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exactly by Isaac Newton's laws of planetary motion. The remainder of the book is arranged into seven chapters: "Atom," winning science writer and editor at the "Spectrum," "Quantum," "Structure," Washington Post, has now written "Phys- "Nucleus," "Chaos and Order," and ics in the 20th Century," a book that is "Cosmos," followed by a short concluenthusiastically upbeat about science's sion offering the author's optimistic future. Science, Suplee writes, "is a nev- view of the coming century. er-ending, ever-improving, self-correctThe book is a coffee-table volume, ing means of expanding human under- handsomely done. The publisher can be standing of nature." I wholeheartedly justifiably proud of the high-quality paagree. per stock used, the printing, and the The book, which is published in asso- many illustrations. And Suplee has prociation with the American Physical Soci- vided clear, understandable explanaety (APS) and the American Institute of tions of complex scientific concepts Physics, is timed to commemorate the with a minimum use of mathematical 1999 centennial of APS. In it, Suplee pre- equations. Neophytes to science, in parsents a magnificent panorama of many of ticular, are likely to appreciate that. Because of the great range and sheer volume of the concepts and developments covered, the book does not lend itself easily to continuous reading at one sitting. Nor does it necessarily need to be read in the order of its chapters. I moved around in the volume, from sections on spectra to others on structures, and,
20th Century Limited "Physics in the 20th Century," by Curt Suplee, edited by Judy R. Franz and John S. Rigden, Harry N. Abrams, in association with the American Physical Society and the American Institute of Physics, 1999, 217 pages, $ 4 9 . 5 0 (ISBN 0-8109-4364-6) Reviewed by William Spindel
J
ust three years ago, John Horgan, then a senior writer for Scientific American, wrote a book with the dooms- $ day title'The End of Sci- | ence: Facing the limits f of Knowledge in the | Twilight of the Scientific Age." In it he posited that science has now answered all the "big" questions, the age of great discoveries is behind us, and science is today reduced to mere puzzle solving and adding details to existing theories. Apparently Horgan did not take seriously
the dictum: 'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Just about 100 years ago, at the close of the 19th century, some physicists seriously—and ever so wrongly—predicted that all the problems in physics were solved and nothing remained but cleaning up details. In contrast, Curt Suplee, an award3 0 JUNE 28,1999 C&EN
the scientific discoveries, technology developments, and engineering advances of the past century. The book starts by outlining the state of science, technology, and engineering at the dawn of the 20th century. Heat engines, the internal combustion engine, and electricity were just coming into use. Radioactivity had first been observed as penetrating radiations from uranium in 1896 by Henri Becquerel. Marie Curie and her husband Pierre extracted the radioactive elements polonium and radium in the late 1890s. By 1900, Max Planck had proposed that the light emitted from heated black bodies came in discrete quantities that he called quanta. But the motions of all bodies in the universe, both large and small, were still thought to be governed
in between, reviewed the material on the quantum mechanical nature of matter. This process helped me recall how quantum mechanics impinges on the spectral frequencies and intensities of light emitted from atoms and molecules.
Of course, I was drawn to examine the illustrations and their associated captions, and to scan photographs of scientists long gone but known by reputation and the equipment they used (sometimes quite primitive) in their classic studies. It was fascinating to see a photograph of Marie and Pierre Curie together in their primitive laboratory in 1906. I would be hard put to decide what aspect of the book I most enjoyed. High on the list would be the great changes in concepts and instruments over the century, the amazing new technologies that rapidly became available during the period, and how they now affect every aspect of daily life. It's awesome to see, on facing pages, the laboratory and simple equipment used by J. J. Thomson to discover the electron and measure its charge-to-mass ratio in 1897 and the massive modern particle detector currently used at the Stanford Linear Accelerator. I found it equally thrilling to consider the contrast between an early "flying machine" built by the Wright brothers in about 1900 and two of its lineal descendants: today's commercial aircraft that carry hundreds of passengers each on thousands of world-circling flights daily and the powerful rockets that enabled Neil Armstrong to walk on the moon in 1969. Any thoughtful reader will readily come up with numerous examples of comparable achievements during the past century in fields such as communications, information handling and storage, medicine, and the natural sciences. My enthusiasm for this book must be readily apparent. Its subject matter and illustrations are carefully chosen, its writing style is first-rate, it's a handsome product. But lest someone mistake me for a Pollyanna optimist about everything, there was a systematic error of omission in this book that I found annoying. With very few exceptions, only physicists are mentioned by name in the descriptions of the great scientific and technological accomplishments of the century. Since the book commemorates the centennial of APS, these omissions are understandable, perhaps even appropriate. But much of science in this century has been multidisciplinary, and the book rightly includes the fruits of many of these productive and effective collaborations among many types of scientists and engineers. I would have
liked to have seen more names of important contributors who were not physicists. Because my own career as a scientist began at Los Alamos, N.M., working on the Manhattan Project during World War II, I know firsthand about the many scientists and engineers from various disciplines who played key roles in developing the fission bomb and, later, the so-called superbomb. I missed Harold Urey's name in the discussion of fusion energy. His Nobel Prize-winning discovery of deuterium in 1932 was certainly important, both to science in general and to developing the bomb. Omission of Glenn Seaborg, who died earlier this year, was even more disappointing in light of his discovery of plutonium. Seaborg also discovered a good dozen additional transuranium elements and made major contributions to the development of nuclear energy. Finally, I would have liked to have seen acknowledgment of the roles of mathematician John von Neumann and chemist George Kistiakowsky in conceiving and fabricating shaped chemical explosive charges to surround a sphere of plutonium and achieve a rapid spherical implosion that led to the first full-scale nuclear explosion at the Trinity test site on July 15, 1945. Rather than complain about injustices, it might be more useful and effective for a coalition of physical and biomedical scientists, clinicians, and engineers from a number of fields to jointly prepare a companion volume, using this book as a model. The new book would forthrightly present the unparalleled achievements in many areas that have completely changed— and in most cases improved—our daily lives. Sponsorship of the new volume could be sought from science and engineering societies, as well as from interested industrial sources. It's not too far-fetched to think that reading "Physics in the 20th Century" may energize others to undertake a comparable effort. Following his work on the Manhattan Project, William Spindel taught nuclear chemistry at several universities for about 25 years, then served on the staff of the National Academy of Sciences' Board on Chemical Sciences from 1974 to 1990. Now retired, he lives in Falls Church, Va.
