Abstracts, Past Meetings

XVIII, Philadelphia: Modern Chemistry and Material Science: Artefacts Tell the Story


Robert G.W. Anderson (University of Cambridge):
Chemical Glass: An Unconsidered Subject

The talk will deal with the supply, availability and production of chemical apparatus from the eighteenth to the twentieth century, including the transition from soda to borosilicate glass. This is an unconsidered, though highly significant subject of relevance to all experimental chemists. It cannot be dealt with in any detail in a brief paper, so approaches to its study will be suggested.

David DeVorkin (Smithsonian, NASM):
Identifying, Collecting and Preserving 20th Century Astronomical Detectors and their Support Systems

The post-World War II era saw a huge expansion in technologies capable of detecting low light levels and regions of the electromagnetic spectrum beyond the visual. This expansion served to revolutionize astronomical practice. Vacuum tube technologies, photoelectric technologies and eventually solid state technologies all became available to astronomy. A few astronomers adopted the required techniques and applied them, but most of the expertise was imported by migratory physicists, chemists and electrical engineers. By the end of the Century and the start of the next, solid state detectors had become virtually ubiquitous, erasing all earlier means of detection. Here we explore aspects of this erasure, concentrating on the challenge of identifying, collecting and preserving adequate samples of the transitional artefacts that characterized observational astronomy of the latter half of the 20th Century.

Deanna Day (University of Pennsylvania):
Mittelschmerz, Spikes or Blinking Lights? Thermometers, Fertility and Making Knowledge about the Body

In the first chapter of The Garden of Fertility, Katie Singer describes a woman who practices natural family planning as an unexpected figure: a scientist. While describing the system of temperature tracking that can allow a woman to know when she has ovulated, Singer writes, “The fertility charts [in this book] shift authority over women’s health...This is clinical research.” This paper explores the technology that makes it possible for a woman to think of herself as a scientist of her own body: the basal body temperature thermometer. How do thermometers influence the way that women know their bodies? Is there a difference between charting with a mercury or digital thermometer? Is a woman’s understanding of her fertility different if she charts by hand or if she charts with a smartphone app? How does that experience compare to other ways of determining fertility? This paper will argue that the material experience of taking and recording temperatures has direct influence on the ways that women experience their fertility, their health, and themselves.

Frank Dittmann (Deutsches Museum):
Pure Materials for Socialism

After a series of preliminary works the physicists Walter H. Brattain, John Bardeen, and William Shockley demonstrated the transistor effect in December 1947 at Bell Labs. Thus, they laid the foundation for the recent microelectronics technology as basis of the information age. As well the GDR reacted quickly. Already in 1953, a research team led by Matthias Falter at the Werk für Bauelemente der Nachrichtentechnik (WBN, Factory for Component of Communications Technology) in Teltow near Berlin started his work.
Apart from the understanding of semiconductor physics the team had to develop the necessary equipment. Because in GDR no semiconductor materials with the required purity were available, these materials had to be produced in the Institute as well. For producing high pure crystals the East German scientists used two methods. On one hand it was the method developed by the Polish chemist Jan Czochralski in which a crystal was pulled from the melt, and on the other hand, the zone melting process developed by Eberhard Spenke at the Siemens Lab in Pretzfeld. Both methods have been intensively studied in Teltow. As a result, the WBN could present at the Leipzig Fair in 1954 its first transistors. With this it became one of the first institutions in the divided Germany which achieved this.

Benjamin Gross (Chemical Heritage Foundation):
The Stuff that Screens are Made of: Reconstructing the Early History of the LCD

At the end of May 1968, a team of researchers from the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) captivated the public’s imagination with the promise of digital clocks without moving parts and television screens that could hang on the wall like a painting. These technologies, and many others, might soon be possible thanks to a paradoxically named set of compounds known as liquid crystals, which could electronically modulate the passage of light. Scientists at RCA’s central laboratory in Princeton constructed prototypes confirming the utility of their new liquid crystal displays (LCDs), but the task of scaling up production was left to a group of engineers at the company’s semiconductor division. Drawing upon early displays preserved in the Chemical Heritage Foundation’s collections, this paper examines the challenges associated with transferring LCD technology from the laboratory to the factory and how RCA laid the groundwork for the modern liquid crystal industry.

