• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

50 Book Reviews Carsten Reinhardt: Shifting and Re- dramatic change: Starting from the sci- arranging – Physical Methods and the ence of substances and their changes at th Transformation of Modern Chemis- least in the 18 century, there is a rea- try, Sagamore Beach, MA: Science sonable tendency to shift the chemical History Publications, 2006, 428 pp. core to the ‘abstract’ microphysical realm already well before 1950. Hence, [ISBN 0-88135-354-X] the mentioned abstraction, which can be considered chemistry’s conceptual This large monograph by historian of shift from substances to molecules, is a science Carsten Reinhardt (now Uni- movement which is obviously inde- versity of Bielefeld) is his Habilitation pendent from what some historians call thesis (at the University of Regens- ‘instrumental revolution’. Although he burg), which is still a prerequisite to mentions it and quotes the relevant gain the venia legendi at several German sources, Carsten Reinhardt is obviously universities. Shifting and Rearranging professionally reluctant to use the latter consists mainly of six case studies refer- concept throughout his book. ring to the works of Klaus Biemann, As to the second part of the quote Carl Djerassi, Richard Ernst, Herbert from the preface, intriguing questions Gutowsky, Fred McLafferty, and John for both history and philosophy of Roberts. Biemann, Djerassi, and chemistry can be raised, such as ‘Has McLafferty are chosen because of the chemistry been reduced to physics by tremendous impact they had (mainly) instrumental spectroscopy?’ Reinhardt on mass spectrometry, whereas Ernst, is very clear about that and similar ques- Gutowsky, and Roberts are well-chosen tions: “This book describes the transfer examples from the field of nuclear mag- of instrumental research methods from netic resonance spectrometry. The au- physics to chemistry […] To make in- thor presents his case studies in an in- struments chemical – in devising useful terwoven manner rather than putting methods for chemists – was research in together some more or less similar biog- its own right, and a strategy of chemists raphies. In five main chapters he tells for creating disciplinary space” (p. 1). the detailed stories of how these scien- The author is extraordinarily clear tists accommodated and assimilated the with respect to his methodology as well. new physical instrumental methods and, He identifies five main topics – which at the same time, contributed to chang- he calls different dimensions of scien- ing the whole enterprise called chemis- tific methods – that need to be exam- try. Already in the preface the author ined in the framework of his endeavour observes: Chemistry’s “object of exami- (pp. 12-15): (1) Making of methods in nation, the chemical substance, was the laboratory; (2) adaptation of chemi- transmuted into abstract structure; its cal concepts; (3) standardization and most important method, the chemical teaching; (4) the university-industry reaction, was supplemented by physical nexus; and (5) social organization. All methods; and its practitioner, the chem- these issues are carefully addressed in ist, was partially displaced by technical the central chapters and summed up in instruments” (p. vii). The first thesis of the concluding chapter (The Spectrum of this sentence, however, is not really Methods, pp. 357-388). Besides the surprising. We can find this kind of ab- common published sources of ‘ready straction much earlier than the author and done’ science – the use of which is claims, already before the mid-20th cen- restricted for a historical investigation tury, for example, in the acceptance of on empirical and instrumental practice – atomism in chemistry which began in Reinhardt uses material from private ar- the early 19th century. Also text-book chives (e.g. Biemann, Ernst, Roberts) characterizations of chemistry indicate a and university collections (e.g. Stanford, HYLE – International Journal for Philosophy of Chemistry, Vol. 15 (2009), No. 1, 50-52. Copyright 2009 by HYLE and Klaus Ruthenberg. Book Reviews 51 MIT, Harvard) as well as interviews, cated as a chemist at ETH Zurich to seven of which he conducted by him- which he returned as assistant professor self. in 1968 after a stint with Varian Associ- We take a brief but exemplarily look ates, Palo Alto, from 1963 on. The most at two of the cases. First, the word ‘re- important of his developments are Fou- arranging’ of the title is borrowed from rier-transformed NMR and two- what has become famous as ‘McLafferty dimensional NMR. Reinhardt describes rearrangement’ in chemistry. The latter Ernst as a methods-oriented scientist. is