Transforming America

Author(s): Anthony Stranges

Edition: 3

Copyright: 2018

Pages: 840

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Transforming America is an introductory survey that examines and promotes critical thinking about the origin, development, and impact of science in America from colonial times to the present.

This text is the first historical survey of science in America, and its publication marks a major milestone in the steady growth of college courses on the history of science in America.

Transforming America’s eleven chapters examine eleven themes that have dominated the emergence of science in America. They provide an integrated view of how science developed in America and offers a pathway to understanding the emergence and evolution of modern science and how science shaped modern society.

Transforming America has four objectives.

  • It broadens students’ worldview and perspective by introducing them to the origin, growth, and impact of science on society. To neglect the history of science in discussing the history of American society is to neglect the major force that has shaped and continues to shape the United States and the rest of the world. Students examine the connection between science and society’s advancement and understand why some societies have advanced and others have not.
  • It makes clear that science is a human activity or enterprise. People do science, science does not happen spontaneously.
  • It shows that science is dynamic, not static, and that science changes over time. Scientists are not infallible and neither are their ideas.
  • It exposes and eliminates misconceptions and erroneous beliefs that have crept into the sciences. Misconceptions and erroneous beliefs, once inserted in science, are difficult to remove and leave students with a false sense of historical and scientific truth. Transforming America puts to rest these mistaken ideas of how our modern scientific society emerged.

PREFACE
I. INTRODUCTORY
II. OBJECTIVES OF THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA: ITS LANGUAGE, OBJECTIVES, AND SCOPE
I. INTRODUCTION

II. SCIENCE, ENGINEERING, TECHNOLOGY, AND THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE
What is science, what is engineering, what is technology?
What is the history of science?
Four good reasons that justify studying the history of science and make it relevant
When history and science textbooks include history of science, how do they present the history of science?
Comparing the methods and objectives of the sciences and the humanities
Validity of the distinctions made between science and the humanities: objectivity, subjectivity
Predictive models and laws of nature
What is a scientific theory and does a scientist discover or create a theory?

III. SCIENCE AND RELIGION
Supernatural or natural causes, the anthropic principle
Critics of the anthropic principle
Naturalist explanations of intelligent life

IV. THREE DIFFERENT APPROACHES USED IN STUDYING THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE
Internal and external history of science
Whig history
Scientific revolutions

V. PHILOSOPHIES OF SCIENCE
Epistemology and ontology
Induction and deduction
Idealism and realism
Positivism, materialism, and empiricism
Rationalism
Popper’s falsification
Two schools of thought on how scientific discovery or invention occurs: scientific method or non-scientific method

VI. CHAPTER THEMES AND CHRONOLGY OF THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA

VII. OTHER THEMES
External and internal resistance to new scientific ideas
Transfer of scientific ideas to other disciplines
Pragmatism
Social Darwinism
Science and human values: the impact of science and technology on society

VIII. CONCLUSION
REVIEW QUESTIONS

CHAPTER 2: EUROPEAN, ASIAN, AND NATIVE AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC BACKGROUND
I. INTRODUCTION
Transitions in science
Discovery of the New World

II. EUROPEAN BACKGROUND TO COLONIAL SCIENCE
Ancient scientific beliefs on matter, cosmology, and medicine to the fall of Rome in 476
Science in the middle ages 476-1400
Renaissance science 1400-1600
Scientific revolution 1600s
Science in the enlightenment 1700s - early 1800s

III. SCIENCE IN THE EAST
Chronology and contacts with the West
Chinese science and engineering
Japanese science and engineering
Hindu science

IV. SCIENCE IN PRE-COLUMBIAN NORTH AMERICA
Origin of America’s inhabitants
North American Indian cosmology and astronomy

V. SCIENCE IN MESOAMERICA
Our changing perception of the Mayan world
Mayan society
Mayan science, mathematics, and engineering
Aztec (Mexica or Tenochca) science and society
Inca science and society
Concluding thoughts on Mesoamerica

VI. CONCLUSION
REVIEW QUESTIONS

CHAPTER 3: COLONIAL AND EARLY AMERICAN EDUCATION, SCIENCE, AND TECHNOLOGY TO 1800
I. INTRODUCTION
New World colonies: education, science, and technology
American colonies: education, science, and technology
British (American) colonial and early American republic education, science, and technology

II. SPANISH COLONIAL AMERICA
Exploratory expeditions
Science and technology
Astronomy and physics: navigation, Bogota Observatory, boiling point-pressure relation
Agriculture and botany: food and medicine
Anthropology: study of language and culture
Metallurgy: the extraction of metals
Establishment of universities, hospitals, and printing presses

III. FRENCH COLONIAL AMERICA: CANADA
French explorations in North America: Quebec, Montreal, Louisiana Territory
Early industries: grain, lumber, and iron
Education, science, and medicine-hospitals

IV. BRITISH COLONIAL AMERICA
First colonies
Dutch-British transition in the colonies
Colonial population and organization: three kinds of colonies
Importance of religion in colonial life: Deism, Great Awakening, Salem witch trials
Colonial and early American education: organization, curriculum, objectives
Elementary or reading and writing schools
Latin grammar schools
Academies 1750-1860
Colleges: objectives, curriculum, cost, faculty
Natural history museums

V. COLONIAL AND EARLY AMERICAN SCIENCE
Introductory
Jefferson’s contributions to American science
Astronomy: advancing the Newtonian mechanical philosophy
Botany and natural history: continuing the Linnaean classification
 Chemistry: quantitative study of chemical identity and the composition of matter
 Medicine: practice of heroic medicine
Health, medical education, instruments, and beliefs
Rush, heroic medicine, curing blackness to end slavery
Smallpox and inoculation: Mather and Boylston
Vaccination replaces inoculation: Jenner and Pasteur
Later developments in vaccination
Physics: introduction of fluid theories, advances in electrical theory and application
Background
Fluid theories of electricity: Du Fay and Franklin
Two later developments: Coulomb’s law quantifies electrical force and the voltaic pile (battery)
Beginning of thermodynamics: theories of combustion and heat
Theories of combustion: phlogiston and oxygen theories
Theories of heat: caloric theory, Rumford and the mechanical theory or matter in motion
End of the caloric theory
Scientists, racism, and slavery

VI. COLONIAL AND EARLY AMERICAN TECHNOLOGY
Monopolies, land grants, patents, and natural resources contributed to the development of colonial and early American industry
Industries established and developed
Glassmaking
Printing industry
Iron industry: three stages of development, small furnace, large blast furnace, plantation system
Steel: two methods of production
Indigo production
Chemical industry: DuPont and gunpowder production

