LESSONS FROM THE PAST J. B. CONANT, Harvard University, Cambridge,
S A CHEMIST i t gives me peculiar satisfaction to celebrate with my fellow members of the AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETYthe one hundredth anniversary of a significant American invention. This is not the usual type of anniversary meeting of a body of scientists. We are not met to commemorate a scientific discovery which subsequently revolutionized industry and altered society (although one must try to imagine automobiles without tires to grasp the significance for modern life of the industry founded on Goodyear’s invention). We are not recalling some event in the history of pure science, such as Faraday’s first demonstration of the principles of electromagnetic induction which subsequently formed the basis for the development of the electrical industry. Rather we celebrate an event in the history of the manufacturing arts, a history whose first chapters are lost in the haze of prehistoric times when man first learned to win the metals from the ores and fabricate pottery and glass. We celebrate the birth one hundred years ago of a new industry. And we do so with pleasure and pride as scientists, because with the growth of this new industry came the growth of a new science-the chemistry of polymers, of large molecules. The applications of the knowledge won in this new field of chemical labor have given us transparent resins, nonbreakable glasses, and artificial silks. Yet so young is this endeavor and so complex the subject matter that we must beg to be excused if we are asked to explain in scientific language Goodyear’s invention. When Charles Goodyear unexpectedly found that sticky, raw rubber could be converted into a new and useful material by being heated with sulfur and lead oxide, he undoubtedly made a chemical discovery; but a century later we chemists are still uncertain as to the exact nature of his discovery. We are still debating what chemical changes take place in the process of vulcanizing rubber. We know infinitely more about rubber than did Goodyear but still not enough to draw a final picture of its most important transformation. Yet even without this basic knowledge, how much progress has been made in our ability to transform raw rubber into useful products! Careful scientific inquiry has led to the development of accelerators, substances which hasten the process of vulcanization and improve the final product; painstaking research in many laboratories has made possible the introduction of antioxidants which enormously retard the deterioration of vulcanized rubber. I n recent years has come the direct use in ‘manufacture of the sap of the rubber tree, or latex. Finally, we have the commercial production of artificial or synthetic rubbers and rubber substitutes. Much of this advance rests on as sure a scientific basis as does the development of the electric dynamo or motor; some of it, however, has had to depend on sheer empiricism-the cut-and-try method of the artisan. But the residue of the old art is gradually being diminished by the inroads of the new science, and we can look forward with confidence to the day when we shall have a satisfactory understanding of the complicated chemistry of rubber and rubber vulcanization. And can anyone doubt that when that time arrives, both industry and science will be greatly enriched by the new knowledge?
A
3lass.
I HAVE suggested that this is in some ways an unusual celebration for a scientific society. We as chemists are concerned with a century of progress in rubber chemistry, yet we admit the initial date is marked by a chemical discovery not yet fully understood. We realize that here is a case where scientific knowledge followed the development of a new industrial art, not vice versa, and even today the art is a bit ahead of the science. Furthermore, if we study the history of rubber manufacturing, we see that its growth was intimately associated with the expansion of another great human activity, the automobile industry. Fifty years ago a celebration of Goodyear’s discovery would have awakened little interest among chemists, for the science of rubber chemistry was hardly born. It would have awakened almost no interest among the general public, for the automobile was still unknown. The total world’s annual production of rubber was then less than 60,000 tons. It was not until the first years of this century that the production began to rise and not until the second decade that a phenomenal upswing commenced. And why did the annual production reach 200,000 tons by 1916 and 500,000 tons by 1924? The answer is obvious. Tires for automobiles. From 1910 to 1930 the curves of rubber production and automobile registration rise together; during the last decade they rise and fall (somewhat) in almost parallel fashion. I venture to predict that if some industrious soul should count the number of articles published in scientific journals dealing with the chemistry of rubber and rubberlike compounds, he would find that the annual production from the laboratories followed the growth curve of the automobile industry. So the member’s of the Rubber Division of the are perhaps professionally AMERICANCHEMICALSOCIETY merely children of the great modern revolution in society’s habits of transportation. So one might claim that our scientific knowledge of large molecules, and the chemical reactions which produce them, is but a by-product of the ubiquitous motor car. Some chemist is sure to be moved to challenge me a t this point. “You have got the cart before the horse,” he will say. Or more appropriately, perhaps, the wheels above the car. Without vulcanized rubber could the automobile have developed a t all? Which is cause and which effect? I accept the amendment; it is not a case of cause and effect or of parents and children. It is a case of interrelation, of partnership. Industries have grown by mutual action and re%ction, and the sciences related to these industries have flourished as trade expanded. There is an unjustified frame of reference assumed when one speaks of by-products. We are concerned with an intricate web of human activity; which portion is to be judged as of prime significance depends on the viewpoint of the observer. This much seems clear: I n the past, science and industry have prospered together. Each has influenced the other and each has altered society and in turn responded to society’s demands. A distinguished philosopher stated a few years ago that “by and large, the economic changes of recent centuries have been parasitic upon the advances made in natural science.” I humbly suggest that he chose the wrong biological metaphor. If we view the history of science in relation to the history of
