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History and Origins of Cryogenics. RALPH G. SCURLOCK, Ed. Clarendon (Oxford University Press), New York, 1992. xxiv, 653 pp., illus. $165 or L95. Monographs on Cryogenics.
Superconductivity. Its Historical Roots and Development from Mercury to the Ceramic Oxides. PER FRIDTJOF DAHL. American Institute of Physics, New York, 1992. xiv, 406 pp., illus. $55.
Cold has been a rather unappealing state of affairs in our Western culture. Nevertheless, many people have been intrigued by it. From the time some poor folk brought ice from the mountains wrapped in dried grass so that the Roman emperors could enjoy their wine chilled in the summer to our days of high-temperature superconductivity, its wonders have been publicly displayed and its mysteries privately pursued. The history of the subject that the master of experimenters, Robert Boyle, found "the most difficult" to work at has been studied very little, and any such attempt is very welcome. So are these two books, though they also represent missed opportunities.
Works in the history of the physical sciences should, by definition, be works of history. Simplified presentations of abstruse subjects or chronological narratives of published papers do not necessarily qualify. These of course may be very useful undertakings, but truly historical works have a different aim: to pose and trace out answers to questions about how things happened in an interpretative framework that also poses whys. This rather pedantic and perhaps self-indulgent observation is set forth to underline my ambivalence about these two books. What there is in the books is interesting--and in some parts the account of developments is quite thorough. But both books leave out so much significant material related to the story they purport to tell that they are seriously incomplete as chronicles, nor do they present any overall argument to support their selectivity.
The compilation edited by Scurlock is an attempt to present the development of cryogenics in universities and industry in various countries of Europe and Asia and in the United States during the past hundred years--an awesome undertaking indeed. The amount of information presented by the 20 contributors is staggering, but amid all this information it is impossible to discern the story line, and one wonders what argument the information supports, what narrative it helps to unfold. Dates,...