VII. CONCLUSION
REVIEW QUESTIONS

CHAPTER 4: TECHNOLOGICAL TRANSFORMATION OF AMERICA 1780s TO 1850s
I. INTRODUCTION
Three stages of the American technological transformation 1785-1855
Energy transitions: from wood to coal

II. ECONOMIC CYCLES AND SOCIAL-POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS
Correlation of economic cycles for the period 1785-1855 with the three stages of technological transformation
Social-political developments

III. TRANSPORTATION ADVANCES: ROADS, WATER, AND RAILS
Road transportation
Water transportation
Savery, Newcomen, and Watt: introduction of single-action atmospheric-steam engines and double action (reciprocating) steam engines
Impact of Watt’s double-action reciprocating steam engine
Steam engines and steamboats
Steamboat construction in the United States: Fitch, Rumsey, and Fulton, a tragic trio
United States and trans-Atlantic steamboat travel
Later nineteenth-century advances in ship construction: screw propeller, ironclads, steam turbines, and diesel engines
Canal building era
Railroad era
Engineering advances that contributed to railroad growth: rail flange, steam engine, T-rail, semaphore, airbrake, and automatic coupler
Introduction of standard track width
Federal land grants 1850-71

IV. GOVERNMENT PROMOTION OF THE ECONOMY, PATENT SYSTEM
Federal government intervened or acted in three ways, through the use of tariffs, contracts, and patents, to promote domestic economic and industrial growth
Evolution of the United States patent system
Establishing a currency
Henry Clay and the American System

V. TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS IN INDUSTRY
General characteristics of technological development, craft shop and industrial factory
Significant inventions in the three stages of technological transformation: 1785-1825, 1825-40, and 1840-55
Whitney’s cotton gin
Iron and steel plows: Wood and Deere
Grain reaper: Hussey and McCormick
Colt’s revolver or repeating pistol
Goodyear’s vulcanization of rubber
Telegraph: Henry and Morse
Sewing machine: Howe and Singer
Rotary and web presses: Hoe
Financing industrial growth

VI. INDUSTRY, LABOR, AND CITIES
Rise of cities
Urban living and working conditions 1825-40

VII. CONCLUSION
REVIEW QUESTIONS

CHAPTER 5: SCIENCE THROUGH THE CIVIL WAR: FROM AMATEURISM TO PROFESSIONALISM
I. INTRODUCTION
Education, medicine, and science
Society, culture, economics, and politics

II. EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENTS
Elementary and secondary education to 1860
Massachusetts the educational leader
Spread of public education
Academies
Normal or teacher education schools
Women’s education and educators
Colleges
Size, number, and purpose of colleges
Curriculum, laboratories, libraries, and enrollments
Women and college

III. MEDICAL THOUGHT AND PRACTICE
Establishment medicine, its methodology: deductivist and inductivist, statistical
Education
Preceptorial, proprietary and university-affiliated medical colleges or schools
Medical tuition, curriculum
Non-establishment medicine, the medical sects: Thomsonians, Grahamites, hydropaths, and homeopaths
Professionalization of medicine and dentistry
American Medical Association: requirements and restrictions
Dental colleges, American Dental Association
Advances in physiology: William Beaumont and the digestive process
Abortion issue
Advances in anesthesia
Early anesthetics
Controversy over the discovery and use of ether as an anesthetic: Wells, Morton, Jackson, and Long
Chloroform as anesthesia
Benefits of anesthesia, local and general anesthesia
Civil War medicine
Medical doctors and medical advances, sanitation, anesthesia, plastic surgery
Nursing emerged as a profession during the Civil War
Establishment of hospitals
Embalming

IV. ADVANCES IN SCIENCE
Chemistry
American contributors to chemistry: Silliman, Hare, Cooke, and others
Geology
First geological surveys
Geological schools: catastrophism and uniformitarianism, two rival nineteenth-century beliefs on what caused changes in Earth’s strata
Astronomy
Physics
Motor principle and electromagnetic induction: Faraday
Measurement of electricity
Henry’s overlooked contributions
Mathematics

V. ESTABLISHMENT OF SCIENTIFIC SCHOOLS AND PROGRAMS
European situation
Science education in the United States
Science in the colleges
Morrill Land Grant Act of 2 July 1862
Agricultural experiment stations

VI. CONTINUING THE PROFESSIONALIZATION OF AMERICAN SCIENCE
Franklin Institute
Naval Observatory
Smithsonian Institution
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
National Academy of Sciences
Other signs of increasing professionalization

VII. CONCLUSION
REVIEW QUESTIONS

CHAPTER 6: DARWIN COMES TO AMERICA
I. INTRODUCTION

II. HOW OLD IS EARTH
What did earlier cultures or societies believe about the origin of the universe?
Biblical genealogy and the age of Earth
Archeological evidence
Salinity and thermodynamic methods of dating Earth’s age
Radioactive dating methods
Uranium dating
Carbon-14 dating

III. HOW OLD IS HUMANITY

IV. ARGUMENT FOR DESIGN IN THE UNIVERSE
William Paley’s argument

V. EARLY THEORIES OF EVOLUTION
Georges Louis Buffon
Age of Earth
Degeneration of animals
Erasmus Darwin
Jean Baptiste Lamarck
Recent Lamarckians

VI. GEOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS: CATASTROPHISTS AND UNIFORMITARIANS
Catastrophists: Vulcanists and Neptunists
Uniformitarians: Hutton and Lyell

VII. EVOLUTION BY NATURAL SELECTION
Charles Darwin
Proponents of natural selection: Wallace, Huxley, Haeckel, Weismann
Opponents of natural selection: Owen

VIII. AMERICAN DEBATE OVER DARWINISM: LOUIS AGASSIZ AND ASA GRAY
Racial issue and debate on the origin of the races: monogenesis vs. polygenesis
Evolutionary issue and debate: Agassiz and Gray
More American anti-Darwinists: Silliman, Dana, Hitchcock
American evolutionists: Marsh and Cope

IX. BEGINNING OF GENETICS: SOLVING THE INHERITANCE PROBLEM
Gregor Mendel and the laws of inheritance
Rediscovery of Mendel’s experiments and the introduction of the Punnet Square

X. A NEW THEORY OF EVOLUTION: PUNCTUATED EQUILIBRIUM

XI. EVIDENCE SUPPORTING EVOLUTION
Paleontology: the fossil record
Comparative anatomy: common structures
Biogeography: distribution of species
Embryology: similarities during development
Evidence from molecular biology
Creationism and the evidence for evolution
One more proof

