RECENT BOOKS DE LA M ~ T A O DDANS E LES SCIENCES EXP~RIMENTALES. Henry Le Chatelier, Member of the Institute, Professor in the Faculty of Sciences. Dunod. 92 Rue Banaparte (VI), Paris, 1936. 319 pp. 13.5 X 21.0 em. 21 fr. 05. The present hook contains in a different farm the same ideas as the hook entitled SCIENCE ET INDUSTRIE which Le Chatelier puhlished shortly after the war, the most important difference being that he here takes from his own work the examples with which he illustrates the various N ~ Sof the methodology of science. The reader will he glad that he has done this. The author, naturally, is ahle t o speak with the greatest authority when he speaks concerning his own work. He gives us the mature conclusions of a seasoned veteran. The hook has proved to he Le Chatelier's valedictory. Barn October 8th. 1850, he died September 17th, 1936. The central ouroose of the hook is to emohasize the interdependence of science and industry. "I have consecrated my whole career t o industrial science," writes Le Chatelier, "not because of a reasoned wish but because of the impulsion of exterior circumstances. I n my youth I never heard mention of the distinction between pure science and applied science." His father was attached t o the Credit Mobilier and directed the construction of railroads. He retained from his school days an interest in chemistry, and had a laboratory in his home. He was intimate with Henri Sainte-Claire Deville and often took his son t o the lahoratory a t the &ole Normale where he heard discussions on the fusion of platinum and the manufacture of aluminum. "The researches of Sainte-Claire Deville, which will forever make his name illustrious, seemed, a t the very moment when he was pursuing them, to occupy a less important place in his thought than his industrial studies." On completing his course s t the &ole Polytechnique, Henry Le Chatelier, because of his rank in his class, was sent to the Emle des Mines with the title of Ingknicuv de I'Etat. Two years after graduating from the latter school he was "bombard6 professeur de c h i m $ e H s h o tinto the position of professor of c h e m i s t r y a t the Ecok der Miner, a fact which he ascribes to the benevolence of Daub&, the Director of the school and a friend of his father, and immediately set to work t o prepare himself properly to fill the position. "Not knowing how to orient my first work." he writes, "I thought of my father's old friend. Sainte-Claire Deville, and went t o ask him his counsel. He received me badly and made fun of me, saying that my question was absurd. When a man works in the laboratory, he is assailed by a multitude of problems, and his only difficulty is to make a judicious choice among them. I had only to get t o work, to do anything a t all, and I would soon encounter interesting questions.'' Le Chatelier remembered certain briquettes of hydraulic cement which his maternal grandfather, Pierre Durand, had made and decided to study the composition of these materials. The work was his Doctor's thesis. The study required the exact determination of high temperatures, for which no satisfactory method was known. Le Chatelier was successful in using thermocouples for the purpose, these having been suggested fifty years earlier by Antoine Becquerel, hut never applied, having been formally condemned by Regnault. Following this he devised an optical pyrometer for the measurement of temperatures above the melting point of platinum, and made the first determinations of the temperatures which are realized in the cement, metallurgical, ceramic, and glass industries. Because of the phenomena which these researches brought to his attention,he devoted himself for a number of years to the study of the principles of chemical equilibrium. Explosions were frequent in gaseous coal mines; many lives were lost annuallv:. the French mvernment a .~ ~ o i n t eadcommission to study the matter-and the terhnrcal part of the work was ptst in the charye of two professors at the krole (IPS . l l ~ w g
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Mallard and Le Chatelier. As part of a theoretical study of combustion they measured for the first time the variations in the specific heats of methane and other combustible gases a t elevated temperatures. Le Chatelier on his own account also studied the comhustion of actylene and suggested the use of the oxyacetylene blowpipe for the autogenous welding of steel. At the suggestion of Mallard he undertook a study of the allotropic modifications of certain minerals, and discovered the anomaly in the dilatation of quartz at 570'. He studied amorphous silica, tridymite, and cristohalite, the latter reputed to he a rare mineral, hut showed that cristobalite is in reality the principal material of the silica bricks which are used in steel furnaces. Le Chatelier was persuaded by Lan, newly appointed Director of the &ole des Mines, to take charge of the course in metallurgy. This led him t o study alloys, t o develop microscopic metallography, and finally to enunciate the general theory of alloys which is definitively accepted today. Finally, in order t o diffuse the new scientific notions, he founded with the help of a committee of steel manufacturers, the new periodical, Revue de Mktallurtie--which still further extended his relations with industry. When Le Chatelier, still retaining his position a t the i'cole des Mines, accepted the chair of chemistry a t the Sorhonne which had been made vacant by the death of Moissan, he found himself without time for work in the laboratory. I n consequence of an article in the Revue de Mktollurgie relative to the work of the American engineer, Frederick Winslow Taylor, on fastcutting steels, Le Chatelier entered into a correspondence with Taylor and became informed concerning his formulation of the principles of factory organization (the Taylor System). He was passionately interested in these questions, and during twelve years published many papers in which they were discussed. At the request of the military authorities during the war, Le Chatelier again turned his attention to the study of refractory materials, to metallurgical questions, and especially t o the problem of tempering projectiles. His knowledge of the procedure of science and of the organization of the forces of praduction served his country in good stead. He retired from active work at the age of seventy shortly after the signing of the peace. . . "During my fifty years as professor a t the ,&ole des Mines I have always thought that the function of a professor does not consist merely in teaching his students the results which science has acquired, but that he aught to make efforts to inculcate in his auditors a confidence in the use of the scientific method and so to develop their intellectual faculties instead of seeking only t o equip their memory. I n retirement today, and no longer having the professor's chair at my disposal. I have wished to continue by pen what I a m no longer ahle t o do by word of mouth." The foregoing is a summary of the Introduction, and it also indicates suficiently the sort of material which comprises the body of the book and supplies the author with evidence for his methodological conclusions and with support for his thesis of the interdependence of science and industry. The actual chapter headings are as follows: I. Definition of Science; 11. General Principles; 111. The Observation of Facts; IV. Mechanism of Discovery; V. Experimental Measurements; VI. Apparatus for Observing and Measuring; VII. Errors; VIII. Reasoning; IX. Laws; X. The Industrial Origin of Science; XI. Influence of Science on Industry; XII. Introduction of Science into the Factory; XIII. Discoveries and Inventions: XIV. Scientific Teaching; XV. Technical Teaching; XVI. The Taylor System; XVII. Conclusion. The book is important, intelligent, stimulating, and provocative a hook to he chewed and digested. TENNBYL. DAVIS
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