Hans Hooijmaijers (Museum Boerhaave):
Storytelling in a Museum: Objects should do the talking

Recent heritage can be quite troublesome for history of science museums, since modern scientific artefacts often lack esthetic and artistic qualities. The traditional object-oriented approach, in which museums collect and present objects as individual showpieces is inadequate to bring recent heritage to life. Recently Museum Boerhaave started to collect artefacts which could be regarded as ‘key pieces’. These objects should not be a stand alone but represent an important historical event, story or development.
In my paper I will elaborate on the way this ‘key pieces’ approach involves a more ‘organic’ way of collecting and displaying, focusing less on the individual object and more on the context in which it functioned, its development and its place in the storyline. With the aid of some examples I will argue that this approach can be used for the modern scientific society as well as the history of science to appeal to today’s audiences.

Juan-Andres Leon (Harvard, CHF Cain Fellow):
Paper Objects: Navigating the intersection between museum, archive, and historical recreation.

The presentation is based on my current experience with paper objects for our new Mark I computer exhibit, the first programmable computer in the United States. One of the significant 'treasures' related to this computer are the paper tapes on which its programs were encoded. The somewhat arbitrary decision to use paper in the 1940s led to their eventual conservation in archival collections. The fragility of paper also made them unlikely to be ever displayed in a permanent exhibit. Fortunately, paper presented an opportunity with respect to any other material, the possibility of creating accurate replicas for use in the exhibit. What was initially a constraint turned into an opportunity for creative freedom. With the collaboration of the Smithsonian Museum of American History, original tapes were scanned, printed, and perforated at a low cost. This will allow their presence in the new exhibit, including their availability for tactile interaction with our visitors, providing a level of interaction that would have been impossible with any other medium.

Cathleen Lewis and Lisa Young (Smithsonian, NASM):
Repairs to Neil Armstrong’s Gloves Tell an Interesting Story not Documented in History Books

Neil Armstrong’s Apollo 11 mission to the moon is recognized as one of the greatest human achievements in history. It can also be considered as one of the most thoroughly documented events, yet close examination of artifacts related to that mission continue to reveal fascinating details of the mission.
In 2012, to commemorate the death of Neil Armstrong, the National Air and Space Museum displayed his extra-vehicular gloves and helmet in a temporary display at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia. The public display of these objects provided the opportunity for closer examination of the materials, their level of preservation and to thoroughly document their condition. The presence of staining, which was previously associated with repairs to the gloves, was clearly evident but a full investigation into the history surrounding these repairs and whether or not the staining was darkening over time prompted further analysis.
The chance to research the gloves provided a rare opportunity to add scientific and historical data to our archival record at NASM. The sequence of events following Neil Armstrong’s lunar mission are not as well documented and did not highlight the specific treatments performed on his spacesuit. However, close examination of the suit and gloves revealed new information regarding their treatment. Not only can the materials, technology and use of the gloves be authenticated in the object itself, but decisions made during the use of the suit and afterward can be further understood. In this paper, the examination, research and analysis of the repairs to the gloves reveal a previously undocumented story. Collaboration between conservators, curators and material engineers provided the insight needed to fully understand the origin of the repairs and the timeline of when they occurred. The discovery of lunar dust, trapped under the repair coating only made the analysis more rewarding. But most importantly, we have gained a better understanding of the historical timeline regarding decisions made when the spacesuits were returned to Earth and how the evidence of wear from use influenced the refinement of spacesuit design following Apollo 11.