XII. HOW MANY SPECIES INHABIT EARTH

XIII. EVOLUTION AND RELIGION
Traditionalists
Modernists
Naturalists
Scopes Trial: Dayton, Tennessee, 10-21 July 1925
Creationism today
Scientists and atheism

XIV. CONCLUSION
GEOLOGICAL CHARTS
REVIEW QUESTIONS

CHAPTER 7: MOLECULAR BIOLOGY AND THE DOUBLE HELIX
I. INTRODUCTION

II. BEGINNING OF GENETICS
Developments in cell theory
Chromosome studies

III. DISCOVERY OF PROTEINS AND NUCLEIC ACIDS
Protein analyses
Discovery, analysis, and chemical composition of the two nucleic acids DNA and RNA
Levene’s tetranucleotide structure of DNA

IV. USE OF X-RAYS IN ESTABLISHING MOLECULAR STRUCTURE

V. CHEMICAL CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE STRUCTURE OF DNA AND RNA: EVIDENCE THAT NUCLEIC ACID WAS THE GENE AND THE INFORMATION CARRIER
Bacteriophage composition
Determining the genetic material: Avery, Hershey and Chase
Chromatography separation techniques
Invention of column chromatography
Invention of paper chromatography

VI. SOLVING THE STRUCTURE OF DNA: X-RAY DIFFRACTION, MODELS, AND THE GENETIC CODE
Chargaff’s paper chromatography breakthrough
Pauling’s DNA structure
X-ray studies on DNA at King’s College, University of London
Watson, Crick, and the double helix structure of DNA
New developments in molecular biology: DNA synthesis, protein structure
Proposing a genetic code
Role of RNA in understanding the genetic code: transcription and translation
Breaking the genetic code: Nirenberg and Khorana
Beginning of genetic engineering or DNA sequencing

VII. HUMAN GENOME PROJECT

VIII. DEVELOPMENTS IN CLONING AND STEM CELLS
What is cloning?
Ethical implications of cloning and stem cells

IX. CONCLUSION
REVIEW QUESTIONS

CHAPTER 8: TECHNOLOGICAL TRANSFORMATION OF AMERICA 1860-1900

I. INTRODUCTION

II. AMERICAN TECHNOLOGICAL TRANSFORMATION CAME ABOUT RAPIDLY
Six factors that contributed to the American technological transformation in the last half of the nineteenth century
The professionalization of science continued

III. TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS IN EUROPE AND ASIA 1870-1914

IV. MAJOR TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS IN THE UNITED STATES
Steel
Major contributors to the development of the large-scale steel industry, Kelly, Bessemer, and Mushet
Significance of Kelly, Bessemer, and Holley
An improved steelmaking process: the regenerative open-hearth furnace
Major furnace advances
United States steel production and cost and effect on the environment
Aluminum: Hall and Héroult, a case of nearly simultaneous invention
Petroleum
Origin of petroleum, early use as a medicinal and as an illuminant
First large petroleum discovery
Nineteenth-century methods of finding and drilling for petroleum
Petroleum storage and refining
Petroleum discoveries after Titusville
Thermal and high-pressure catalytic cracking of crude petroleum
United States petroleum reserves
Communications industry
Telephone
Electrical industry
Edison’s contribution to the telephone
Light bulb
Establishing the General Electric Company
Westinghouse and the introduction of alternating current
Edison’s other inventions
Phonograph
Motion picture machine
Spirit communication machine
A brief look at the emerging American chemical industry
Salt industry
Borax industry
Sulfur industry
Electrolytic industry: Dow Chemical Company
Plastics industry
Automobile industry
External combustion engine: steam-powered; internal combustion: gasoline and dieselpowered vehicles
American automobile organizers

V. ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION: THE OTHER SIDE OF URBANIZATION, MODERNIZATION, AND INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT
Introduction
Water pollution and the problem of waste disposal in the United States: the three stages of development
Background
Water distribution and sewer systems
Slow and rapid sand filtration systems
Chlorine treatment
Industrial water pollution
Air pollution
Acid rain and smoke
Cottrell and the electrostatic precipitator: the first industrial environmentalist

VI. INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZING METHODS OR TECHNIQUES AND INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZERS
General characteristics of major industries
Leading industrial organizers

VII. ORIGINS OF INDUSTRIALISTS AND ENTREPRENEURS WHO DOMINATED AMERICAN INDUSTRY

VIII. REACTION TO THE GROWTH AND CONSOLIDATION OF INDUSTRY
Public reaction
Political reaction from state and federal governments: regulation of railroads and corporations
Regulation of railroads
Regulation of corporations

IX. CONCLUSION
REVIEW QUESTIONS

CHAPTER 9: RECONSTRUCTION AND GILDED AGE EDUCATION AND SCIENCE
I. INTRODUCTION

II. REVOLUTION IN HIGHER EDUCATION 1870-1910
The new university era and its leaders
Several factors contributed to university growth
Goals of the new universities
Effect of the education revolution on the university
Conclusion: the old college versus the new university

III. POST-CIVIL WAR SCIENCE
Electromagnetic theory of radiation: Maxwell, and Hertz
Electricity and magnetism
Development of the electromagnetic theory of radiation: Maxwell
Demonstrating the transmission of electromagnetic waves (wireless or radio transmission): did the waves really exist?
Astronomy
Progress and growth
Contributions of Rowland and Hale
Photographing the stars and planets: Pickerings, Lowell, and Tombaugh
Classifying stellar spectra: Cannon, Maury, and Leavitt, three women astronomers
Stellar evolution and stellar distances: Hertzsprung-Russell color-brightness relation
Beginning of aeronautics: balloons, gliders, and powered dirigibles
Early attempts at flight
First ascensions: hot air filled balloons and hydrogen gas filled balloons: Montgolfiers and Charles
Purpose of balloon flights
Rigid-bodied powered dirigibles: Zeppelins
Heavier-than-air craft: gliders, Bernoulli’s principle, Cayley, Lilienthal, Chanute
Heavier-than-air craft: powered
British aircraft: Henson and Stringfellow, Maxim
United States aircraft: Langley, Wright Brothers
United States Army flight tests
Controversy with the Smithsonian: Wrights versus Curtiss
Other flight-related developments: trans-Atlantic flight, aeronautical leadership
Physics: measuring the speed of light
Celestial methods: Roemer and Bradley
Terrestrial methods: Fizeau, Foucault, Cornu, and Michelson
Michelson’s later measurements of light’s speed
Chemistry
Molecular composition
Atomic weight standards
Molecular structure
Periodic table
Chemical instrumentation
Thermodynamics: the study of heat
Carnot, the heat engine and Carnot cycle
Other thermodynamic developments: work and the mechanical equivalent of heat
Three laws of thermodynamics
Kelvin: temperature scale, definition of kinetic energy
Contributions of J. Willard Gibbs
Kinetic-molecular theory of gases

