Elegant Solutions

Book Reviews 157 THE END OF SILENT RITES the top ten list, you might respond. The list includes, of course, the most famous Philip Ball: Elegant Solutions: Ten heroes from the history of chemistry Beautiful Experiments in Chemistry , and captures their most important The Royal Society of Chemistry, breakthrough experiments. By copying Cambridge, UK, 2005, vii+212 pp. or transferring to current research issues [ISBN 0-85404-674-7] the heroic deeds of the past, young scholars can accomplish excellence. In 2002 the American Chemical Society Now, if the key to doing important (ACS) asked its members to submit chemistry is learning from the history of proposals for the “ten most beautiful chemistry, why did the ACS encourage experiments in chemistry” ( C&EN , doing history of chemistry in the clum- Nov. 18, 2002, p. 5) and then proudly siest manner one can imagine – by col- published the result of the vote in its lecting and ranking decontextualized Chemical and Engineering News maga- historical ‘facts’ and anecdotes from the zine ( C&EN , Aug. 25, 2003, pp. 27-30). memory of its members who used to Democratic as the procedure is, it avoids have no training in the history of chem- asking critical questions: What is an ex- istry? Because the scholarly historiog- periment? What is beauty? What is raphy of chemistry does not matter chemistry? In fact, you need not be able here, you might respond. What matters to give an answer to these questions in is only what today’s chemists consider order to vote. We could even imagine to be important chemistry of the past, none of the voters being able to answer be that invented anecdotes or not. The any of the questions in explicit terms. reference to the past only serves as a And yet, the members of the society means to communicate about the values might correctly consider the result valid, of today – in lack of an explicit dis- not only with regard to the top ten list course about values such as importance. but also regarding its implicit definitions In other words, the democratic ranking of what ‘experiment’, ‘beauty’, and is a rite of the tribe of the chemists. ‘chemistry’ means. The result thus re- Why and how then did such an ac- flects the tacit knowledge and the un- complished science writer as Philip Ball questioned feelings of the majority, as create his own list of “ten beautiful ex- they have previously been trained to re- periments in chemistry”? On the one spond to such unusual questions, and hand, the project was commissioned by helps newcomers to acculturate easily. the British Royal Society of Chemistry, However, such implicit consensus defi- in response to the ACS ranking, of nitions and assessments are neither course. On the other, Ball has in fact binding for non-members, nor suitable been seriously searching for the role of for explicit debates. Prompted by the aesthetics in chemistry before, though questions of what a beautiful experi- not in the design of experiments. Thus, ment in chemistry is, you might repeat the book was from the outset a com- the top ten list you have learnt by heart, promise, but one that helped him coun- but otherwise remain silent. terbalance and, I am sure, redirect the Now imagine that ‘beautiful’ is just chemists’ interest in beauty. In almost another term for ‘important’ and that any regard, he puts emphasis on the op- ‘experiments’ means whatever chemists posite of the ACS approach, even if his are doing in their labs. How can you ed- list of experiments, at first glance, great- ucate young chemists to become re- ly overlaps with that of the ACS. Thus, searchers doing important chemistry if the book starts out with conceptual you avoid discussing what ‘important’ clarifications. It questions the concept means? They can gather the meaning of of experiment as theory testing, which ‘importance’ from the role models of has led generations of philosophers of HYLE – International Journal for Philosophy of Chemistry, Vol. 12 (2006), No. 1. Copyright 2006 by HYLE and the authors. 158 Book Reviews science to such absurdities as ‘astro- givable, however, in the face of the nomical experiments’, and emphasizes wealth of historical details and in-depth the explorative, manipulative, and tech- interpretations that are usually based on nological character of chemical experi- the latest history of science scholarship. ments. Unlike the ACS, it rejects the What makes this book particular strong idea that a beautiful experiment must be is that it is readily accessible by a general significant or important in retrospect readership with all its historical intricacy and rules out any serendipity findings of and scientific details included. Indeed, whatever later importance. Instead of Ball is even able to explain in simple providing a ranking, Ball’s ten experi- words the Woodward-Hoffmann rules, ments are each meant to illustrate one which he needs to make plausible an aspect of beauty. And throughout the aesthetic feature