Odile Madden (Smithsonian, Museum Conservation Institute):
Plastics and Early Aircraft: Enclosing the Cockpit

Early aviation design incorporated the most innovative plastics available at the time, and examples of these technologies are represented in the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum (NASM) collection. Particularly interesting, and unexplored until now, is the co-evolution of transparent sheet plastics and the enclosure of cockpits in heavier-than-air aircraft of the 1920s and 1930s. A novel, non-invasive study of goggles, helmets, and airplane canopies in Smithsonian collections is the first known large-scale technical survey of aviation plastics. It leverages the world’s largest air and space collection as evidence of the materials and technologies used to create polymeric windows in the early-20th century.

The Wright brothers' first flew at Kitty Hawk in an open architecture aircraft. By 1910, aircraft were streamlined and pilots were given some protection from the slipstream and elements by covering the aircraft’s skeletal frame with fabric, leaving the top open for the pilot’s head and shoulders. These early cockpits were located behind the engine, and the pilot was pelted with wind, rain, ice, oil, and the occasional bird that happened into the propeller. All threatened the pilot’s ability to see and maneuver the plane. Goggles and small windshields were a first defense, provided they did not fail. As flying became more common, ambitious pilots flew ever higher, faster, and year round, which brought the need to enclose cockpits and still see out of them. This period coincided with the development of shatterproof laminated safety glass and water-clear transparent plastic sheets that were lighter, more flexible, easier to shape, and less likely to shatter on impact. Aviation soon was a target market for these products.

Because the evolution of transparent window materials and plastic occurred on a similar trajectory, early aircraft - the production history of which is well known - are an opportunity to study developments in early transparent plastics. Written documentation of plastic products available at that time tends to come from manufacturers' R&D reports, marketing materials, and advertisements, all of which offer valuable insight into what was available but may not coincide with what was used. The Smithsonian Museum Conservation Institute (MCI) and NASM have teamed up to evaluate the potential of Raman spectroscopy to identify and characterize the plastics that actually were used. Using these tools and X-ray fluorescence spectrometry we have constructed a timeline for the development of aviator eyewear and aircraft window materials through World War II.

This research was funded by the National Park Service and the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training.

David McGee (Canada Science and Technology Museum):
The Social Chemistry of Paper (making)

Most of us have encountered pulp and paper mills. We tend to think of them as big, odorous installations, engaged in the relatively stupid business of crushing trees. Making paper is, of course, primarily a matter of chemistry. On the industrial scale it is an extraordinarily complicated chemical process mediated by huge and machines. Even more important were the crews that ran those machines and managed the chemical process, often without the benefit of even so much as a high school diploma.
This paper will explore the social and chemical organization of papermaking at Ottawa’s E.B. Eddy Company, which was for over a century one of North America’s leading papermakers. The focus will be on the ability of Eddy teams to change the chemical output of their machines several times a week, sometimes even three times a day, and yet still produce the exact chemical compositions ordered by their customers in the form of consumer and/or specialty papers. It was an astonishing capability, based on a culture of continuous innovation, which meant that even as the company’s last paper machine closed in 2007 both Business Week and Wired Magazine were being printed on the high quality paper produced in the middle of the Ottawa River.
The paper will make use of the Domtar E.B. Eddy Booth Collection, a massive collections of archival materials and artifacts recently acquired by the Canada Science and Technology Museum.

Otmar Moritsch (Technisches Museum Wien):
The Writing Apparatus of Friedrich von Knaus

The belief in progress that characterised the 18th century was also reflected in its enthusiasm for automata. Jacques de Vaucanson built a mechanised duck that could quack, swim, flap its wings, peck seeds, and even digest them. His contemporary Pierre Jacquet-Droz designed dolls that could write and draw, and whose inner workings consisted of clock mechanisms. At the Imperial Court in Vienna Friedrich von Knaus held the post of Director of the Physical and Mathematical Cabinet. In 1760 he presented a writing automaton to Emperor Francis I and his consort Maria Theresa. A brass figurine holding a quill sits atop a globe. Inside the globe is a pin drum on which a sequence of letters can be set by hand. Driven by a spring mechanism the automaton is capable of writing up to 68 stored letters by itself. The control mechanism also ensures that the writing support advances after each written letter and after every completed line. Curved discs acting as templates make sure that the mechanical quill executes the correct stroke for each letter.