IV. CONCLUSION
REVIEW QUESTIONS

CHAPTER 10: TWENTIETH-CENTURY PHYSICAL SCIENCE
I. INTRODUCTION

II. FUNDAMENTAL BREAKTHROUGHS IN PHYSICS AND CHEMISTRY
Discovery of cathode rays
Serendipitous discovery of x-rays
Serendipitous discovery of radioactivity
 Divisible atom
Quantum theory 1900
Einstein and the new scientific world
Photoelectric effect March 1905
Brownian movement May 1905
 Special theory of relativity June 1905
 Consequences of the special theory
Mass-energy equivalence September1905
Verification of the special theory
General theory of relativity 1915, 1916
Verification of the general theory
String and superstring theory of gravity

III. SEARCH FOR PRECISE ATOMIC WEIGHTS

IV. ELECTRON: THE FUNDAMENTAL ELECTRIC CHARGE

V. THEORIES OF ATOMIC STRUCTURE
Multi-electron atom
 Rutherford and the nuclear atom
Establishment of atomic numbers
Bohr’s theory of the hydrogen atom: Sommerfeld’s and Pauli’s contributions

VI. CHEMICAL BOND
Electrostatic theories of the chemical bond
G.N. Lewis and the shared electron pair chemical bond
Biographic
 Cubic atom and shared electron pair chemical bond
 Introduction of electron dot or Lewis formulas
Langmuir’s contributions to valence theory

VII. COMPOSITION OF THE NUCLEUS
Proton and proton-electron theory
 Neutron and the proton-neutron theory
Later developments

VIII. DEVELOPMENT OF QUANTUM MECHANICS: MATRIX MECHANICS AND WAVE MECHANICS
Background
Electron duality: wave or particle
Matrix mechanics
Wave mechanics
Hund’s rule
Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle
Application of quantum mechanics to the chemical bond
Valence bond method
Molecular orbital theory

IX. SPECTROSCOPY AND CHEMICAL BONDS

X. QUANTUM MECHANICS AND THE STRUCTURE OF THE NUCLEUS

XI. SEARCH FOR FUNDAMENTAL PARTICLES
Fundamental particle physics
Discovery and classification of quarks
 Four forces

XII. CONCLUSION
REVIEW QUESTIONS

CHAPTER 11: ENERGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT: CONFLICT OR COMPATIBILITY
I. INTRODUCTION

II. EARLY DEVELOPMENTS IN NUCLEAR FISSION REACTIONS
First transmutations
Discovery of the neutron
 Cyclotron and artificial radioactivity
 Fermi and neutron bombardment
Nuclear fission comes to the United States

III. MANHATTAN PROJECT: CONTROLLING NUCLEAR FISSION AND RACING TO BUILD AN ATOMIC BOMB
Organization and early research
Construction of the first atomic piles
Construction of the first atomic bombs
 Controversy over dropping the atomic bomb

IV. GERMAN, SOVIET, BRITISH, AND JAPANESE ATOMIC BOMB PROJECTS
 Germany’s atomic bomb project
Britain’s atomic bomb project: tube alloys project
 Japan’s atomic bomb project
Soviet Russia’s atomic bomb project

V. ATOMIC SPY SCANDALS
 Soviet spy scandals of the 1950s
The Griffin: a little-known Allied spy

VI. POST-WAR NUCLEAR DEVELOPMENTS
Controlling the nuclear program
A proposal for the first nuclear reactor 1945-47
 First nuclear reactors
 Later reactor developments, waste disposal

VII. NUCLEAR FUSION
 First fusion reaction
Construction of the first fusion or hydrogen bombs
Soviet fusion bomb
 Post World War II developments and cooperation in nuclear fusion reactor design
 Soviet, European, American, and Japanese nuclear fusion programs
 Cooperation and competition in fusion

VIII. SOLAR ENERGY AS AN APPROPRIATE ALTERNATIVE TECHNOLOGY
Introductory
 History of solar energy as appropriate technology
 A solar pioneer’s circuitous route to solar energy applications: the contributions of Daniels
 Solar research in the 1960s, cooking and distillation
 Promotion of solar energy as appropriate technology: funds, stills, cookers
 Development of photovoltaic cells: in space, on Earth
Conclusion

IX. WIND ENERGY
 Historical development
 Windfarms: onshore and offshore
 Wind energy production and cost
 Government support of wind energy in the United States
 Conclusion

X. ENVIRONMENT AND POLLUTION
Introductory
Water purification
Acid rain
What is acid rain?
 Measuring acid rain
History of acid rain
 Causes of acid rain
 Consequences of acid rain
 Remedies for reducing acid rain
Government regulations to control acid rain
Climate change (global warming): its three-stage history
Introductory
First stage 1800-1900: establishing a changing atmosphere-changing climate theory to account for ice ages and other climate changes
Second stage 1900-1940s: loss of interest in a changing atmosphere-changing climate theory
Third stage 1950s-present: revival of the changing atmosphere- changing climate theory, the role of CO2
Revelle, CO2 absorption, oceans, and climate change
• CO2 absorption, oceans’ turnover rate and buffering
 • Processes to measure DIC and total alkalinity
• Revelle Factor (R): measuring the buffering effect
 • Suess carbon isotope determinations
• Average lifetime for a CO2 molecule in the atmosphere
• How much CO2 remains in the atmosphere
• Other contributions and significance
Confirming the link between a changing atmosphere and a changing climate: Keeling and the Keeling Curve
Is the debate over: Hansen’s contributions to the changing atmosphere-changing climate theory
Deniers of the changing atmosphere-changing climate theory: Lomborg, Lindzen, and others, their six usual criticisms
Kyoto Protocol (1997), Copenhagen Accord (2009), and Paris Agreement (2015)
 Summary and concluding thoughts on climate change
Lead and the environment
Recognition of lead poisoning goes back to ancient times
 Lead in paint issue
First preparation of tetraethyllead
 Tetraethyllead and the antiknock problem
 Commercial production of tetraethyllead, fatal consequences
 Kehoe industrial apologist, the rise of tetraethyllead
 Patterson and a new evaluation of lead’s toxicity: the fall of tetraethyllead and other airborne lead sources
 Patterson’s vindication
 Conclusion

XI. CONCLUSION
REVIEW QUESTIONS

EPILOGUE
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX

Anthony Stranges

Transforming America is an introductory survey that examines and promotes critical thinking about the origin, development, and impact of science in America from colonial times to the present.