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society, we are led to characterize the relation of industry to pure science by the word “symbiosis,” which means living together, not by the word “parasitism” which implies a host and a devouring parasite. The common lichens on the rocks afford an example of symbiosis. A colorless plant akin to a fungus lives together with a minute green unicellular organism, an alga. The green plant manufactures the food for both by photosynthesis from the air; the colorless plant lives on this ultimate source of energy but, thanks to its tough tissue, protects and stabilizes the manufacturing unit. Without both you do not have a lichen. Which is more important, the fungus or the unicellular organism? On analysis this would seem to be a meaningless question, at least to all who view algae and fungi without emotional bias. It is difficult in these days to view any human activity without prejudice and emotion. Perhaps that is why we have had both a great increase in interest in the history of science and such divergence of opinion as to its interpretation. Who has been the parasite, the industrialist or the scientist? A meaningless question, I believe, but one on which violent sides may be taken. Strong differences of opinion also exist as to the extent to which the growth of science has been influenced by economic and cultural forces. One school of historians today never tires of pointing out examples of the relation of new developments in even pure science to changing economic conditions in the world beyond the laboratory. Others would all but ignore the interactions of science and society. I n fact the controversy is a result, it seems to me, of the emotional reactions of those concerned. Many people instinctively dislike complex situations. They prefer to regard their own walk of life as self-contained, as a path surrounded by a high board fence with clearly marked exits and entrances. Some industrialists resent the idea that their industrial art has been influenced appreciably by discoveries of mere professors. Some workers in the quiet retreat of an academic laboratory are apt to be irritated by the suggestion that their behavior has been in any way determined by social and economic forces beyond their own control. But the evidence of history is all against them.
A PERFECT example of symbiosis is the growth of both the science of organic chemistry and the dyestuff industry in Germany in the last third of the nineteenth century. And the reason for the time and place of this development is surely not unconnected with the rapid urbanization and industrialization of a newly forged empire. Yet the best history of the science of the compounds of carbon dismisses the coal-tar dye industry in half a page with a totally unilluminating discussion. Pasteur in France and Liebig in Germany were pioneers in organic chemistry, the science which ultimately won such triumphs in the synthesis of new materials of industrial and medical importance. Both these men, however, soon left their first love and devoted their attention to biological or agricultural chemistry. Is it without significance that theyjived and worked in a society still two thirds agricultural? Can we ignore the fact that their successors who completed the framework of the theory of organic chemistry and perfected the art of laboratory synthesis were contemporaries of those industrialists who in manufacturing plants first synthesized new dyestuffs? And unlike Pasteur and Liebig, these men were members of a new Germany deeply concerned with industrial activity, a country whose population figures suggested “a whole nation rushing to town.” One can have no adequate picture of scientific progress without examining the social and economic conditions under which this progress took place. Admittedly, one can carry the economic interpretation of history, including the history of science, to absurd lengths. But one can also fail to understand the lessons of the past by reading the history of science
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solely as the story of scientific heroes who lived and moved in a vacuum. Let me turn now to another example not drawn from chemistry, another illustration of the way in which the development of science has been conditioned by advances in technology. Take the history of that awe-inspiring branch of physics known as thermodynamics. This is the science which in formal mathematical language sets forth the principles governing the transformation of heat into work, the rules of the game for all heat engines from steam locomotives to Diesels. The story has been well told by J. G. Crowther in his chapter on Joule in “Men of Science.” He quotes to good effect from Joule’s biographer, Reynolds, who seems to have been a t least a generation ahead of his time in his outlook on the history of science. I n explanation of the fact that in the 1840’s not only did Joule perform his famous experiments on the mechanical equivalent of heat, but many others were concerned with similar inquiries, Reynolds wrote as follows: “TOthe locomotive must be attributed the birth of that philosophical interest respecting heat and work which immediately followed its general introduction. The locomotive is obtrusive, it will be seen; by 1842 locomotives had obtruded themselves well over Europe, demanding attention even of philosophers who had previously studied nothing lower than the planets.” I n this interpretation of the conditioning of the development of even theoretical physics by the current technological inventions, Reynolds expresses the essence of the interrelation of science and industry. The locomotive was not alone in demanding the attention of philosophers. Repeatedly in the history of science we find cases where the path of research has been determined by one or more factors obtruded by society. The past hundred years are replete with examples of the debt that science owes to industry quite as much as the more often proclaimed debt that industry owes to science. Problems and new research tools have often been unconsciously borrowed by the pure scientist from the manufacturer. A casual inspection of a laboratory of modern physics or an astronomical observatory will yield startling evidence to those who look with a fresh eye. Alloys, motors, electrical equipment of all sorts, developed and made possible only because of commerical demands; photographic plates and developers, the by-product of a large business supported by photographers, amateur and professional, and the moving pictures; radio devices of all sorts, invented and perfected to supply a public demand for entertainment and instruction through a new medium ; such is the milieu of the twentieth-century philosopher! Engineering might be defined as the application of physics to industrial problems. Modern industry is a monument to the effectiveness of such application of pure science to practical matters. The latest atom-smashing machine, the cyclotron] is a monument to the significance of the reverse of this process. It is a triumph of the application of modern electrical engineering to a problem of pure physics.