Peter Morris (Science Museum):
Early Chemical Museums

A talk on the chemical museum which is the most original part of my current book on the history of the laboratory. The connection with artefacts is the surviving collections of these museums which tells us what was in them. I might add, by the way, that this type of chemical museum has little to do with modern museums of chemistry (or science) such as CHF, being more like geological museums.

Valerie Neal (Smithsonian):
Space Shuttle Tiles: Stories from Sand to Space

Apart from its sheer size, perhaps the most noticeable feature of a space shuttle is its surface material—a carapace of tiles and blankets over its body and hard shells on its most vulnerable edges. Inscribed on this heat shield are the marks of the vehicle’s repeated searing passage from space through the atmosphere—streaks that record the angle of attack, faded and discolored areas that show wear and tear, brighter areas that were repaired or replaced during the life of the spacecraft. Each of the more than 22,000 tiles bears a unique i.d. number and is uniquely shaped for its precise position on the vehicle. The tiles give the spacecraft its “character” and suggest its history much as the lines do on an aging face. Because tiles are a feature that captures public interest and curiosity, they are an effective entrée for various stories of human spaceflight in the shuttle era.
This presentation will include photos of shuttle tiles in production, being applied to the orbiter, being inspected and repaired, close-ups of tiles on the orbiter Discovery, editorial cartoons featuring shuttle tiles, and other images to illustrate the stories that shuttle tiles make accessible. The presenter, who curates the orbiter Discovery and the museum’s collection of shuttle tiles, may also bring several unaccessioned tiles for the audience to inspect.

Ingrid Ockert (Princeton University):
Ice-Nine, Isolation, and Innocence: How “Cat’s Cradle” can help historians investigate the insular nature of postwar scientific communities

In 1963, the American satirist Kurt Vonnegut published the dark comedy Cat’s Cradle, projecting a world plunged into a literal “Cold War” by a destructive new technology. Historian of science Spencer Weart identifies Cat’s Cradle as one of the defining books of the so called “atomic age,” suggesting it can be appreciated both as a classic work of dystopian literature and as a cultural artifact of the Atomic Era. Agreeing with Weart, I contend that Cat’s Cradle can serve as a primary text for historians of the Cold War. Vonnegut saw himself as an “insider” within the scientific community, having worked within General Electric as a technical writer in the 1940s and 1950s. He utilized his training as an anthropologist to record the nuances of this scientific culture.
By employing a biographical analysis of the text, I use Cat’s Cradle to reconstruct the emotional landscape of Cold War laboratories. I am eager to suggest ways in which historians of science can view textual sources, like pieces of fiction, as artifacts. In the construction of a fictional piece, a writer merges both “art” and “fact,” creating an object deeply enmeshed with cultural values. Considering books as historical artifacts allows historians novel ways to engage with primary sources. In addition, my paper will suggest how historians of science can use books like Cat’s Cradle to engage the general public with postwar scientific history.

Veronika Petroff (University of Adelaide):
Search and Rescue: Establishing the University of Adelaide Chemistry Collection