This text is the first historical survey of science in America, and its publication marks a major milestone in the steady growth of college courses on the history of science in America.

Transforming America’s eleven chapters examine eleven themes that have dominated the emergence of science in America. They provide an integrated view of how science developed in America and offers a pathway to understanding the emergence and evolution of modern science and how science shaped modern society.

Transforming America has four objectives.

  • It broadens students’ worldview and perspective by introducing them to the origin, growth, and impact of science on society. To neglect the history of science in discussing the history of American society is to neglect the major force that has shaped and continues to shape the United States and the rest of the world. Students examine the connection between science and society’s advancement and understand why some societies have advanced and others have not.
  • It makes clear that science is a human activity or enterprise. People do science, science does not happen spontaneously.
  • It shows that science is dynamic, not static, and that science changes over time. Scientists are not infallible and neither are their ideas.
  • It exposes and eliminates misconceptions and erroneous beliefs that have crept into the sciences. Misconceptions and erroneous beliefs, once inserted in science, are difficult to remove and leave students with a false sense of historical and scientific truth. Transforming America puts to rest these mistaken ideas of how our modern scientific society emerged.

PREFACE
I. INTRODUCTORY
II. OBJECTIVES OF THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA: ITS LANGUAGE, OBJECTIVES, AND SCOPE
I. INTRODUCTION

II. SCIENCE, ENGINEERING, TECHNOLOGY, AND THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE
What is science, what is engineering, what is technology?
What is the history of science?
Four good reasons that justify studying the history of science and make it relevant
When history and science textbooks include history of science, how do they present the history of science?
Comparing the methods and objectives of the sciences and the humanities
Validity of the distinctions made between science and the humanities: objectivity, subjectivity
Predictive models and laws of nature
What is a scientific theory and does a scientist discover or create a theory?

III. SCIENCE AND RELIGION
Supernatural or natural causes, the anthropic principle
Critics of the anthropic principle
Naturalist explanations of intelligent life

IV. THREE DIFFERENT APPROACHES USED IN STUDYING THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE
Internal and external history of science
Whig history
Scientific revolutions

V. PHILOSOPHIES OF SCIENCE
Epistemology and ontology
Induction and deduction
Idealism and realism
Positivism, materialism, and empiricism
Rationalism
Popper’s falsification
Two schools of thought on how scientific discovery or invention occurs: scientific method or non-scientific method

VI. CHAPTER THEMES AND CHRONOLGY OF THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA

VII. OTHER THEMES
External and internal resistance to new scientific ideas
Transfer of scientific ideas to other disciplines
Pragmatism
Social Darwinism
Science and human values: the impact of science and technology on society

VIII. CONCLUSION
REVIEW QUESTIONS

CHAPTER 2: EUROPEAN, ASIAN, AND NATIVE AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC BACKGROUND
I. INTRODUCTION
Transitions in science
Discovery of the New World

II. EUROPEAN BACKGROUND TO COLONIAL SCIENCE
Ancient scientific beliefs on matter, cosmology, and medicine to the fall of Rome in 476
Science in the middle ages 476-1400
Renaissance science 1400-1600
Scientific revolution 1600s
Science in the enlightenment 1700s - early 1800s

III. SCIENCE IN THE EAST
Chronology and contacts with the West
Chinese science and engineering
Japanese science and engineering
Hindu science

IV. SCIENCE IN PRE-COLUMBIAN NORTH AMERICA
Origin of America’s inhabitants
North American Indian cosmology and astronomy

V. SCIENCE IN MESOAMERICA
Our changing perception of the Mayan world
Mayan society
Mayan science, mathematics, and engineering
Aztec (Mexica or Tenochca) science and society
Inca science and society
Concluding thoughts on Mesoamerica

VI. CONCLUSION
REVIEW QUESTIONS

CHAPTER 3: COLONIAL AND EARLY AMERICAN EDUCATION, SCIENCE, AND TECHNOLOGY TO 1800
I. INTRODUCTION
New World colonies: education, science, and technology
American colonies: education, science, and technology
British (American) colonial and early American republic education, science, and technology

II. SPANISH COLONIAL AMERICA
Exploratory expeditions
Science and technology
Astronomy and physics: navigation, Bogota Observatory, boiling point-pressure relation
Agriculture and botany: food and medicine
Anthropology: study of language and culture
Metallurgy: the extraction of metals
Establishment of universities, hospitals, and printing presses

III. FRENCH COLONIAL AMERICA: CANADA
French explorations in North America: Quebec, Montreal, Louisiana Territory
Early industries: grain, lumber, and iron
Education, science, and medicine-hospitals

IV. BRITISH COLONIAL AMERICA
First colonies
Dutch-British transition in the colonies
Colonial population and organization: three kinds of colonies
Importance of religion in colonial life: Deism, Great Awakening, Salem witch trials
Colonial and early American education: organization, curriculum, objectives
Elementary or reading and writing schools
Latin grammar schools
Academies 1750-1860
Colleges: objectives, curriculum, cost, faculty
Natural history museums

V. COLONIAL AND EARLY AMERICAN SCIENCE
Introductory
Jefferson’s contributions to American science
Astronomy: advancing the Newtonian mechanical philosophy
Botany and natural history: continuing the Linnaean classification
 Chemistry: quantitative study of chemical identity and the composition of matter
 Medicine: practice of heroic medicine
Health, medical education, instruments, and beliefs
Rush, heroic medicine, curing blackness to end slavery
Smallpox and inoculation: Mather and Boylston
Vaccination replaces inoculation: Jenner and Pasteur
Later developments in vaccination
Physics: introduction of fluid theories, advances in electrical theory and application
Background
Fluid theories of electricity: Du Fay and Franklin
Two later developments: Coulomb’s law quantifies electrical force and the voltaic pile (battery)
Beginning of thermodynamics: theories of combustion and heat
Theories of combustion: phlogiston and oxygen theories
Theories of heat: caloric theory, Rumford and the mechanical theory or matter in motion
End of the caloric theory
Scientists, racism, and slavery

VI. COLONIAL AND EARLY AMERICAN TECHNOLOGY
Monopolies, land grants, patents, and natural resources contributed to the development of colonial and early American industry
Industries established and developed
Glassmaking
Printing industry
Iron industry: three stages of development, small furnace, large blast furnace, plantation system
Steel: two methods of production
Indigo production
Chemical industry: DuPont and gunpowder production

