Books and Arts

books and arts

of David Gooding on Michael Faraday, of stand the stepwise generation of scientific Martin Rudwick on the geological ‘Devonian concepts in the experimental life of the scien- The course of controversy’, of Gerald Geison on Louis tist.Departing in significant ways from other Pasteur, and of Nicolas Rasmussen on the researchers, such as Thomas S. Kuhn, from true science electron microscope. the Edinburgh school of the sociology of Investigative Pathways: Patterns This book is no mild valedictory. Rather, knowledge and from the ethnomethodolo- and Stages in the Careers of Holmes seeks to persuade us that his concept gists, Holmes found that the investigative Experimental Scientists of the investigative pathway provides the pathway provided him with the best frame- by Frederic Lawrence Holmes framework within which to view the research work in which to place his detailed historical Yale University Press: 2004. 288 pp. $35, £25 careers of these scientists. The great experi- accounts. It expressed, he felt, the “distinc- Robert Olby ments, discoveries and eureka moments do tiveness and continuity of the individual exist, but are the nodal points in the inves- scientific personality”. Recollections can be vivid, as when Francis tigative pathway. This pathway has a conti- Comparing the metaphor of the path to Crick looked back to a moment in February nuity that survives the surprises that nature Howard Gruber’s ‘network of enterprise’ 1953: “Jerry Donohue and Jim Watson were throws at us. Yes, the experimental system and Gooding’s ‘experimenter’s space’,Holmes by the blackboard and I was by my desk, is an important element in the story. admitted that his investigative pathway and we suddenly thought, ‘Well, perhaps we Sometimes it takes the lead, redirecting the would be difficult to apply where the scien- could explain 1:1 ratios by pairing the bases.’ researcher, but it rarely lifts him out of the tist engages in several research topics and It seemed too good to be true.” Was this pathway being investigated.Even the belated moves back and forth from one to another, one of those ‘eureka’ moments, like August recognition that the ribosome is not the or leads a team of researchers. Confining his Kekulé’s vision on the Clapham omnibus of message did not throw research into protein chosen cases to those in which his subjects a snake biting its tail, that led him to pro- synthesis off course, for example. But such worked alone and did not make such shifts, pose the ring structure of benzene? Should events serve to warn us against teleological or to episodes in a scientist’s life when he we take these personal recollections for reconstructions of the past in which it is worked in this way, has enabled Holmes to gospel, or seek out the written record, pour assumed that the end point finally reached exploit the pathway metaphor effectively. over the research notebooks for the embryo was envisaged from the start. Historians and scientists will find this of the revelation, the stages in its almost Holmes’ intimate knowledge of the little book both stimulating and informative. subconscious formulation? research careers of his subjects is clearly It will surely join that select group of classics This and other questions concerning the apparent. This book serves admirably to that long outlive their authors. ■ career of the experimental scientist are raised introduce the reader to his many studies and Robert Olby is in the Department of the History and discussed by eminent science historian those of his colleagues in the field. For the and Philosophy of Science, University of Larry Holmes in Investigative Pathways. biographer he offers insights into such topics Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15260, USA. Written shortly before his death, this brief as mentoring, creativity, the difficulty of book offers his reflections on 45 years of remaining at the forefront as a scientific field research into the careers of outstandingly matures, and the problems of ageing for the successful experimental scientists, such as eminent scientist. Holmes is no anthropol- Claude Bernard, Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier ogist bereft of scientific knowledge coming A struggle for order and,most recently,Seymour Benzer.Holmes to the lab to report on the strange society A Well-Ordered Thing: Dmitrii also looks back on his detailed study of the within,but a scholar who has devoted his life Mendeleev and the Shadow famous experiment by Matthew Meselson to understanding what goes on there. of the Periodic Table and Franklin Stahl on the semi-conservative Fashions in historiography come and go by Michael D. Gordin replication of DNA. As well as mining his but Holmes, while absorbing what is valu- Basic Books: 2004. 336 pp. $30, £22.50 own intimate knowledge of these scientists, able in each, has remained true to the calling Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent Holmes draws on the scholarly researches he felt from the beginning: to seek to under- The name of Dmitrii Mendeleev is forever associated with the periodic table, which is found in chemistry laboratories and class- rooms around the world. Yet this famous invention, which made sense and order out ARIS/M. CHARMET of the elements, was just one of Mendeleev’s numerous achievements. Michael Gordin, an assistant professor of history at the University of Princeton, has reconstructed Mendeleev’s heterogeneous career in all its facets and with all its contradictions. His book, A Well-Ordered Thing, is neither a standard scientific biography nor an attempt to demystify this scientist, who became a national icon in Russia. Rather, Gordin uses Mendeleev as an example to explore the THE ART ARCHIVE/ACADÉMIE DE MÉDECINE P ARCHIVE/ACADÉMIE ART THE life and work of members of the educated élite in the nineteenth century in imperial St Petersburg. Historians of chemistry might well feel a bit frustrated because there is little chemistry in this book. The need for a means Life in the lab: Claude Bernard (third from right) teaching, in a painting by Leon L’hermitte. of teaching chemistry was crucial to the