I FEAR that eve$ in outlining the story of the symbiosis of science and industry, I have failed to hold the balance even. I have given too many illustrations of the impact of industry on science and said too little of the significance to industrial progress of what often appears to be “useless knowledge.” The debt that industry owes to science has been so much discussed in recent years that it should be common knowledge. However, I should like to remind the lay readers of the classic example of the electrical industry built on the sure foundation of discoveries in pure physics, discoveries made without any realization of their ultimate utility. The familiar and probably apocryphal anecdote about Faraday’s first public exhibition of a miniature electric motor epitomizes the long story. At the close of his lecture on the principles of electromagnetism
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in which he showed a wire carrying an electric current rotating around a magnet, an elderly lady came forward. “What is the use of that toy?” she inquired. (And the apparatus a t that time seemed indeed little more than a scientific toy.) Faraday replied, “Madam, what is the use of a baby?” Or perhaps in these days some of you prefer the variant according to which Gladstone, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, is the questioner. And to the inquiry, “What is the use of it?” Faraday’s quick reply was, “Sir, some day you can tax it.” Viewed in historical perspective, the contempt of the practical man for all scientific work, unless it has immediate utility, is seen to be shortsighted. Patience is needed by the scientist. It is no less needed by society in evaluating the work of our universities and research laboratories. On the other hand, the scorn of some cloistered scientists and scholars for the inventor and the industrial worker is equally shortsighted. I n science, as in other human activities, looking
down one’s nose a t other people is worse than a ridiculous pastime. It is often equivalent intellectually to throwing a monkey wrench into the machinery. If my thesis is correct, that in the long run pure science and applied science are so closely interrelated as to be inseparable, then clearly when one lacks nourishment the other must eventually wither and inevitably die. So industrialists and scientists may well join together in celebrating either a great discovery in pure science or a revolution in the industrial arts. For on close analysis both events are seen to be of equal significance for the attainment of those goals for which the two groups strive. And they may ask the other members of the community to join with them when they pay honor, as tonight, to a pioneer who opened doors to riches for mankind he little dreamed of: treasures not measured in material terms alone, new weapons in man’s intellectual armory-perhaps the only enduring wealth of modern times.
L’ALEMBIC By FranSois Saint Bonvin B o n v m was born in Paris November 22,1817, and died in St. Germain-en-Laye in 1887. He was well known for his work on still life and interiors, and exhibited a t the Paris Salon for over 30 years. The original painting of this, No. 106 in the series of Alchemical and Historical Reproductions, was exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1875 and again in Paris in 1889. It is signed at the lower left “F. Bonvin, 1874” and became put of the C. Viguier Collection. This painting was sold a t the sale at the Galerie Georges Petit in Paris on May 4, 1906, and brought 1850 francs. Its present location IS not known. Here our chemist has a very monkish appearance and possibly is distilling a liqueur like “Benedictine” in a monastery laboratory. The still and other equipment have a much more modern appearance than that shown in the paintings of Teniers, although the composition greatly resembles that of the latter artist.
D. D.
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BEROLZHEIMER
50 East 41st Street New York, N. Y.
A complete list of thc first 96 rcproductions Pppcarcd in our January, 1939. issue. page 124. An additional reproduction ~ p pears each month.
