Mary Jo Nye

Paper Tools and Molecular Architecture in the Chemistry of Linus Pauling

In 1954 Linus Carl Pauling was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry “for his research into the nature of the chemical bond and its application to the elucidation of the structure of complex substances.” At the time of the Nobel award, Pauling’s book on The Nature of the Chemical Bond was widely recognized as the classic statement of the application of quantum mechanics to an explanation of chemical bonding. Yet, ironically, Pauling’s valence bond and atomic orbital approach in quantum chemistry, which he had first developed in the early 1930s, was just beginning in 1954 to lose ground to the molecular orbital method, which Robert Mulliken had long been developing as a rival system of explanation in quantum chemistry.

Mine, thine, and ours: collaboration and co-authorship in the material culture of the mid-twentieth century chemical laboratory.

Abstract Patterns of collaboration and co-authorship in chemical science from the 1920s to the 1960s are examined with an eye to frequency of co-authorship and differences in allocation of credit during a period of increasing team research and specialization within chemical research groups. Three research leaders in the cross-disciplinary and cutting edge field of X-ray crystallography and molecular structure are the focus of this historical study within a framework of sociological literature on different collaborative patterns followed by eminent scientists. The examples of Michael Polanyi in Berlin and Manchester, Linus Pauling in Pasadena, and Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin in Oxford demonstrate the need to de-centre historical narrative from the heroic ‘he’ or ‘she’ to the collaborative ‘they.’ These cases demonstrate, too, the roles of disciplinary apprenticeships, local conditions, and individual personalities for historical explanation that transcends universal generalizations about scientific practice, material culture, and sociological trends.

Working tools for theoretical chemistry: Polanyi, eyring, and debates over the “semiempirical method”

Following along with the development of electron theory and quantum mechanics in the 1910s and 1920s, physical chemists began incorporating these new theories and approaches in their studies of activation energies, transition states, and chemical reactions for simple atomic and molecular systems. Among these chemists was Michael Polanyi, one of the founders of modern chemical dynamics, who collaborated with Henry Eyring in the development in the 1930s of a theory of the activated transition state and absolute reaction rates using potential energy surfaces and a semiempirical methodology. This paper examines the circumstances of their collaborative work, its reception, and its implications for further chemical research.

Scientists and Their Publics: Popularization of Science in the Nineteenth Century

In 1799 the Royal Institution was founded in London, in the wake of various provincial literary and philosophical societies; in 1851, under Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg’s aegis, the Great Exhibition attracted vast crowds to London, yielding profits to buy land in South Kensington for colleges and museums; and in 1900 the Paris Exposition heralded a new century of scientific and technical progress. There were prominent critics, but the wonders of science proved throughout the nineteenth century to be attractive to audiences of the aristocracy and gentry, of working men, and of everybody in between – which was fortunate, because in this world of competing beliefs and interests, of markets and industrial capitalism, those engaged in science needed to arouse the enthusiasm of people who would support them. Popularization started in Europe but was taken up in the United States, in Canada and Australasia, in India and other colonies, and in Japan. We shall focus upon Britain because of its place as the first industrial nation, where cheap books and publications emerged early, and scientific lectures were a feature of intellectual life. Specialization came relatively late to British education, so that until the end of the nineteenth century, university graduates shared to a great extent a common culture. Great Britain contained two nations, the English and the Scots, whose educational histories were very different; and Ireland was another story. Scotland had been, ever since its Calvinist Reformation, a country where education was valued and could be had cheaply in parochial schools and at the universities: It was throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries an exporter of talent, to England, the Continent, and North America.

Temptations of theory, strategies of evidence: P. M. S. Blackett and the earth's magnetism, 1947–52

In the late spring of 1947, the experimental physicist P. M. S. Blackett succumbed to the temptations of theory. At this time, Blackett (1897–1974) was fifty years old. He was a veteran of the Cavendish tradition in particle physics and he was on his way to an unshared award of the 1948 Nobel Prize for his experimental researches in nuclear physics and cosmic-ray physics. His photographs of cloud-chamber tracks of alpha particles, protons, electrons and positrons were well known to practitioners of particle physics, even as they now grace the pages of physics textbooks. Blacketts turn toward theory in 1947 involved some risk for a well-established experimental physicist. The 3 May 1947 issue of Nature carried an announcement of his forthcoming lecture at the Royal Society: Professor P. M. S. Blackett, Langworthy Professor of Physics in the University of Manchester, will deliver a lecture on ‘The Magnetic Field of Massive Rotating Bodies’ at a meeting of the Royal Society on May 15, at 4:30 p.m. Blackett circulated a preliminary draft of his paper among colleagues in several different fields, including the geophysicist Sydney Chapman and the astrophysicist Harry Plaskett.

Paper Tools from the 1780s to the 1960s: Nomenclature, Classification, and Representations

The four articles in this issue ofAmbixwere among seven papers presented in a symposium at the fall 2016 national meeting of the American Chemical Society on the occasion of the 2016 History of Chemistry Division’s Award to Ursula Klein for Outstanding Lifetime Achievement in the History of Chemistry. Klein’s symposium keynote paper appeared in 2017 in the Division’s Bulletin for the History of Chemistry. The four articles that follow in this issue cohere around major themes in Klein’s work, most notably the role in chemical investigation and documentation of paper tools such as classifications, formulas, models, diagrams, and other images. In her book, Experiments, Models, Paper Tools, Klein has this to say about paper tools:

Michael Polanyi: Science as Personal Knowledge and Social Practice

Tacit knowing: 2016 marked the 125th anniversary of the birth of the physical chemist Michael Polanyi, as well as the 40th of his death. This essay discusses his philosophy of science-in particular, his most significant work in this area, Personal Knowledge-from the perspective of his personal biography, as well as its lasting influence on the social sciences. In the photograph: Michael Polanyi at the Fritz Haber Institute in 1968.

