Select A Store
Select Store
My Store:
Select A Store
Ben Franklin Stilled the Waves: An Informal History of Pouring Oil on Water with Reflections on the Ups and Downs of Scientific Life in General
by Tanford, Charles
Availability:
-
Online Only
$14.49
Used
-
Trade Paperback
-
9780192804945
Overview
Overview
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. Then Langmuir'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 science and 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.
- Format: TradePaperback
- Author: Tanford, Charles
- ISBN: 9780192804945
- Condition: Used
- Dimensions: 7.82 x 0.60
- Number Of Pages: 269
- Publication Year: 2004
Language:
English