by both Newton’s dynamics and James Clerk subject of the Tsar, with conservative ideals, Maxwell’s electromagnetism. Mendeleev’s who fought desperately against the disinte- ambition was to integrate ether as a chemical gration both of the Russian Empire and of element within the periodic system, in order chemical elements.He never really separated to unify the natural sciences. He also sought in his mind the future of Russia from the to save the individuality and integrity of future of science, and had ambitions to be chemical elements, which were threatened the Russian Newton. by radioactivity and electrons — the exis- This highly readable book offers two tence of subatomic particles favoured the important lessons for working scientists. view that atomic elements were made up of First,Mendeleev’s career illustrates the inter- smaller units. play between scientific creation and eco- In the name of science, Mendeleev spent nomic, political and educational projects. his life fighting against ‘deviations’ or super- Second, it may be a consolation to know that stitions. For example, he struggled against such a well known scientist endured an the fashion among educated people for incredible number of failures throughout spiritualism, and set up a commission for his life. Notably, his project to isolate ether investigating mediums at the Russian Physical failed and affected his scientific credibility. Society. Mendeleev was also concerned with His solution theory and his views about the the public face of science. In the newspapers origin of oil were wrong. He also failed to and in his books, Mendeleev defended the reform the calendar, and his application to legitimacy and the authority of scientific the Imperial Academy in St Petersburg was societies in matters of public opinion. He turned down. But above all, his firm belief in Dmitrii Mendeleev’s periodic table was in tune acted as an expert, first locally and then at the individuality of chemical elements — the with imperial Russia’s desire for social order. the national level, notably through his firm ground in which the periodic system work on standardization at the Bureau of was rooted — finally crumbled. creation of the periodic system, so Gordin Weights and Measures and in his attempt to Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent is in the might have done well to give more attention modernize the calendar. Department of Philosophy, Université de Paris X, to Mendeleev’s textbooks. His 1861 organic- Gordin portrays Mendeleev as a loyal 92001 Nanterre Cedex, France. chemistry textbook is dealt with too hastily, with the excuse that it was quickly eclipsed by Aleksandr Butlerov’s book.And Mendeleev’s An architectural aside successful Principles of Chemistry could have been analysed against the background of The Italian scientific revolution, championed Vitruvius’ original text to its first printed edition, the tradition of university textbooks.Gordin by Galileo in the seventeenth century, shares to the freshness of Sangallo’s notes, and to a also provides no details about earlier its roots with the mathematical beauty of contemporary introduction by art historian attempts at classification, or about how the Renaissance architecture. Galileo, for example, Ingrid Rowland. Giovanni F. Bignami periodic system was received either in Russia found that studies by the sixteenth-century or abroad. master architects Giorgio Vasari and But the history of chemistry is not Michelangelo came in handy for computing Gordin’s main focus. Instead he attempts the height of mountains on the Moon. And to understand the cultural impact of the the Roman architect Marcus Vitruvius major reforms and political upheavals that Pollio — whose Ten Books on Architecture occurred in imperial Russia before the end of (De architectura) is still required reading for the nineteenth century. From this perspec- architecture students today — drew on the tive, Mendeleev’s periodic system appears proportions of the human body to scale his as a metaphor underlying a programme for buildings, on astronomy for their accurate restructuring and modernizing tsarist Rus- orientation with respect to the heavens, and, sia. The periodic law, with its predictions of course, on geometry. of unknown elements and bold corrections The extensive margins of the first printed of atomic weights, was one expression of an version (incunabulum) of the Ten Books on irrepressible attempt to eradicate misfits and Architecture, in 1486, allowed for hand-written anomalies in various domains. annotations. In 1520, Giovanni Battista This long-standing quest for order con- Sangallo, a leading figure of sixteenth-century trasts with Mendeleev’s versatility.Although Roman architecture who worked with Raphael for today’s chemists he embodies the chem- on St Peter’s Basilica in Rome, filled the margin istry of the elements, he did not spend with annotations and beautiful drawings. much time on this topic. He abandoned his To celebrate its 400th anniversary last year, research on elements soon after constructing the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Italy’s the periodic table, despite uncertainties national academy, has published a high-quality about the classification of rare-earth elements facsimile of this copy of Ten Books on and rare gases. In the 1870s he initiated a Architecture.The page shown here describes project that was his age’s equivalent of ‘big the importance of the orientation of buildings science’ because it involved high-pressure for the health of their inhabitants. In a series devices. His objective was to investigate of illustrated comments, Sangallo stresses deviations from the ideal gas law with the the relevance of this for the Roman climate. expectation of isolating ether, an unknown, This exquisite book links the genius of all-pervading substance that was postulated