Magick, Mayhem, and Mavericks: The Spirited History of Physical Chemistry

by Cathy Cobb

Science popularizer Cathy Cobb takes a unique approach to explaining the concepts of physical chemistry by telling the story of the geniuses and eccentrics who made groundbreaking discoveries in this fascinating field that bridges chemistry, physics, and mathematics. The result is entertaining and illuminating.Her tale is about the colorful varieties of human character as well as the struggles to understand the workings of the material world. Through true stories of rebels, recluses, heroes, and rogues, she helps the reader to discover how one idea built upon another and how an elegant discipline arose out of centuries of difficult trial and error.Starting with the ancient Greeks, Cobb takes the reader on a sweeping tour of history. She shows how an understanding of basic chemical properties gradually arose out of ancient Greeks mathematics, Muslim science, medieval "magick," and the healing arts. Her tour continues through the scientific revolution, the emergence of physical chemistry as an independent discipline, and up to the present. Today, physical chemists contribute to the fields of chemical physiology, chemical oscillations and waves, quantum mechanics, and the curious and promising field of nanotechnology.This absorbing, eloquently written history of science is loaded with intuitive imagery, everyday analogies, and a colorful cast of characters who are guaranteed to entertain as well as edify.

Genres: Science, Chemistry, History, Nonfiction

420 pages, Hardcover

First published October 31, 2002

Reviews

[Michelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm probably not the target audience for this book, since I’ve had several years of “the calculus” (as Cobb calls it) and taken two semesters of college freshman General Chemistry. My review is possibly overly harsh. With that said, here are my thoughts on the book.

It's not true that Tycho Brahe "could go out and make a sighting; come in, have dinner, make another sighting, come in, have dinner, then make another sighting-- all without worrying that the planets might have moved out of view." (19) If there's anything I've learned from the observatory sessions for my Astronomy 101 class being cancelled four times in a row due to clouds, it's that astronomers cannot always make observations whenever they want to.

"History teaches us that we must always question our assumptions and even authority." (21) I'm with you on this one.

This book is full of frustrating oversimplifications. On page 41, no mention of one of the main reasons the Greeks didn't accept the heliocentric model: they couldn't observe parallax of stars! Super significant because it shows how logical the Greeks were!

Cobb also tries too hard to talk a little bit about everything, instead of just focusing in on physical chemistry. There are random tangents everywhere.
"Islam brought with it five pillars of the faith, one of which is a pilgrimage to Mecca at least once during a lifetime." (46)
Or like page 82, where she explains algebra. Or pg 113, where she explains differentiation and integration. I realize the target audience might not know calculus, but the simplistic explanations annoyed me and interfered with my personal enjoyment of the text.

pg 50-51 - LOLZ, ancient medicine was awful!

Something I didn't know before reading this book and found very fascinating:
"Friction has two components: drag due to plowing by surface irregularities as one piece tries to slide over another and the attractions of the surface atoms of one piece for another... because of this stickiness, any effort to smooth the surface also puts more surface atoms in contact with one another. So even an infinitely smooth surface will experience friction..." (68)

Pg 176 about the specific heat capacities for monatomic vs. diatomic gasses. This is fascinating! Boltzmann’s explanation makes sense to me, but according to Maxwell, and the author, it is wrong. Maybe if Cobb showed us the math, we would know why Boltzmann's explanation was wrong. GRRRRR!!! SHOW US THE MATH!
Sadness: “But Boltzmann himself would work no more on his theory. In 1906, while on holiday, and while his wife and daughter were out swimming, he hanged himself from a balcony window.” (176)

I am not so much into all of the analogies. One extremely irritating example of MANY: “Basically Einstein said that if a particle is in a sea of molecules in thermal agitation, then its net displacement in any one direction should change as the square root of time. Einstein’s derivation was elegant and algebraic, but will be explained here by analogy with dirty clothes suffering displacement on laundry day.” (193) Just, WHY???? UGH.

Pg 269: Stopped reading and just skimmed the rest of the book. The irritating analogies! The restatements of everything I learned in general chemistry! UGH! Not for me.
Overall, this just isn’t that great of science writing. The writing is stilted at times. I’ve read other popular science books that were just as accessible but much more in depth and satisfying.

[Lissa Notreallywolf · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cobb's explanation of mysterious things (like what calculus does) is excellent and I much appreciated her analogies in explaining complex chemical issues. I took about fifteen pages of notes on the book, many of which were questions I would like to explore. However, about halfway through the book-basically after spectroscopy, I found myself quite restless with the author's writing style and no longer could grasp the physics as well, possibly because I find calculus mysterious. Cobb is an excellent educator, and includes numerous interesting women who have been shunned or passed by prior authors. I think her book was getting too long and they edited out much from the second half which makes it an uneven read.

[BiblioBtown · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good history of general chemistry. Very informative without being boring.

[David R. · Rating 3 out of 5]

The later chapters are impenetrable to non-chemists.