbert Lewis, for example, could be reclusive and resentful, and his enmity with Walther Nernst may have cost him the Nobel Prize; Irving Langmuir, gregarious and charming, "rediscovered" Lewis's theory of the chemical bond and received much of the credit for it. Langmuir's personality smoothed his path to the Nobel Prize over Lewis.Coffey deals with moral and societal issues as well. These same scientists were the first to be seen by their countries as military assets. Fritz Haber, dubbed the "father of chemical warfare," pioneered the use of poison gas in World War I-vividly described-and Glenn Seaborg and Harold Urey were leaders in World War II's Manhattan Project; Urey and Linus Pauling worked for nuclear disarmament after the war. Science was not always fair, and many were excluded. The Nazis pushed Jewish scientists like Haber from their posts in the 1930s. Anti-Semitism was also a force in American chemistry, and few women were allowed in; Pauling, for example, used his influence to cut off the funding and block the publications of his rival, Dorothy Wrinch.
Cathedrals of Science paints a colorful portrait of the building of modern chemistry from the late 19th to the mid-20th century.
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