of chemical synthesis. section called ‘Asking Questions of Na- Since each of the ten chapters high- ture’, it elaborates on the difficult his- lights one feature of the beauty of torical distinction between chemistry chemical experiments, they seem to be and physics. conceived as individually sufficient con- Most important, however, Ball does ditions rather than as altogether neces- not present a ‘list’ of ten experiments, sary conditions of beauty. This suggests that simple-minded readers could learn that Ball has ten different concepts or by heart, but ten chapters, each explor- aspects of beauty in mind, which are, in ing an episode in the history of chemis- the order of the chapters, try, from van Helmont’s 17th-century • exact quantification (van Helmont), experimental approach to the latest • attention to details (Cavendish), achievements in synthetic chemistry. A • patience in the conduct of the exper- remedy against the isolated historical iment (Marie Curie), ‘facts’ collected by the ACS, Ball heavily • elegance in the design of the exper- contextualizes ‘his experiments’ by iment (Ernest Rutherford), providing scientific, philosophical, so- • miniaturization and acceleration of cial, and biographical background in- the experiment (various nuclear formation, sometimes to the extent that chemistry groups), ‘the experiment’ almost vanishes within • conceptual simplicity (Louis Pas- the narrative. Moreover, he does away teur), with plenty of anecdotes and myth that • imagination that transcends com- the chemistry community and its hagi- mon views (Stanley Miller), ographers have uncritically spun around • simple-minded, straightforward rea- their history, from the Wöhler myth to soning (Neil Bartlett), the romancing of numerous chemical • economy, avoidance of deviations heroes. And what is more, he discusses (Robert B. Woodward), and why chemists of all scientists have such • conceptually straightforward design a particular need for historical myths (Leo Paquette). and romances (pp. 119-123). Although I have pushed Ball’s own The book is not free of small errors or terms a little bit, it seems obvious that misleading interpretations, such when all the ten features are first of all virtues Bacon’s choice of his book title Novum of the experimenter (Ball’s main exam- Organum is said to be a metaphor for ples are listed above in brackets) rather applied science (p. 2) rather than an al- than attributes of specific experiments lusion to Aristotle’s Organon ; when La- in which these virtues have been materi- voisier is made the single author of the alized. Two important consequences New System of Nomenclature (p. 31); follow from that distinction. or when Pasteur’s rejection of sponta- First, the shift from specific historical neous generation is interpreted as an an- experiments to experimental virtues al- ti-vitalist move (p. 115). All that is for- lows a more general analysis. Virtues, Book Reviews 159 i.e. attitudes and capacities of people, are, or how they could polish their pub- can be more readily transferred from lic image by one or the other association context to context; here, from the spe- with art. I am also sure that readers, cific historical contexts to current re- both chemists and nonchemists, will search issues. (This is why, in ethics, greatly benefit from learning more moral virtues have been preferred over about the history of chemistry and moral values, norms, and consequences about what matters in chemical experi- by many philosophers since Aristotle.) ments. However, the intellectual Thus, provided Ball’s experimental vir- strength of the book is that it provokes tues are generally accepted, his analysis you to think about how aesthetic values of beauty provides a much better educa- are related to experimental virtues, so tional approach than the rite of the that it might end a period of silent rites. ACS. Second, ‘beautiful’ is a normative con- Joachim Schummer: cept that belongs to the realm of aes- Department of Philosophy, University of thetics, besides ‘true’ (epistemological), Darmstadt, Schloss, 64283 Darmstadt, ‘right’ (moral), and ‘important’ for Germany; [email protected] something else (instrumental). As far as I can see, Ball’s concepts of beauty are clearly distinguished from epistemological and moral concepts. Moreover, the focus on virtues allows decontextualiz- ing the experiments and thus abstracts from their historical ( i.e. instrumental) importance, i.e. the experimental virtues of each of the examples are valuable re- gardless of the historical importance of the specific experiments in retrospect. Hence, Ball’s experimental virtues are clearly distinguished from the three other normative concepts. They com- prehend a forth normative realm of what scientists appreciate and value in their experimental practice and which they call, in lack of a better term, ‘beautiful’. The book provides no less than the first analysis of that realm regarding chemistry.

Load more