VII. CONCLUSION
REVIEW QUESTIONS

CHAPTER 4: TECHNOLOGICAL TRANSFORMATION OF AMERICA 1780s TO 1850s
I. INTRODUCTION
Three stages of the American technological transformation 1785-1855
Energy transitions: from wood to coal

II. ECONOMIC CYCLES AND SOCIAL-POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS
Correlation of economic cycles for the period 1785-1855 with the three stages of technological transformation
Social-political developments

III. TRANSPORTATION ADVANCES: ROADS, WATER, AND RAILS
Road transportation
Water transportation
Savery, Newcomen, and Watt: introduction of single-action atmospheric-steam engines and double action (reciprocating) steam engines
Impact of Watt’s double-action reciprocating steam engine
Steam engines and steamboats
Steamboat construction in the United States: Fitch, Rumsey, and Fulton, a tragic trio
United States and trans-Atlantic steamboat travel
Later nineteenth-century advances in ship construction: screw propeller, ironclads, steam turbines, and diesel engines
Canal building era
Railroad era
Engineering advances that contributed to railroad growth: rail flange, steam engine, T-rail, semaphore, airbrake, and automatic coupler
Introduction of standard track width
Federal land grants 1850-71

IV. GOVERNMENT PROMOTION OF THE ECONOMY, PATENT SYSTEM
Federal government intervened or acted in three ways, through the use of tariffs, contracts, and patents, to promote domestic economic and industrial growth
Evolution of the United States patent system
Establishing a currency
Henry Clay and the American System

V. TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS IN INDUSTRY
General characteristics of technological development, craft shop and industrial factory
Significant inventions in the three stages of technological transformation: 1785-1825, 1825-40, and 1840-55
Whitney’s cotton gin
Iron and steel plows: Wood and Deere
Grain reaper: Hussey and McCormick
Colt’s revolver or repeating pistol
Goodyear’s vulcanization of rubber
Telegraph: Henry and Morse
Sewing machine: Howe and Singer
Rotary and web presses: Hoe
Financing industrial growth

VI. INDUSTRY, LABOR, AND CITIES
Rise of cities
Urban living and working conditions 1825-40

VII. CONCLUSION
REVIEW QUESTIONS

CHAPTER 5: SCIENCE THROUGH THE CIVIL WAR: FROM AMATEURISM TO PROFESSIONALISM
I. INTRODUCTION
Education, medicine, and science
Society, culture, economics, and politics

II. EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENTS
Elementary and secondary education to 1860
Massachusetts the educational leader
Spread of public education
Academies
Normal or teacher education schools
Women’s education and educators
Colleges
Size, number, and purpose of colleges
Curriculum, laboratories, libraries, and enrollments
Women and college

III. MEDICAL THOUGHT AND PRACTICE
Establishment medicine, its methodology: deductivist and inductivist, statistical
Education
Preceptorial, proprietary and university-affiliated medical colleges or schools
Medical tuition, curriculum
Non-establishment medicine, the medical sects: Thomsonians, Grahamites, hydropaths, and homeopaths
Professionalization of medicine and dentistry
American Medical Association: requirements and restrictions
Dental colleges, American Dental Association
Advances in physiology: William Beaumont and the digestive process
Abortion issue
Advances in anesthesia
Early anesthetics
Controversy over the discovery and use of ether as an anesthetic: Wells, Morton, Jackson, and Long
Chloroform as anesthesia
Benefits of anesthesia, local and general anesthesia
Civil War medicine
Medical doctors and medical advances, sanitation, anesthesia, plastic surgery
Nursing emerged as a profession during the Civil War
Establishment of hospitals
Embalming

IV. ADVANCES IN SCIENCE
Chemistry
American contributors to chemistry: Silliman, Hare, Cooke, and others
Geology
First geological surveys
Geological schools: catastrophism and uniformitarianism, two rival nineteenth-century beliefs on what caused changes in Earth’s strata
Astronomy
Physics
Motor principle and electromagnetic induction: Faraday
Measurement of electricity
Henry’s overlooked contributions
Mathematics

V. ESTABLISHMENT OF SCIENTIFIC SCHOOLS AND PROGRAMS
European situation
Science education in the United States
Science in the colleges
Morrill Land Grant Act of 2 July 1862
Agricultural experiment stations

VI. CONTINUING THE PROFESSIONALIZATION OF AMERICAN SCIENCE
Franklin Institute
Naval Observatory
Smithsonian Institution
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
National Academy of Sciences
Other signs of increasing professionalization

VII. CONCLUSION
REVIEW QUESTIONS

CHAPTER 6: DARWIN COMES TO AMERICA
I. INTRODUCTION

II. HOW OLD IS EARTH
What did earlier cultures or societies believe about the origin of the universe?
Biblical genealogy and the age of Earth
Archeological evidence
Salinity and thermodynamic methods of dating Earth’s age
Radioactive dating methods
Uranium dating
Carbon-14 dating

III. HOW OLD IS HUMANITY

IV. ARGUMENT FOR DESIGN IN THE UNIVERSE
William Paley’s argument

V. EARLY THEORIES OF EVOLUTION
Georges Louis Buffon
Age of Earth
Degeneration of animals
Erasmus Darwin
Jean Baptiste Lamarck
Recent Lamarckians

VI. GEOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS: CATASTROPHISTS AND UNIFORMITARIANS
Catastrophists: Vulcanists and Neptunists
Uniformitarians: Hutton and Lyell

VII. EVOLUTION BY NATURAL SELECTION
Charles Darwin
Proponents of natural selection: Wallace, Huxley, Haeckel, Weismann
Opponents of natural selection: Owen

VIII. AMERICAN DEBATE OVER DARWINISM: LOUIS AGASSIZ AND ASA GRAY
Racial issue and debate on the origin of the races: monogenesis vs. polygenesis
Evolutionary issue and debate: Agassiz and Gray
More American anti-Darwinists: Silliman, Dana, Hitchcock
American evolutionists: Marsh and Cope

IX. BEGINNING OF GENETICS: SOLVING THE INHERITANCE PROBLEM
Gregor Mendel and the laws of inheritance
Rediscovery of Mendel’s experiments and the introduction of the Punnet Square

X. A NEW THEORY OF EVOLUTION: PUNCTUATED EQUILIBRIUM

XI. EVIDENCE SUPPORTING EVOLUTION
Paleontology: the fossil record
Comparative anatomy: common structures
Biogeography: distribution of species
Embryology: similarities during development
Evidence from molecular biology
Creationism and the evidence for evolution
One more proof