This paper provides an overview of a project being undertaken at the University of Adelaide to establish a Chemistry collection. Over the course of the project hundreds of significant artefacts have been identified and rescued. Individually and collectively they tell important stories about developments in Chemistry at one of the oldest Universities in Australia.
In 2010, Art and Heritage Collections and the Department of Chemistry at the University of Adelaide, began a partnership to develop a Chemistry collection. The Head of Chemistry, Associate Professor Greg Metha, was concerned about the ‘loss’ of significant items of material heritage over the years, many of which had been thrown in the ‘skip’ during regular clean ups of the Department stores. Art and Heritage Collections, entrusted with the preservation of the University’s cultural heritage, was enlisted to manage the project. I began work on the project under the direction of Manager, Art and Heritage Collections, Mirna Heruc and Associate Professor Metha, as part of a postgraduate Museum Studies internship.
The project involved researching, identifying, rescuing and recording remaining items of significance, to establish a collection that told the unfolding story of the Department, which was established in 1885 in the third oldest University in Australia. As advancements in science have rendered many scientific research and teaching tools redundant, compiling the collection involved many hours of fossicking in cluttered store rooms and dusty basements, where many artefacts had been discarded. The institutional knowledge of past students and teaching and technical support staff, some of who had a long association with the Department, was invaluable in identifying artefacts and their uses.
While establishing the collection remains a work in progress, hundreds of artefacts of historic and scientific importance have been identified, some of which were made in the Department’s own technical workshops. These artefacts tell multiple stories. Using selected examples, this paper will show how artefacts can be used to trace developments in Chemistry as a discipline, reflect changing practices and technologies and highlight the social benefits of the research in the Department since it was established.

Susanne Rehn-Taube (Deutsches Museum):
Chemistry in the Deutsches Museum: Artefacts as Vehicles

The future permanent exhibition will be divided into three main areas: in the area of Historical Chemistry, replicas of three historical labs - from alchemy times, from the times of Lavoisier and Liebig – will be rebuilt like in all previous exhibitions. In the Laboratory Section, a modern auditorium and a hands-on laboratory will illustrate the topics of the exhibition in different programmes and lectures. In the Exhibition Section, several topics (recreation & sports, nutrition, analytical science, etc.) will be presented. The key messages are:
• Chemistry is an innovative, responsible science that offers benefits both to society and to the individual.
• Visitors will be surprised by the chemistry surrounding them in their daily life and ask for the background.
The exhibition will use all kinds of museum media, such as objects, texts, images and interactive demonstrations. The selection of the artifacts is a particular challenge. The chemical collection includes about 10,000 objects. There are laboratory devices and other materials from the estates of outstanding chemists like Justus von Liebig, Robert Bunsen or August Kekulé, but also ordinary glassware used in chemical laboratories in the 19th or at the end of the 20th century. A large collection of synthetic dyes as well as numerous examples from the history of plastics and synthetic fibers are available. However, it must be emphasized that none of the objects show what chemistry is actually about. Unlike vehicles, one cannot put molecules in a glass cabinet. Our exhibits are always vehicles to illustrate a chemical context or a chemical reaction.
This raises questions such as:
• Can a toy car made of bakelite explain the basics of polymerization?
• How do I explain the revolutionary effect of van’t Hoff’s tetrahedron models?
• Can examples of pesticide applications illustrate the changes in the world which accompanied the development of these compounds?
We have already tried to find answers to those questions. In the International Year of Chemistry 2011, we opened a part of the new exhibition as a special exhibition. This allowed us to evaluate the concept. The results and further plans for the future will be discussed in the talk.

Yves Andre Thomas (University of Nantes):
Artefacts and an Institute of Chemistry and Materials: the Whole Story

A few years ago, we decided with the help of a historian of science to tell and saveguard stories of research labs on a multimedia basis. For this presentation, it is obvious to choose a laboratory of chemistry and materials (IMN : Institute of Materials Jean Rouxel, Nantes, France). The interviewed actors are past and present members of this lab, researchers and engineers. Silent actors are artefacts that were developed, purchased, used, improved, and that have been contributing to the life of the Institute for 25 years.
This Story includes 4 videos and script sections:
• "25 years of history" with a multimedia book, illustrated by interviews with those who developed the institute, with the designer of the building which has contributed to the functionality and benefits of cross physics, soft chemistry and engineering, with the Institute inauguration that allows the comparison with the results today.
• "Men and women of IMN," with, unfortunately the now died creator, current researchers, some young doctorate students, evolving relationships with industrial partners
• "Instruments and measurements" with didactic descriptions of solid NMR, Raman spectroscopy, transmission electronic microscopy, X-ray diffraction…
• "Processes and products," with plasma processes, lithium batteries, photovoltaics, fuel cells, nanotubes and nanowires…
This whole Story is now shown to researchers, to young recruits, to future researchers, and demonstrates the continuous interaction between the will and the creativity of the men involved, the revolution of artefacts, the research policies, the industrial supply and demand. This multimedia DVD illustrates how this interaction, more or less controllable, allowed, despite the difficulties and internal reluctance, the culmination of a long-term project.

