Legends in Their Own Time: A Century of American Physical Scientists

365 Pages·1993·5.32 MB·English

by  Anthony Serafini (auth.)

Legends in Their
Own Titne
A Century of American
Physical Scientists
Legends in Their
Own Time
A Century oE American
Physical Scientists
Anthony Serafini
Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Seraf,n" Anthony
Legends In theIr own tIme a century of Amer,can phys,cal
SCIentistS! Anthony SerafInI.
p. cm.
Includes b,bl,ograph,cal references and 'ndex.
1. Phys,c,sts--Un'ted States--B,ography. 2. Astronomers--Un'ted
States--B,ography. 3. Chem,sts--Un'ted States--B,ography.
l. T't Ie.
OC15.S437 1993
500.2·092·2--dc20
[Bl 92-43949
CIP
ISBN 978-0-306-44460-9 ISBN 978-1-4899-6090-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-4899-6090-0
© 1993 Anthony Serafini
Originally published by Plenum Press in 1993.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1993
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted
in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming,
recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher
Preface
America is a society that encompasses and reflects the accomplish
ments of science. As civilized people, we can argue that to
understand America is to und erstand the scientific genius of the
men and women who built the foundations of modern science and
technology. However, science is not merely a co11ection of the
results of scientific research or inte11ectual wizardry. It is also a
social phenomenon with real human beings with a11 their foibles.
As George Sarton said, "The best way to explain American
achievements is to focus the reader's attention upon a few of the
leading scientists." That I have tried to do. While there are other
valid approaches to the history of science, certainly the biographi
cal approach brings to ligh t the fact that science is not a mere
congerie of facts and theories. It is a very human activity with
biases, personal rivalries, censorship, and even thievery, as the
case of Rosalind Franklin shows.
A note is in order on the point in time I've chosen for the
beginning of this book. I begin roughly in the late 1830s, in the
Bond era in astronomy. It was in this period that American science
education was beginning to come into its own-a sound educa
tional system in science being a sine qua non for continual, syste
matic progress in scientific research. Before this period, science
professors appeared on faculties only occasiona11y; often teaching
v
vi Preface
several other subjects as well. By the 1830s, however, the professor
of physics or chemistry appeared in college catalogues as often as
did professors in the humanities. Also, specific courses and spe
cialists were appearing in the 1830s, inc1uding even such "arcane"
fields as geology. Wesleyan University, for example, could boast of
three scientists on a faculty of only seven. By the 1850s, Amherst
College had more faculty in science than in any other field.
The period between 1875 and 1910 is crucially important as
well. As historian Stanley Guralnick has pointed out:
The period during which the sciences became fully established in
academe, 1875-1910, witnessed the rise of multipurpose universities,
development of the graduate school, and the division of the faculty
into separate departments-changes that have given the essential
intellectual and administrative character to our present university.
It was during these periods that an in~reased awareness devel
oped of the need for stressing the theoretical underpinnings of
applied science. "Backyard tinkerers" had produced many ad
vances, but the scientific community had now begun to fully
appreciate the fact that real scientific advance could not be made
without systematic study of scientific theory. In short, science was
becoming a profession.
Later, the lone Byronic heroes of American science began to
receive institutional backing of various kinds. An important for
ward step came with the Morrill Land Grant College Act of 1862.
Recognizing the need for trained scientists rather than "tinkerers,"
this act led to the founding of Cornell University in 1865 as well as
to the founding of several other institutions. Two decades later,
after the Morrill Act of 1882, the American Association for the
Advancement of Science appeared. For some of the sciences, such
as physics, however, there was really no professional society until
the founding of the American Physical Society in 1899.
By the early decades of the 20th century, science was develop
ing in three arenas: the growth of corporate laboratories, univer
sities, and governmental institutions. As the public grew more
comfortable with science, this confidence soon led to increased
Preface vii
funding. In the early decades of the century, govemment aid to
science was minimal. During the First World War, however, orga
nizations like the National Research Council and the Camegie
Foundation began to appear, ready to infuse money into scientific
research. It was becoming evident that science had an obvious
relevance to the war effort-the development of chemical wea
pons being one such example. Over the course of the next few
decades, other organizations such as the Russell Sage Foundation
and the Guggenheim Foundation added their resources.
Keeping in mind the principle that no selection can be com
pletely "objective," I have followed Sarton's advice in selecting,
as he says, "a few of the leading scientists." The problem then,
of course, is to decide who should be covered and by what criteria
they should be selected. Although men like Michelson and Row
land are rather obvious choices for this book, there are many
others. I would have liked to have been able to devote more space
to scientists such as Simon Newcomb, Wilhelmina Fleming, Theo
dore Richards, Richard Chace Tolman, and John Trowbridge,
among many others.
The problem of selection compounded itself exponentially
with the explosion of scientific research after the embarrassment
of Sputnik in 1957. I might have covered, for example, Comell
physicist Ken Wilson's work in phase transitions, for which he
captured the 1982 Nobel Prize. And in astronomy, there is Jocelyn
Bell's discovery of the first pulsar, CP 1919, in 1967, which led
to speculations that extraterrestrials were sending messages to
Earth-a speculation refuted only when astronomer Thomas Gold
proved that the "message" was merely a quickly rotating neutron
star.
Then there is the wonderful story of the development of the
laser, dating arguably from Charles Townes's work in the 1960s on
the principle of the laser. And by 1981, Arthur Schawlow along
with Kai Siegbahn of Sweden would capture the Nobel Prize for
applying the laser to studies of the structure of solid-state sub
stances.
