The Restless Atom

By Alfred Romer

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0486243109
• ISBN13: 9780486243108
• Release Date: January 1982
• Publisher: Dover Pubns
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.48 lbs.

Customer Reviews

What is the world really made of?

Perhaps no scientific effort has contributed more to our understanding of the physical world than the establishment of modern atomic theory. The periodic table of the elements succeeded brilliantly in showing how all known substances, including the ingredients of living things, could be assembled combinatorially from just three particles; the proton, the neutron, and the electron. Moreover, discovery of the nuclear atom revealed the astounding fact that any form of condensed matter, for example solid iron, consists almost entirely of empty space. The hard-won realization that some unstable atomic nuclei are slowly disintegrating made it possible to link radioactivity with transmutation of the elements, thus explaining in one stroke how the futile dreams of the alchemists might actually be achieved, and why ordinary chemistry could never succeed in doing so. In "The Restless Atom," Professor Romer covers the period from Roentgen's discovery of X-rays in 1896 to Bohr's radical hydrogen model of 1914, where he dared to invoke the quantum hypothesis as a means by which electrons could exist in an atom without radiating away their energy and falling into the positively-charged nucleus. Romer's narrative chronicles progress in the bygone era of "string-and-sealing-wax," science, when individual workers or small university labs could make fundamental discoveries on a more-or-less regular basis. His approach throughout is to describe research as actually practiced, with all the doubt and confusion which real scientists (then and now) face daily in their struggle to make sense of nature. He resists the temptation to use hindsight, keeping the reader engaged with what each worker was thinking at a given time -- errors, misconceptions and false starts included. I recommend this book highly with two caveats: Romer writes at a level which requires both a fair amount of prior familiarity with chemistry and physics, and a genuine curiosity about the frustrating, bumpy process by which science evolves.