XII. HOW MANY SPECIES INHABIT EARTH

XIII. EVOLUTION AND RELIGION
Traditionalists
Modernists
Naturalists
Scopes Trial: Dayton, Tennessee, 10-21 July 1925
Creationism today
Scientists and atheism

XIV. CONCLUSION
GEOLOGICAL CHARTS
REVIEW QUESTIONS

CHAPTER 7: MOLECULAR BIOLOGY AND THE DOUBLE HELIX
I. INTRODUCTION

II. BEGINNING OF GENETICS
Developments in cell theory
Chromosome studies

III. DISCOVERY OF PROTEINS AND NUCLEIC ACIDS
Protein analyses
Discovery, analysis, and chemical composition of the two nucleic acids DNA and RNA
Levene’s tetranucleotide structure of DNA

IV. USE OF X-RAYS IN ESTABLISHING MOLECULAR STRUCTURE

V. CHEMICAL CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE STRUCTURE OF DNA AND RNA: EVIDENCE THAT NUCLEIC ACID WAS THE GENE AND THE INFORMATION CARRIER
Bacteriophage composition
Determining the genetic material: Avery, Hershey and Chase
Chromatography separation techniques
Invention of column chromatography
Invention of paper chromatography

VI. SOLVING THE STRUCTURE OF DNA: X-RAY DIFFRACTION, MODELS, AND THE GENETIC CODE
Chargaff’s paper chromatography breakthrough
Pauling’s DNA structure
X-ray studies on DNA at King’s College, University of London
Watson, Crick, and the double helix structure of DNA
New developments in molecular biology: DNA synthesis, protein structure
Proposing a genetic code
Role of RNA in understanding the genetic code: transcription and translation
Breaking the genetic code: Nirenberg and Khorana
Beginning of genetic engineering or DNA sequencing

VII. HUMAN GENOME PROJECT

VIII. DEVELOPMENTS IN CLONING AND STEM CELLS
What is cloning?
Ethical implications of cloning and stem cells

IX. CONCLUSION
REVIEW QUESTIONS

CHAPTER 8: TECHNOLOGICAL TRANSFORMATION OF AMERICA 1860-1900

I. INTRODUCTION

II. AMERICAN TECHNOLOGICAL TRANSFORMATION CAME ABOUT RAPIDLY
Six factors that contributed to the American technological transformation in the last half of the nineteenth century
The professionalization of science continued

III. TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS IN EUROPE AND ASIA 1870-1914

IV. MAJOR TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS IN THE UNITED STATES
Steel
Major contributors to the development of the large-scale steel industry, Kelly, Bessemer, and Mushet
Significance of Kelly, Bessemer, and Holley
An improved steelmaking process: the regenerative open-hearth furnace
Major furnace advances
United States steel production and cost and effect on the environment
Aluminum: Hall and Héroult, a case of nearly simultaneous invention
Petroleum
Origin of petroleum, early use as a medicinal and as an illuminant
First large petroleum discovery
Nineteenth-century methods of finding and drilling for petroleum
Petroleum storage and refining
Petroleum discoveries after Titusville
Thermal and high-pressure catalytic cracking of crude petroleum
United States petroleum reserves
Communications industry
Telephone
Electrical industry
Edison’s contribution to the telephone
Light bulb
Establishing the General Electric Company
Westinghouse and the introduction of alternating current
Edison’s other inventions
Phonograph
Motion picture machine
Spirit communication machine
A brief look at the emerging American chemical industry
Salt industry
Borax industry
Sulfur industry
Electrolytic industry: Dow Chemical Company
Plastics industry
Automobile industry
External combustion engine: steam-powered; internal combustion: gasoline and dieselpowered vehicles
American automobile organizers

V. ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION: THE OTHER SIDE OF URBANIZATION, MODERNIZATION, AND INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT
Introduction
Water pollution and the problem of waste disposal in the United States: the three stages of development
Background
Water distribution and sewer systems
Slow and rapid sand filtration systems
Chlorine treatment
Industrial water pollution
Air pollution
Acid rain and smoke
Cottrell and the electrostatic precipitator: the first industrial environmentalist

VI. INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZING METHODS OR TECHNIQUES AND INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZERS
General characteristics of major industries
Leading industrial organizers

VII. ORIGINS OF INDUSTRIALISTS AND ENTREPRENEURS WHO DOMINATED AMERICAN INDUSTRY

VIII. REACTION TO THE GROWTH AND CONSOLIDATION OF INDUSTRY
Public reaction
Political reaction from state and federal governments: regulation of railroads and corporations
Regulation of railroads
Regulation of corporations

IX. CONCLUSION
REVIEW QUESTIONS

CHAPTER 9: RECONSTRUCTION AND GILDED AGE EDUCATION AND SCIENCE
I. INTRODUCTION

II. REVOLUTION IN HIGHER EDUCATION 1870-1910
The new university era and its leaders
Several factors contributed to university growth
Goals of the new universities
Effect of the education revolution on the university
Conclusion: the old college versus the new university

III. POST-CIVIL WAR SCIENCE
Electromagnetic theory of radiation: Maxwell, and Hertz
Electricity and magnetism
Development of the electromagnetic theory of radiation: Maxwell
Demonstrating the transmission of electromagnetic waves (wireless or radio transmission): did the waves really exist?
Astronomy
Progress and growth
Contributions of Rowland and Hale
Photographing the stars and planets: Pickerings, Lowell, and Tombaugh
Classifying stellar spectra: Cannon, Maury, and Leavitt, three women astronomers
Stellar evolution and stellar distances: Hertzsprung-Russell color-brightness relation
Beginning of aeronautics: balloons, gliders, and powered dirigibles
Early attempts at flight
First ascensions: hot air filled balloons and hydrogen gas filled balloons: Montgolfiers and Charles
Purpose of balloon flights
Rigid-bodied powered dirigibles: Zeppelins
Heavier-than-air craft: gliders, Bernoulli’s principle, Cayley, Lilienthal, Chanute
Heavier-than-air craft: powered
British aircraft: Henson and Stringfellow, Maxim
United States aircraft: Langley, Wright Brothers
United States Army flight tests
Controversy with the Smithsonian: Wrights versus Curtiss
Other flight-related developments: trans-Atlantic flight, aeronautical leadership
Physics: measuring the speed of light
Celestial methods: Roemer and Bradley
Terrestrial methods: Fizeau, Foucault, Cornu, and Michelson
Michelson’s later measurements of light’s speed
Chemistry
Molecular composition
Atomic weight standards
Molecular structure
Periodic table
Chemical instrumentation
Thermodynamics: the study of heat
Carnot, the heat engine and Carnot cycle
Other thermodynamic developments: work and the mechanical equivalent of heat
Three laws of thermodynamics
Kelvin: temperature scale, definition of kinetic energy
Contributions of J. Willard Gibbs
Kinetic-molecular theory of gases

