Ben Franklin stilled the waves
Subtitle: an informal history of pouring oil on water with reflections on the ups and downs of scientific life in general
By: by Charles Tanford.
Publisher: Duke University Press
Published: 1989
Place of publication: Durham
Language: eng
Number of pages: 227
Subjects: Franklin, Benjamin, 1706-1790 -- Knowledge -- Science.; Molecules.; Scientists -- United States -- Biography.
Description: Benjamin Franklin was the first to report the phenomenon of oil's power to still troubled waters and to speculate on why it happened. A century later Lord Rayleigh performed an identical experiment. Irving Langmuir did it with minor variations in 1917, and won a Nobel Prize for it. ThenLangmuir's work was followed by a Dutch pediatrician's in 1925. p Each experimenter saw a little more in the result than his predecessor had seen, and the sciences of physics, chemistry and biology have all been illuminated by the work. p Charles Tanford reflects on the evolving nature of scienceand of individual scientists. Recounting innovations in each trial, he follows the classic experiment from Franklin's drawing room to our present-day institutionalized scientific establishments and speculates on the ensuing changes in our approach to scientific inquiry.
Notes: Bibliography: p. [217]-221.
Includes index.