Stille, Charles

A Jean-Charles, A Nicholls, K Sharp, B Honig, A Tempczyk, T Hendrickson, WC Still. J Am Chem Soc 113 1454-1455, 1991. 

As we saw in Chapter 3, the founding text of modern materials science was Frederick Seitz s The Modern Theory of Solids (1940) an updated version of this, also very influential in its day, was Charles Wert and Robb Thomson s Physies of Solids (1964). Alan Cottrell s Theoretical Structural Metallurgy appeared in 1948 (see Chapter 5) although devoted to metals, this book was in many ways a true precursor of materials science texts. Richard Weiss brought out Solid State Physics for Metallurgists in 1963. Several books such as Properties of Matter (1970), by Mendoza and Flowers, were on the borders of physics and materials science. Another key precursor book, still cited today, was Darken and Gurry s book. Physical Chemistry of Metals (1953), followed by Swalin s Thermodynamics of Solids. 

In contrast, aluminum (abundance = 7.5%), despite its usefulness, was little more than a chemical curiosity until about a century ago. It occurs in combined form in clays and rocks, from which it cannot be extracted. In 1886 two young chemists, Charles Hall in the United States and Paul Herroult in France, independently worked out a process for extracting aluminum from a relatively rare ore, bauxite. That process is still used today to produce the element. By an odd coincidence, Hall and Herroult were born in the same year (1863) and died in the same year (1914). 

Natural rubber latex, obtained from rubber trees, is converted to its final form by a process known as vulcanization, first discovered by Charles Goodyear in 1839. Vulcaiuzation is basically a crosslinking reaction of double bonds in the latex structure with sulfur. The polymerization of butadiene with itself or with other vinyl monomers results in a material that like natural latex, still contains double bonds. Thus, synthetic rubber made from butadiene can be processed and vulcanized just like natural rubber. 

With Guyton de Morveau, Lavoisier devised the system of chemical terms still used today. For the first time, the names of chemical substances described their constituents and proportions astringent Mars saffron became iron oxide, and philosophic wool became zinc oxide. Many contemporaries called Lavoisier s new chemistry The French Science. Today Lavoisier is regarded as the equal of Isaac Newton in physics, Charles Darwin in evolution, or Albert Einstein in relativity. 

At around this time, there was much scientific debate about the theory of the origin of species proposed by Charles Darwin (1809-1882), a theory which was to change the world. Darwin himself was very cautious about making statements on biogenesis. It was still too early to answer such questions, because neither results from the science of cell biology nor an extensive knowledge of our planet, the solar system and the cosmos were available. 

Jean-Charles, A. Nicholls, A. Sharp, K. Honig, B. Tempzyck, A. Hendrickson, T. Still, W.C., Electrostatic contributions to solvation energies comparison of free energy perturbation and continuum calculations., J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1991,113, 1454-1455... 

Some of the older polymer institutions grew, such as the rubber and polymer based institute at the University of Akron, which was formed in the 1940 s, and where Maurice Morton took the Directorship in 1954. Others remained essentially the same and still others slipped. "Brooklyn Poly", the center of academic polymer chemistry in the USA in the 1940 s and 1950 s remained as such but became less dominant because a number of their excellent staff left to found other institutes. For instance, Charles Over-berger, who rose to Dean of Science and Director of the Polymer Research Institute, left in 1967 to take the chairmanship of the Department of Chemistry at the University of Michigan where he helped found their macromolecular based institute. 

Charles was still in debt, and he was sent to debtors prison several times for not paying his bills.That didn t stop his work, though he asked his wife to bring him raw rubber and a rolling pin while he was in prison so he could continue his rubber experiments. 

Then, one day in 1839, Charles was holding a piece of rubber combined with sulfur while talking with friends near a hot stove.The rubber fell onto the stove, but instead of melting, it became hard Charles was amazed. Maybe a little bit of heat made rubber melt, but a lot of heat made rubber hard, yet still flexible. Here was the key to making rubber useable. 

Tanford, Charles. Ben Eranklin Stilled the Waves An Informal History of Pouring Oil on Water with Reflections on the Ups and Downs of Scientific Life in General. New York Oxford University Press, 2004. 

Lord Charles Cavendish might not have been wealthy, but he was a natural philosopher and experienced experimentalist. Indeed his research on heat, electricity, and magnetism earned him praise from Benjamin Franklin. Henry must have learned a lot from his father, because he, too, became a meticulous experimenter. Some of Henry s experiments in physics and most of his chemical experiments were performed while he was still living under his father s roof. 

The next scene of the aluminum drama is laid in the United States. Henri Sainte-Claire Deville s process had made the metal a commercial product, but it was still expensive. Charles Martin Hall, a student at Oberlin College, inspired by the accounts which Professor F. F. Jewett had given of his studies under Wohler, decided that his supreme aim in life would be to devise a cheap method for making aluminum. In an improvised laboratory in the woodshed, and with homemade batteries, he struggled with this problem. On February 23,1886, this boy of twenty-one years rushed into his professors office and held out to him a handful of aluminum buttons. Since these buttons led to a highly successful electrolytic process for manufacturing aluminum, it is small wonder that the Aluminum Company of America now treasures them and refers to them affectionately as the crown jewels A beautiful statue of the youthful Charles M. Hall, cast in aluminum, may now he seen at Oberlin College (11, 55). 

Nevertheless, debate on the effect of extending Einstein s life still rages. Mathematician Charles Ashbacher wrote to me ... 

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