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TANFORD:BEN FRANKLIN STILLED THE WAVES:INFORM HIST POUR OIL WATE PAPER: An Informal History of Pouring Oil on Water with Reflections on the Ups and Downs of Scientific Life in General
Author(s): Charles TANFORD (Author)
- Publisher: Oxford University Press
- Publication Date: 22 April 2004
- Edition: Illustrated
- Language: English
- Print length: 287 pages
- ISBN-10: 0192804944
- ISBN-13: 9780192804945
Book 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. 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.
Editorial Reviews
Book Description
Ben Franklin Stilled the Waves is a voyage into the very nature of science and its place in our history.
About the Author
Charles Tanford is Emeritus Professor at Duke University, Durham, NC, USA and a former Guggenheim Fellow. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences (USA) and lives in Easingwold, UK.
