Stephen Edelston Toulmin - The architecture of matter

This book made available by the Internet Archive.

CONTENTS

CONTENTS

10 CHEMISTRY COMES OF AGE 207

The Natural History of the Inanimate 208

Lavoisiers New System 216

Oxygen versus Phlogiston 222

Atomism becomes Scientific 229

The Persistent Sceptics 234

11 THE CLASSICAL SYNTHESIS 239

The Units of Matter 240

Radiation and Fields of Force 249

The Empire of Classical Physics 261

Doubts and Reservations 263

12 ENTERING THE QUANTUM WORLD 270

The Flaws in the Classical System 271

Look First upon this Picture .. 276

The Planetary Atom and its Paradoxes 280

13 SHARPENING THE FOCUS 285

The Quantum-Mechanical Unification 285

The Ramifications of Quantum Mechanics 291

Shadows of the Future? 296

The Hierarchy of Forms 301

PART III: THE STRUCTURE OF LIFE

14 THE ANIMAL MACHINE 307

Two Kinds of Mechanistic Physiology 308

The Vitality of the Muscles 310

Man, the Thinking Machine 314

The Two Worlds 319

Theories of Vitality 322

Claude Bernards New Method 331

Bernard and the Problem of Development 334

CONTENTS

15 LIVING UNITS 338

The World of the Magnifying-Glass * 339

The Background to the Cell-Theory 342

The Emergence of the Cell-Theory 347

16 EXPLORING THE INTERIOR 358

Weismanns Vision... 361

... And its Fulfilment 365

Cyto-Chemistry 369

EPILOGUE: THE REUNION OF MATTER-THEORY 375 Index 381

io

ii

H

Plates

BETWEEN PAGES 192 AND I 93

Chinese rainbow vessel from first century a.d.

Mediaeval assay laboratory Diirers engraving, Melancholia

The Renaissance anatomy theatre at the University of Padua

Wright of Derbys painting, The philosopher demonstrating the air pump

William Blakes satirical painting, Newton

Fraunhofers map of the Solar Spectrum Diffraction photographs: X-rays and electrons Cloud chamber track of the positive electron or positron Seventeenth-century engravings showing cell structure Early drawings of cell division

Electron micrograph of cell division showing chromosomes drawing apart

Electron micrograph of cell nucleus from bone marrow Electron micrograph of atoms in a platinum crystal Part of conjectural model of DNA molecule Electron micrograph of smallpox vaccine virus

Acknowledgements I

For permission to reproduce half-tone illustrations the authors are indebted to the following:

Plate 1: Dr. J. S. Needham, f.r.s., Ho Ping-Yii, The Society for the Study of Alchemy and Early Chemistry, and the editor of Ambix (Vol. VII, No. 2, 1959)1 Plate 2: The University of Chicago Press, Lazarus Ercker Treatise on Ores and Assaying translated by A. G. Sisco and C. S. Smith; Plates 3 and 10: The Trustees of the British Museum; Plate 4: Mr. Osvaldo Bohm; Plates 3 and 6: The Trustees of the Tate Gallery; Plates 7 and 9: The Science Museum, London; Plate 8 : The Syndics of the University Press, Cambridge, The Evolution of Physics (Einstein and Infeld) (a) Lastowiecki and Gregor, (b) Loria and Klinger; Plate 11: Professor G. Causey and E. & S. Livingstone Ltd., Electron Microscopy; Plate 12: Dr. J. W. Menter; Plate 13: Professor P. Roller and George Allen & Unwin Ltd., The Handling of Chromosomes (Darlington and La Coeur); Plate 14: Dr. M. H. F. Wilkins; Plate 13: Dr. R. C. Valentine and the Royal College of Surgeons; Plate 16: Mr. John Freeman and the Natural History Museum.

And for permission to reproduce line drawings in the text:

Dr. Martin Levey, Dr. Harry Woolf, and Isis (Vol. 51, March i960), page 31 ; The Harvard University Press, The Loeb Classical Library and William Heinemann Ltd., A Source Book in Greek Science (M. R. Cohen and I. E. Drabkin), page 104\ F. Sherwood Taylor and Taylor & Francis Ltd., The Origin of the Thermometer from Annals of Science (Vol. 5, 1947), page 209; Professor Read and George Bell & Sons Ltd., Through Alchemy to Chemistry, page 13V, Dr. J. S. Needham, f.r.s., Ho Ping-Yu, The Society for the Study of Alchemy and Early Chemistry, and the editor of Ambix (Vol. VII, No. 2, i959)> P a g e 03 an d accompanying text; Librairie Gallimard, Encyclopedie de la Pleiade, page 213, The Science Museum, London, from the original in the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, page 233 ; Dannemann, Die Naturwissenschaften m ihrer Entwicklung und in ihretn Zusammenhange, Leipzig, page 243', George Gamow and Harper & Brothers, Biography of Physics, page 252; Mans World of Sound by John R. Pierce and Edward E. David, Jr.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

II

Copyright 1958 by John R. Pierce and Edward E. David, Jr. Reprinted by permission of Doubleday & Company, Inc. (slightly modified), pa^e 232; The Syndics of the University Press, Cambridge, The Newer Alchemy by Lord Rutherford, page 279-, Dr. John R. Baker, Dr. Donald Parry and the Company of Biologists Ltd., Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science (Vol. 94, Part 4, December 1953), page 343.

Acknowledgements II

For permission to reprint copyright extracts the authors are indebted to the following:

Siegfried Sassoon and Faber & Faber Ltd., the sonnet Grandeur of Ghosts from his Collected Poems: ; J. Chadwick, W. N. Mann and Blackwell Scientific Publications Ltd., The Medical Works of Hippocrates ; B. T. Batsford Ltd., Picasso by Gertrude Stein; R. C. Trevelyan and the Syndics of the University Press, Cambridge, De Rerum Natura (Lucretius); Lawrence Durrell and Faber & Faber Ltd., Mountolive; K. J. Franklin and Blackwell Scientific Publications Ltd., De Motu Cordis and On the Circulation of the Blood (Harvey); The Macmillan Company of New York, Cajoris edition of the Principia (Newton); D. McKie and Edward Arnold Ltd., Essays of Jean Rey; Princeton University Press and P. P. Wiener, The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory ; A. S. Eve and the Syndics of the University Press, Cambridge, Rutherford ; Blackie & Son Ltd., Theoretical Physics by Joos, translated Freeman; Professor David Bohm and Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, Causality and Chance in Modern Physics', Stanford University Press and Oxford University Press, Disease, Life and Man by Virchow, translated by L. J. Rather; Faber & Faber Ltd., Fundamental Problems of Nuclear Science by W. Heisenberg.

In addition, the authors must acknowledge their debt for modified extracts to the following:

A. Pi Suner and Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons Ltd., Classics of Biology", Professor E. H. Warmington, The Loeb Classical Library and William Heinemann Ltd., Hesiod', Martin Levey and D. Van Nostrand Co. Inc., Chemistry and Chemical Technology in Ancient Mesopotamia; R. J. Forbes and Heinemann of New York, Studies in Ancient Technology; The Harvard University Press, The Loeb Classical Library, and William Heinemann Ltd., A Source Book in Greek Science (M. R. Cohen and I. E. Drabkin).