Crucibles: The Story of Chemistry from Ancient Alchemy to Nuclear Fission
by Bernard Jaffe
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Description
Classic popular account of great chemists Trevisan, Paracelsus, Avogadro, Mendeleeff, Curie, Thomson,Lavoisier, up to A-bomb research and recent work with subatomic particles. The Chicago Daily Tribune declared, "The saga is exciting and Mr. Jaffe has told it with distinction." 20 illustrations.Tags
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Member Reviews
I was given my first copy of this book by one of my uncles, a professor of chemistry, while I was in high school (1960-64), and I read it several times avidly. I recently (2009) reread it. The style is antiquated (and was probably stilted even for its time), but the author is knowledgeable and adept at communicating scientific issues in layman's terms. The book was published in 1934 and so predates the atomic and hydrogen bombs, but I was pleased at the skill with which the author discusses the questions that led to the discovery of the structure of the atom and the formulation of quantum physics. Still very enjoyable.
More than halfway read. Find this bio well worded, intensely intriguing, revealing the personality, social background, intertwining of discoverers of the elements behaviors, the egotism and some humility, eccentric personalities too. Highly recommended. Centuries of exploration, the roots.
-science is more than science
-this is a real classic
-this is a real classic
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Chemistry
53 works; 3 members
Best Books of 1926-1935
403 works; 10 members
Author Information
11+ Works 385 Members
Series
Belongs to Publisher Series
Common Knowledge
- Original publication date
- 1930 (first edition) (first edition); 1942 (second edition) (second edition); 1948 (third edition) (third edition); 1976 (revised fourth edition by Dover) (revised fourth edition by Dover)
- People/Characters
- Bernard Trevisan; Theophrastus Paracelsus (1493? to 1541); John Joachim Becher; Joseph Priestley; Henry Cavendish; Antoine Lavoisier (show all 26); John Dalton; John Jacob Berzelius; Amedeo Avogadro; Friedrich Woehler; Dmitri Mendelev; Svante Arrhenius; Marie Curie; J. J. Thomson; Ernest Rutherford; Henry Gwyn Jeffreys Moseley; Niels Bohr; Irving Langmuir; Ernest Lawrence; Humphry Davy; Albert Einstein; Michael Faraday; Enrico Fermi; Jean Fréderic Joliot-Curie; Isaac Newton; Robert Oppenheimer
- Important events
- Manhattan Project; World War II (1939 | 1945)
- Epigraph
- "There is first the groping after causes, and then the struggle to frame laws. There are intellectual revolutions, bitter controversial conflicts, and the crash and wreck of fallen philosophies."
Francis P. Venable - Dedication
- To the memory of my parents
To Rindy, Mandy and David
(dedication to the Dover edition) - First words
- I
TREVISAN
HE LOOKS FOR GOLD IN A DUNGHILL
In the dark interior of an old laboratory cluttered with furnaces, crucibles, alembics, still and bellows, bends an old man in the act of hardening two thousand h... (show all)ens' eggs in huge pots of boiling water. - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)Creative chemistry is in the middle of this great adventure, too. And it will continue to be as fruitful in many other areas where chemists are searching for new products which nature in all her lavishness neglected to create.
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Statistics
- Members
- 224
- Popularity
- 144,980
- Reviews
- 3
- Rating
- (4.00)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 3
- UPCs
- 1
- ASINs
- 14