In this respect, this book makes no claim to being compre-
viii Preface
hensive. Some "decision procedure" on what and whom to cover
was therefore necessary. Where choices were balanced, I tended to
side with "pure" science rather than technology, with a few
exceptions-hence, the omission of the development of the laser.
I've also covered those scientists whose work best illustrates the
"pioneering spirit" -the urge to explore new and uncharted terri
tory and the great sense of practicality associated with that spirit.
Nineteenth century scientists like Michelson and Gibbs had, for
example, fewer of the normal "support systems" we take for
granted today. There were few academic journals, and communi
cation with other scientists was more difficult and slower than it is
today. Furthermore, large grants and salaried positions were few.
Irving Langmuir of the General Electric Laboratories in New
York could hardly be omitted from a work like this. Beyond his
brilliant work in both experimental and theoretical science, he
represented a new breed in this country-the scientist working in
an industriallaboratory.
In the end, I selected scientists as much for what their lives
tell us about how science is done as for what they actually did. Of
course, none of the individual profiles in this book pretends to
completeness or thoroughness. A really thorough account of the
scientific work of scientists like Pauling, Annie Cannon, and
Irving Langmuir remains to be written.
A final note on the book: where possible, I have tried to
include phases of a scientist's career that are perhaps a bit less weIl
known. For example, in the case of Irving Langmuir, while his
work on, say, the structure of the atom is weH known, his coura
geous support of biochemist Dorothy Wrinch is mentioned only
rarely in the literature. Also, Lawrence's pioneering work in medi
cine is perhaps less known than his work on the cyclotron, so his
medical research is discussed here as weH. Then, too, I have tried
to bring out some recent research that argues persuasively that E.
W. Morley's contributions to American science have often been
overshadowed by his more famous collaborator, A. A. Michelson.
The reader will note too that I have devoted considerable space to
solid-state physics-a branch of that science that is, I think, too
Preface ix
often overlooked in favor of the more "exciting" fields like particle
physics and astrophysics.
The history of American science is the story of how all of
these accomplishments came about since the nation-building and
difficult decades of the 19th century, the period during which
American science began to evolve into a profession.
I would like to thank the following peopie for Iooking over
various portions of the manuscript and making suggestions:
Spencer Weart, Director of the Center for History of Physics of the
American Institute of Physics, Robert Olby of the University of
Leeds, Robert Kargon of Johns Hopkins, Argonne National Labo
ratory, Katherine Olesko of Georgetown University, and Professor
Paul Joss of the Department of Physics at MIT. I would also like to
thank Professor Joss for many helpful conversations and for keep
ing me up to date on the Iatest work in particle physics and
astrophysics. Additionally, I am indebted to John Archibald
Wheeler, P. W. Anderson, and Verner Schomaker for offering their
thoughts on Pauling's career.
I am grateful also to Lee R. Hiltzik, Archivist of the Rocke
feller Archive Center in North Tarrytown, New York, for providing
me with correspondence from Karl Darrow to Dr. Duncan Mac
Innes, and Professor David Miller of the University of California,
Berkeley for his heipful comments and research material on Henry
Rowland and for a copy of his doctoral thesis, "Henry Augustus
Rowland and His Electromagnetic Researches," submitted to Ore
gon State University in 1970. (Interestingly, Professor Miller could
speak with unusual authority on Rowland, as Rowland's daughter
once took hirn to lunch for some "Baltimore Chicken," which
Miller describes as "wonderful.")
The plan I followed in writing this book was approximately as
follows. For the framework of the book, Irelied heavily on schol
arly articles by noted authors in the field, such as Robert Kargon,
Spencer Weart, Daniel Kevles of Caltech, and many others. From
these articles I was able to Iocate what appeared to be the most
critical primary sourees. For exampIe, I consulted Millikan's auto
biography, the biography of Micheison written by his daughter, as
x Preface
weil as the book, Light Waves and Their Uses, by A. A. Michelson,
University of Chicago Press, 1902. For the chapter on Arthur
Compton, I drew heavily upon his own writings in The Cosmos of
Arthur Holly Compton as weil as his other writings. I would also like
to thank Margorie Graham, Associate Librarian at the Alp, for
providing me with a copy of Compton's writings and notes on
cosmic rays, particularly those entries from June 1932, from the
Compton notebooks.
Because this book is aimed at an educated lay audience rather
than a group of specialists, I have tried to keep footnotes to a
minimum and have adopted the admittedly unusual procedure of
weaving some of the endnotes into the main text of the book. I
have done this where it seemed that I could do so without unduly
disrupting the flow.
For the chapters on astronomy (which, incidentally, I decided
to break up into two in that quite different issues were involved), I
wish to thank the Department of Space History of the National Air
and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution. Because of
their assistance, I was able to acquire the "Report on the History of
the Discovery of Neptune," by Benjamin Gould (Smithsonian
Institution Press, Washington, D.c., 1850), "On the Law of Vege
table Growth and the Periods of the Planets," by Benjamin Peirce,
Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1852, 2:241,
and '~Photographic Search for Planet 0," Annals of the Astronomi
cal Observatory of Harvard College, 1911. I also examined some of
William Pickering's writings on fiIe at Harvard. For this I am
indebted to Patrice Donoghue, Curatorial Associate of the Har
yard University Archives in the Pusey Library, who kindly sent me
several articles from William Pickering's '~ Search for a Planet
Beyond Neptune" (Vol. LXI, Part 11, Annals of the Astronomical
Observatory of Harvard College). Also helpful were various British
science museums and archives, which provided me with articles
like '~ccount of some circumstances historically connected with
the discovery of the planet exterior to Uranus," by George Biddell
Airy, published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society,
1846, and "On an ultra-Neptunian planet," by George Forbes,