Cathedrals of Science: The Personalities and Rivalries That Made Modern Chemistry

by Patrick Coffey

In Cathedrals of Science, Patrick Coffey describes how chemistry got its modern footing-how thirteen brilliant men and one woman struggled with the laws of the universe and with each other. They wanted to discover how the world worked, but they also wanted credit for making those discoveries, and their personalities often affected how that credit was assigned. Gilbert Lewis, for example, could be reclusive and resentful, and his enmity with Walther Nernst may have cost him the Nobel Prize; Irving Langmuir, gregarious and charming, "rediscovered" Lewis's theory of the chemical bond and received much of the credit for it. Langmuir's personality smoothed his path to the Nobel Prize over Lewis.

Coffey deals with moral and societal issues as well. These same scientists were the first to be seen by their countries as military assets. Fritz Haber, dubbed the "father of chemical warfare," pioneered the use of poison gas in World War I-vividly described-and Glenn Seaborg and Harold Urey were leaders in World War II's Manhattan Project; Urey and Linus Pauling worked for nuclear disarmament after the war. Science was not always fair, and many were excluded. The Nazis pushed Jewish scientists like Haber from their posts in the 1930s. Anti-Semitism was also a force in American chemistry, and few women were allowed in; Pauling, for example, used his influence to cut off the funding and block the publications of his rival, Dorothy Wrinch.

Cathedrals of Science paints a colorful portrait of the building of modern chemistry from the late 19th to the mid-20th century.

Genres: Science, History, Chemistry, Nonfiction, Biography, History Of Science, Popular Science

400 pages, Hardcover

First published August 5, 2008

About the author

Coffey is a chemist by training, and he founded several companies that produced scientific instrumentation or software. He is a Visiting Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley.

Reviews

[Joan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book took forever to read! I'm not too sure why. It was interesting and honest biography. The author is very clear when he is speculating and explaining why he felt the speculations made sense. The two main people the book focused on were Gilbert Lewis and Irving Langmuir. Of course many others received sizable mention in the book. It was interesting to read about the politics behind the Nobel science awards in Chemistry. Probably popularity in the field, at least at the time the book covered, (early 1900s through 1970s or so) played a substantial, if unadmitted part in the Nobel Prize. Langmuir received one and was a very sociable type who respected others. Note the letter he wrote a small boy. He took the kid's work seriously and gave him extensive critiques on the science in the boy's report. The boy went on to become a Physics professor. He was also about the only scientist of the era to agree to work with a woman, Dorothy Wrinch. Lewis held grudges (I can relate since I know I hold grudges) and isolated himself from the scientific community in many ways. If I'm understanding the author correctly, he felt that Lewis's work that got failed nominations for the Nobel several times may not have been his most important work. But he also mentions that likely from Lewis's point of view, all his work was unified by the chemical bond experiments. In total, Lewis was one of the most important scientists around but a lot of his work was only understood and appreciated after his death. Langmuir was lucky enough to work for a company (GE) that had the wisdom back then of letting him work on whatever caught his attention, whether of immediate use to GE or not. It is too bad that that kind of relaxed generous attitude doesn't seem to exist any more. The author's opinion of Linus Pauling is not particularly positive. Pauling was smart but hurt his career by abrasive personality and a focus on Vitamin C that many in the scientific community felt unwarranted. Oddly enough, there is no mention of the English scientists who discovered the structure of DNA even though a lot of the story leading to the final assault on the structure were told.

The author, Coffey, shows how the center of chemical science moved from Germany to America as so many of the chemists and physicists were Jewish. He mentions that Lise Meitner was invited to work on the Manhattan Project and refused. She knew very well what was being developed there and wanted no part of it. Coffey tried to be very neutral in his descriptions of the German scientists who remained in Germany and actively supported the Nazis. [Haber was a fascinating example. Ironically he was of Jewish yet supported the Nazi government. He was one who perhaps got a Nobel in spite of people's opposition to his background (father of Chemical gas warfare. Some of his own relatives were gassed by derivatives of his process in WWII)] Actually, he first tried to do this for German scientists in WWI as well. He showed that disapproval of their decision to support Germany in WWII probably hurt some of their chances for their own Nobel.

I suppose one main theme in his book can be summed up by the focus on personal interactions and its effects in a science often assumed to not have much focus on personality. Primarily this is a history of how modern chemistry developed but the personalities involved were almost as important a focus for this author. I thought that an interesting approach, not one I've seen quite done like this before in writing on scientific history, although I had a professor in college who used this approach on biography to explain the history of science.

[Piyush Dravid · Rating 3 out of 5]

As they say, politics spares none!!!!!. but could the politics also contaminates the science. "Cathedrals of Science" may provide some insights. This book by Patrick Coffey told a dramatic story of the development of principally physical chemistry. It revolves around the personalities who contributed significantly towards the unification of the Physics and the Chemistry. The author gave an excellent narrative about the personalities (Including G.N.Lewis, Irving Langmuir, Nerst, Haber and many prominent scientist) and Rivalries(including politics behind the nobel prizes) that made modern chemistry. The only cons. I found while reading the book is the technical details, about the pressing problem that the scientist were dealing. but overall a nice read.

[Stuart Woolf · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

This book is the second book I have read in the last month or so whose content substantially diverged from my expectations. It's not a bad book; rather, I would say it is a good book whose content simply didn't interest me all that much.