The Republic vs. The Collective: Two Histories of Collaboration and Competition in Modern Science

Kollaboration und Konkurrenz gibt es in der Wissenschaft zwischen Individuen oder verschiedenen Gruppen, größeren Organisationen, Schauplätzen und Nationalstaaten. Die Spannung zwischen individuellem Ansehen und Gruppenmeriten oder individuellem Ehrgeiz und Gruppenleistung ist der wissenschaftlichen Arbeit inhärent und trägt zu ihrem Erfolg bei. Die Autorin vergleicht zwei soziale Modelle der Wissenschaft, die entwickelt wurden, als Wissenschaftler im 20. Jahrhundert zunehmend begannen kollaborativ zu forschen: Michael Polanyis individualistische Freie-Markt-Republik der Wissenschaft und Ludwik Flecks Denkkollektiv. Diese beiden Modelle sollten Praktiken beschreiben und Ideale für die Wissenschaft im allgemeinen auf der Grundlage der Erfahrungen spezialisierter Forschungsgruppen vorschreiben. Die Arbeitsgruppen von Linus Pauling und Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin dienen hier der Erläuterung der beiden Modelle. Die Autorin untersucht verschiedene Auswirkungen von Paulings und Hodgkins Praktiken auf das persönliche Ansehen des Direktors und der Mitarbeiter, und schließt mit der Frage, ob eine kollektive Wissenschaft möglich ist.Kollaboration und Konkurrenz gibt es in der Wissenschaft zwischen Individuen oder verschiedenen Gruppen, groseren Organisationen, Schauplatzen und Nationalstaaten. Die Spannung zwischen individuellem Ansehen und Gruppenmeriten oder individuellem Ehrgeiz und Gruppenleistung ist der wissenschaftlichen Arbeit inharent und tragt zu ihrem Erfolg bei. Die Autorin vergleicht zwei soziale Modelle der Wissenschaft, die entwickelt wurden, als Wissenschaftler im 20. Jahrhundert zunehmend begannen kollaborativ zu forschen: Michael Polanyis individualistische Freie-Markt-Republik der Wissenschaft und Ludwik Flecks Denkkollektiv. Diese beiden Modelle sollten Praktiken beschreiben und Ideale fur die Wissenschaft im allgemeinen auf der Grundlage der Erfahrungen spezialisierter Forschungsgruppen vorschreiben. Die Arbeitsgruppen von Linus Pauling und Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin dienen hier der Erlauterung der beiden Modelle. Die Autorin untersucht verschiedene Auswirkungen von Paulings und Hodgkins Praktiken auf das personliche Ansehen des Direktors und der Mitarbeiter, und schliest mit der Frage, ob eine kollektive Wissenschaft moglich ist.

Biography and the History of Science

As a genre at the intersection of history and literature, biography challenges its writer to decide organizational rules and elements of plot that are faithful to the subject and attractive to the reader. Mary Jo Nye suggests that there are three principal forms of biography in which the subject is a scientist: the life of the scientist, the scientific life, and the life of scientific collaboration. She explains the meaning of these terms by drawing upon a range of recent biographies in modern science, including Kostas Gavroglu’s biography of Fritz London.

Introduction: Atomism and Organic Chemistry in Context: Essays in Honour of Alan J. Rocke

Historians of chemistry are indebted to Alan Rocke’s prolific and groundbreaking scholarship on nineteenth century chemistry. During the last 36 years, in six books and nearly fifty articles, Rocke’s work in the history of chemistry has set the standard for understanding and recapturing the lost worlds of nineteenth century chemistry in its intellectual, practical and institutional context. Rocke’s work has ranged across the spectrum of nineteenth century chemistry. It includes the development of chemical and physical atomism, the emergence of the structural theory of organic chemistry, and the pedagogical, institutional, and social context of chemistry in nineteenth century Germany and France. Working in three languages and three countries, Rocke has repeatedly led the way toward a fully contextualized account of the development of atomism and organic chemistry in the nineteenth century. Rocke first studied chemistry at Beloit College in Wisconsin and completed a Ph.D. in History of Science at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he was a student of the distinguished and beloved historian of chemistry Aaron J. Ihde. Since 1978, Rocke has taught at Case Western Reserve University, where he is currently Henry Eldridge Bourne Professor of History and Distinguished University Professor, CWRU’s highest faculty honour. In 2000, Rocke received the Dexter Award for Outstanding Contributions to the History of Chemistry from the American Chemical Society, and in 2012, he was elected a Fellow of the American Chemical Society. Rocke’s first published paper was in chemistry, on the extraction and chromatography of chlorophenols, precursors of the highly toxic contaminant known as dioxin. His knowledge of the practical and technical side of chemistry has provided the basis for his understanding of past chemistry, but his work is also firmly based in archival and published sources located in Germany, France, and Great Britain. From the beginning of his career, Rocke has explored the philosophical assumptions and controversies among chemists and other physical scientists, examined the kinds of imagery and representations used by chemists to construct the atomic and structural theories, delved into the institutions and social groups within which scientific work is carried out, and identified the demands of industry and nationalist aspirations by which chemists have set their agendas. He pays close attention to the kinds of reasoning that chemists use when adopting theories, and he has highlighted the role of new kinds of laboratory apparatus and new ideas in chemical innovation.