IV. CONCLUSION
REVIEW QUESTIONS

CHAPTER 10: TWENTIETH-CENTURY PHYSICAL SCIENCE
I. INTRODUCTION

II. FUNDAMENTAL BREAKTHROUGHS IN PHYSICS AND CHEMISTRY
Discovery of cathode rays
Serendipitous discovery of x-rays
Serendipitous discovery of radioactivity
 Divisible atom
Quantum theory 1900
Einstein and the new scientific world
Photoelectric effect March 1905
Brownian movement May 1905
 Special theory of relativity June 1905
 Consequences of the special theory
Mass-energy equivalence September1905
Verification of the special theory
General theory of relativity 1915, 1916
Verification of the general theory
String and superstring theory of gravity

III. SEARCH FOR PRECISE ATOMIC WEIGHTS

IV. ELECTRON: THE FUNDAMENTAL ELECTRIC CHARGE

V. THEORIES OF ATOMIC STRUCTURE
Multi-electron atom
 Rutherford and the nuclear atom
Establishment of atomic numbers
Bohr’s theory of the hydrogen atom: Sommerfeld’s and Pauli’s contributions

VI. CHEMICAL BOND
Electrostatic theories of the chemical bond
G.N. Lewis and the shared electron pair chemical bond
Biographic
 Cubic atom and shared electron pair chemical bond
 Introduction of electron dot or Lewis formulas
Langmuir’s contributions to valence theory

VII. COMPOSITION OF THE NUCLEUS
Proton and proton-electron theory
 Neutron and the proton-neutron theory
Later developments

VIII. DEVELOPMENT OF QUANTUM MECHANICS: MATRIX MECHANICS AND WAVE MECHANICS
Background
Electron duality: wave or particle
Matrix mechanics
Wave mechanics
Hund’s rule
Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle
Application of quantum mechanics to the chemical bond
Valence bond method
Molecular orbital theory

IX. SPECTROSCOPY AND CHEMICAL BONDS

X. QUANTUM MECHANICS AND THE STRUCTURE OF THE NUCLEUS

XI. SEARCH FOR FUNDAMENTAL PARTICLES
Fundamental particle physics
Discovery and classification of quarks
 Four forces

XII. CONCLUSION
REVIEW QUESTIONS

CHAPTER 11: ENERGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT: CONFLICT OR COMPATIBILITY
I. INTRODUCTION

II. EARLY DEVELOPMENTS IN NUCLEAR FISSION REACTIONS
First transmutations
Discovery of the neutron
 Cyclotron and artificial radioactivity
 Fermi and neutron bombardment
Nuclear fission comes to the United States

III. MANHATTAN PROJECT: CONTROLLING NUCLEAR FISSION AND RACING TO BUILD AN ATOMIC BOMB
Organization and early research
Construction of the first atomic piles
Construction of the first atomic bombs
 Controversy over dropping the atomic bomb

IV. GERMAN, SOVIET, BRITISH, AND JAPANESE ATOMIC BOMB PROJECTS
 Germany’s atomic bomb project
Britain’s atomic bomb project: tube alloys project
 Japan’s atomic bomb project
Soviet Russia’s atomic bomb project

V. ATOMIC SPY SCANDALS
 Soviet spy scandals of the 1950s
The Griffin: a little-known Allied spy

VI. POST-WAR NUCLEAR DEVELOPMENTS
Controlling the nuclear program
A proposal for the first nuclear reactor 1945-47
 First nuclear reactors
 Later reactor developments, waste disposal

VII. NUCLEAR FUSION
 First fusion reaction
Construction of the first fusion or hydrogen bombs
Soviet fusion bomb
 Post World War II developments and cooperation in nuclear fusion reactor design
 Soviet, European, American, and Japanese nuclear fusion programs
 Cooperation and competition in fusion

VIII. SOLAR ENERGY AS AN APPROPRIATE ALTERNATIVE TECHNOLOGY
Introductory
 History of solar energy as appropriate technology
 A solar pioneer’s circuitous route to solar energy applications: the contributions of Daniels
 Solar research in the 1960s, cooking and distillation
 Promotion of solar energy as appropriate technology: funds, stills, cookers
 Development of photovoltaic cells: in space, on Earth
Conclusion

IX. WIND ENERGY
 Historical development
 Windfarms: onshore and offshore
 Wind energy production and cost
 Government support of wind energy in the United States
 Conclusion

X. ENVIRONMENT AND POLLUTION
Introductory
Water purification
Acid rain
What is acid rain?
 Measuring acid rain
History of acid rain
 Causes of acid rain
 Consequences of acid rain
 Remedies for reducing acid rain
Government regulations to control acid rain
Climate change (global warming): its three-stage history
Introductory
First stage 1800-1900: establishing a changing atmosphere-changing climate theory to account for ice ages and other climate changes
Second stage 1900-1940s: loss of interest in a changing atmosphere-changing climate theory
Third stage 1950s-present: revival of the changing atmosphere- changing climate theory, the role of CO2
Revelle, CO2 absorption, oceans, and climate change
• CO2 absorption, oceans’ turnover rate and buffering
 • Processes to measure DIC and total alkalinity
• Revelle Factor (R): measuring the buffering effect
 • Suess carbon isotope determinations
• Average lifetime for a CO2 molecule in the atmosphere
• How much CO2 remains in the atmosphere
• Other contributions and significance
Confirming the link between a changing atmosphere and a changing climate: Keeling and the Keeling Curve
Is the debate over: Hansen’s contributions to the changing atmosphere-changing climate theory
Deniers of the changing atmosphere-changing climate theory: Lomborg, Lindzen, and others, their six usual criticisms
Kyoto Protocol (1997), Copenhagen Accord (2009), and Paris Agreement (2015)
 Summary and concluding thoughts on climate change
Lead and the environment
Recognition of lead poisoning goes back to ancient times
 Lead in paint issue
First preparation of tetraethyllead
 Tetraethyllead and the antiknock problem
 Commercial production of tetraethyllead, fatal consequences
 Kehoe industrial apologist, the rise of tetraethyllead
 Patterson and a new evaluation of lead’s toxicity: the fall of tetraethyllead and other airborne lead sources
 Patterson’s vindication
 Conclusion

XI. CONCLUSION
REVIEW QUESTIONS

EPILOGUE
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX

Anthony Stranges