F. Robert van der Linden (Smithsonian):
Aluminum Alloy and Aircraft Construction

For decades aluminum has been the preferred material choice of aircraft construction. Even with the advent of advanced composites, aluminum remains the ideal choice of aircraft engineers and designers for a wide variety of aeronautical applications. Because of the limited power of early aero engines, the first generation of aircraft was made of lightweight wood and fabric. Spruce airframes covered in cotton or linen, which was then sealed with colored dope, was the norm. Farsighted designers in Germany sought a stronger and more durable alternative as early as the First World War. First developed for use on rigid airships, duralumin, a lightweight aluminum alloy almost as strong as steel, found its way on to series of fighters, bomber, and transports. During the 1920s, more powerful engines made metal construction more attractive, allowing more efficient designs and overcoming the slight weight penalty of metal construction. Of greatest significance, in 1927, chemists in Great Britain and the United States created anodized alloy and aluminum-clad alloy which solved the problem of corrosion, which was the only factor hampering further use of this metal. Developed by the Aluminum Company of America (Alcoa) aluminum cladding (Alclad) came to dominate the industry and became the standard in aircraft construction around the world.
Recent scholarship has argued that this change was not a logical progression based on rational problem solving but an emotional response by aircraft designers in the search for modernism. Using objects from the collection of the National Air and Space Museum, this paper will investigate that approach and will argue that the incorporation of aluminum alloys was a rational decision based on scientific research and not an irrational reaction to perceived visions of progress.

Lydia Xynogala (The Cooper Union):
S, Sulfur: Building, Material, Program

This paper explores built artefacts of various scales that engage with sulfur and its chemical properties. In 1911, the architect Hans Poelzig wrote an essay on industrial buildings in which he explained the significant connections between production process, architectural form and environment: “Already now, we have the possibility to distribute electricity through far distances. This gives flexibility in the distribution and organization of processes and the architectural whole of the facilities becomes harmonious.” Poelzig refers here to his recently completed factory where he devised a unique approach to the architecture and planning of the facility: On the larger planning scale he worked with site and programmatic components, strategically employing residential, road, water, infrastructure and energy networks. In the scale of the building wall thicknesses, spatial arrangements and material choices were based on the chemical properties of the product. The processes and network variants of Poelzig’s industrial architecture are unique for their time.
The inner face of the building envelope is constructed from oakwood that does not erode under the influence of acids. Only the outer face is constructed from brick and is not load- bearing (pruss wall). The building is a direct material and formal response to the chemical processes that take place within.
An accidental by product, sulfur concrete is a new kind of building material in which the element replaces water and cement to bind coarse aggregates. It sets due to the cooling and solidification of sulfur. The discovery of this material was a by-product of chemical processes in which run-off sulfur would bind with dust and clog drains.
Sulfur creates a concrete that is extremely resistant to aggressive environments such as salts and acids and has greater strength properties than typical concrete composites. Because it is impermeable it is very hygienic. The sulfur component makes concrete less thermally conductive and enhances its
insulating properties. Since the late 1970s it has been used for pumps, containments areas and industrial facilities. It is recyclable as it hardens because of solidification, which is a reversible process. Because of these properties sulfur concrete opens interesting possibilities in construction.
Vikram Bhatt in McGill University performed a series of experiments using sulfur
concrete bricks. In 1972 the Minimum Cost Housing Group also from McGill built a pilot project using this material. The outcome of the team's work, Ecol House was a small house on the outskirts of Montreal and it demonstrates how an abundant element can become building material.