In short, I was expecting this book to be a behinds-the-scenes look at the historical development of chemistry (with appropriate attention given to the biographies of key players) - and, to be fair, there was some of that. But the focus of this book is rivalry, i.e. the annoying, petty disputes that often characterize academic life. I think the intention was to show how, even in science, social politics can dictate who (or which theory) wins or loses - a point worth making, to be sure. Still, I'm reluctant to adopt the frame of mind that science is, essentially, no less fallible than law or politics: there are big egos in science, but even the author concedes the scientific establishment is perfectly willing to trash popular or orthodox theories if a novel theory is better supported by evidence.

Some reviewers were turned off by its "dense" scientific content - quotation marks because, well, the scientific content was pretty flimsy, at worst. (Suffice it to say it helps to have a basic working knowledge of chemistry, but nothing beyond high school.) I felt the qualitative descriptions of various discoveries were unnecessary - nor did they illuminate why these discoveries were important. Simple equations might have been better; then again, as a reader, I was looking for more science, whereas others may be reading it for history only.

[T. Ryan Rogers · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating history of the development of (physical) chemistry, stretching back as far as the 1700s. This book tells the stories of such legends as Arrhenius (Arrhenius equation), Nernst (Nernst equation), Haber (Haber-Bosch process), Lewis (Lewis structures), Langmuir (got a whole journal named after him), and others. And don't be fooled by my links-- all of these science giants have dozens of other society-changing accomplishments to their names. Coffey's journalism is top-notch: his writing is clear enough that anyone interested in how the modern world came to be should enjoy Cathedrals of Science; while at the same time, scientific enough that even a chemistry Ph.D. student is bound to learn a thing or two. Perhaps the most captivating aspect of this book is the human side of science. Coffey details the grad school headaches of these scientists, the race to pen the 3rd law of thermodynamics, the political (and sometimes petty) Nobel Prize committees, moral and familial struggles of scientists during the World Wars, Lewis' academic inbreeding of the Berkeley chemistry department, and so many other events I had never considered in the history of chemistry. Lot's of information you probably never learned in your college degree. I'll save my favorite quote for another page.

I was interested in how better understanding the historical development of so many chemistry concepts actually enhanced my own scientific understanding of them. (One great example is "free energy," which is a funny term, if you don't believe in free lunches. But early themodynamicists were trying to trick chemicals into doing work for them, so they were specifically interested in how much of a process' energy was free to do work.)

Thanks to my mentor, professor, and friend for giving me this book.

[Nate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although this book is ostensibly about the personalities that made chemistry, it's not exactly equally distributed. It's more like Gilbert Lewis and Band. The science was not particularly well explained. I still don't understand what the pressure problem was that they dealt with. Oh well. Most of the names you'll recognize if you took Intro to Chem. Langmuir seems like a showboat. Lewis was claimed to be a recluse and petty, and it sometimes came through, but this was mostly told not said.

[Ellen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a much more academic book than I am used to reading and as a result, I read it rather slowly. I don't know that I retained much but I found it all interesting as I read it. I was struck by how political the Nobel nominating process is, these men were worse than teenage girls for holding grudges. I was also surprised by how much chemistry has changed in a relatively short amount of time. All in all, interesting but a bit of a slog.

[aku · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amazing book about great people that made incredible discoveries in the realm of chemistry.
I enjoyed reading this a lot and learned so much in the process. I'm very happy to have read this!

[Daniel Wang · Rating 5 out of 5]

i will literally never get tired of reading these history of science books.

[Zeynep · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think it takes a great deal of combined enthusiasm (if not a Bachelor's of Science degree) in (physical) chemistry and history of science to truly enjoy this book.

Thanks to my father for the recommendation!

In a way, i feel this narrative would be useful to students of chemistry in understanding the scientific approach, instead of trying to memorize formulae.

[Kristen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really good read for anyone in chemistry who feels completely misunderstood.

Many of the famous laws and equations that we learn in courses are named for individuals who barely passed their courses and were practically kicked out of programs only to go on and receive Nobel prizes for their later work.

Others still were never quite acknowledged, even though they went on to become successful department heads.

Also describes the contribution of chemistry to the world wars.

[Sheila · Rating 5 out of 5]

A lot of the science in this book was over my head, but scientists are people, good people, arrogant people, just like the rest of us, and that's what I enjoyed about the book. The author did a good job bringing these chemists to life, and I did understand enough science to get a feeling for what they were doing. My copy has only 323 pages, not the 400 as stated, and the book is physically beautiful. Easy reading text, quality paper. A good book over all.

[Lauren Little · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was pretty dry, but it was interesting to learn about some of the people that were famous from UC Berkeley's chemistry department (and who they named buildings after, too). I've read better books that try to show scientists and their discoveries in an impartial light, but I did learn more details about famous scientists.

[Theresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't understand (and didn't expect to understand) any of the technical writing, but that doesn't make up the bulk of the book; I thought the biographies and anecdotes were all interesting. And: I liked that he included an "Animal House" style epilogue.

I also discovered, thanks to this book, that Irving Langmuir was ultra-handsome.

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

A phenomenal read ... The history of physical chemistry in one book.... I have read it twice and yep, I shall read it again. So many of the personalities are here.... G.N. Lewis' work is given a much, much overdue homage .... But that is just the beginning. Arrhenius and Haber are put to rights ... and Langmuir rises as the hero of General Electric. Just read this book ....

[Christopher Cairo · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent cross section of scientific research. Really gives a sense of the lives of some major players in physical chemistry as the field was undergoing a revolution. Must read for practicing chemists.

[Katie Nolan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Okay, I confess, I skimmed a LOT of this because there's some dense science (for me) and I'm reading it for work, but it's very well written and a fascinating exploration of these scientists' lives.