a spontaneous stabilization reaction Though he and his co-workers also of certain cations in evacuated instru- worked on applications, the instrumen- ments (mass spectrometers) with a tal part of his scientific work had by far moving H-Atom via an assumed hex- the highest priority. He took up this agonal intermediate structure, yielding style of work during his time as Ph.D. molecules and radical-ions that are typi- student with theoretician (and philoso- cal in pattern but different from the pher of chemistry) Hans Primas at Zu- usual decay of molecular ions. Fred rich. Reinhardt chooses the model of a McLafferty had been with Dow Chemi- middleman to describe Ernst’s situation: cal Co. from 1950 until 1964 after “Method makers, acting as mediators, which he went to Purdue University were crucial actors in the process. The (and 1968 to Cornell). During his cru- focus of this book is on the middleman cial time in industry, he measured and cultures of physical instrumentation in collected hundreds of mass spectra and chemistry. In cultural anthropology, strived for their interpretation. In the middleman cultures are minorities in early 1950s he recognized the regularity which a disproportionately high number of decompositions which carries his of individuals is engaged in trade. […] name (pp. 103-112). He interpreted it Method makers attached new meanings pragmatically, i.e. he considered the re- to technological objects, and their bene- action in the mass spectrometer to be fit rested on the wide use of them in sci- like usual chemical reactions anywhere entific communities. For doing so, they else. This is exactly an example of what needed standing in the importing Carsten Reinhardt means by ‘shift’: The communities as well as allies in the ex- transfer of ‘common’ chemical language porting cultures” (p. 21). – used for describing the properties and In Shifting and Rearranging, Carsten reactions of empirical substances – to Reinhardt kindly (and almost implic- the field of ‘chemistry in the instru- itly) reminds the community of phi- ment’. However, this shift not only af- losophers of chemistry not to draw too fected chemistry as a discipline but also adventurous conclusions by applying the entire instrument family: “A mass their respective model, concept, or idea spectrometer, even if technically un- to primary literature alone. He claims changed, encoded different theoretical that many areas of chemistry (physical meanings for physicists measuring nu- organic chemistry, analytical chemistry, clear forces in the 1920s, industrial organic chemistry, and the like) in the chemists collecting compound data in investigated period (and, we may add, the 1940s, and natural product chemists ever since) are best characterized by the disentangling molecular structures in activities of method makers and assimi- the 1960s” (p. 19). lators of chemical concepts: “Compe- The second story of the career of the tence in methods was the word of the Swiss NMR-pioneer Richard Ernst day, and carried forward by a new type (Nobel Prize 1991) is particularly in- of scientist. Neither just experimentalist triguing and telling in this context nor theoretician, an expert in methods (chapter 6 with the funny title “A Spin worked across many fields, ranging Doctor in Resonance”). Ernst was edu- from physics to chemistry and the bio- 52 Book Reviews medical sciences” (p. 360). However, questions like whether or not chemists have been methodically pragmatic al- ready before the instrumental revolu- tion, have to be left open to further in- vestigations. Without any doubt Reinhardt’s thesis that physical methods like mass spec- trometry and nuclear magnetic reso- nance have been converted into chemi- cal methods and saved the disciplinary autonomy will sound embalming to the (virtual) anti-reductionism movement, although the non-reducibility of meth- ods is a widely accepted assumption in philosophy of science. There are some minor formal draw- backs. Unfortunately, there are no ref- erences to the footnotes; the German transcripts of the quoted passages from the interview with Ernst in the foot- notes are somewhat awkward (whereas a quotation of Bachelard has been left in French, p. 11); and the index apparatus refers to companies and names, whereas a subject index, which would be helpful to work with such a large and dense vol- ume, is missing. Carsten Reinhardt has delivered a particularly useful and well-written study. This book will become nothing less than a standard in the history and philosophy of chemistry. Klaus Ruthenberg: Laboratory of Physical Chemistry, Coburg University of Applied Sciences, 96406 Coburg, Germany; [email protected] .

Load more

  3

Copy Link