Description
Book SynopsisExplains the emergence of physical chemistry in America by presenting a series of lively portraits of such pivotal figures as Wilhelm Ostwald, A A Noyes, G N Lewis, and Linus Pauling, and of key institutions, including MIT, the University of California at Berkeley, and Caltech. This title shows how physical chemistry was eclipsed.
Trade ReviewCo-Winner of the 1991 Pfizer Most Outstanding Book Award, History of Science Society "In his careful accounting of the emergence of a new discipline at the boundaries between chemistry and physics, and of the upheaval that it wrought throughout chemistry, Servos has made his own contribution to reform, and for that reason his book deserves wide attention... [He] illustrate[s] the fact that science is, above all, a human enterprise, shaped by personalities, communities, and institutions, as well as ideas."--Robert Friedel, Science "Servos has shed considerable light on a key issue, the formation of new scientific disciplines, by his penetrating analysis of the rise of physical chemistry in America... I cannot recall any other recent book in this field that has managed to combine such high standards of verbal clarity, smoothness of narrative, and sheer elegance, with intellectual rigor and extensive archival research."--Peter Morris, History of Science
