BOOK REVIEW

Robert Cahn reviews 
'METALS AND THE ROYAL SOCIETY', 
by D. R. F. West and J. E. Harris 

 
When Walter Rosenhain, on the eve of the First World War, brought out his revolutionary book, 'An introduction to physical metallurgy', he defined his new field of metallurgy as 'a branch which concerns itself with the nature, properties and behaviour of metals and of alloys as such, as distinct from the far older branch of metallurgy which deals with the reduction of metals from their ores'. He went on to claim that 

thus defined and understood the scope of physical metallurgy is an exceedingly wide one, and one which brings it well over the border-land of several sister sciences - such as chemistry on the one side, physics on the other, and that branch of knowledge generally known as 'strength of materials' in yet another direction. Besides these, crystallography bears largely on our subject. But while our young science necessarily draws largely upon the resources of these her elder sisters, she is not without gifts in return [my emphasis] 

These words, quoted on page 168 of the book under review, might serve as a general apologia for the whole ambitious enterprise. In its nineteen chapters, this book by West (of Imperial College in London) and Harris (lately of Berkeley Nuclear Laboratories in the west of England) seeks to map the history of scientific metallurgy in the broadest imaginable sense through an account of, and a tribute to, the labours of more than 500 fellows of the Royal Society of London, out of some 8000 fellows elected since the society was founded in 1660. In their Foreword, the authors admit that the chosen title of their book 'could, if interpreted literally, imply a severe restriction on the subjects which could be covered in the text'. They go on to say that 'in fact a liberal view has been taken and the boundaries assumed to be very permeable'. The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, to give its full title, is Britain's science academy and elects an extremely wide range of scientists and engineers to its fellowship. Certainly, the 'real' metallurgists among the fellowship never approached one in sixteen (nowadays, one in fifty would be a generous estimate) - a major benefit of the book is the range of chemists, physicists, engineers, and natural philosophers (such as Michael Faraday, who cannot be classified at all) who are treated in its pages. The authors do not restrict themselves to fellows of the society but there is just the same a strong emphasis on them, both domestic fellows and foreign members (the latter a fairly small minority among the fellowship). Inevitably, therefore, there is a special emphasis on British scientists, and Americans in particular are notable for their rarity in these pages. This intrinsic limitation does, however, give space for a reasonably full account of the contributions of so many British luminaries over the centuries, and the authors' flexible interpetation of their title means that many early fellows, such as the microscopists Hooke (1635-1703), van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723), and Réaumur (1683-1757), receive copious attention. Isaac Newton himself features prominently, in part for his genuine interest in applications of metals. 

In addition to the chapters dealing with the early days, specialised themes are treated, such as platinum group metals (which incorporates a fascinating account of the rise of Johnson and Matthey), coinage, and ferrous and non-ferrous extractive metallurgy, going on to modern themes such as materials in relation to the early days of mains electricity, and then physical metallurgy itself, the dawning of modern solid state physics in relation to metals primarily, characterisation methods, plastic deformation, the things that can go wrong with metals in engineering practice and how they were put right, and the Hume-Rothery revolution. The authors then take a deep breath and devote a short chapter to non-metallic materials, with special attention to plastics in their early days, followed by a major chapter (the special interest of one of the authors), 'Metals and the atomic age'. The 55 pages of this chapter constitute an invaluable potted history of 'atomic metallurgy', radiation damage included. The main part of the book concludes with chapter 19, a survey of 'the Royal Society and the industrial revolutions', covering three centuries. 

I referred just now to the 'main' part of the book. Use of this adjective perhaps gives the wrong impression, because chapter 19 is followed by more than 250 pages of short biographies of fellows and foreign members of the Royal Society whose researches were deemed relevant to the theme of the book. People still living receive, quite properly, only the most cursory of treatments, but that still leaves hundreds of deceased scientists and engineers who receive anything up to a full page each. Many fellows and foreign members receive the further accolade of a reproduced portrait. The authors' achievement in identifying and surveying the work of this extraordinarily wide range of people can only excite awed admiration. There are many, many people here of whom I had never heard, and am now glad to know something about. 

The last 90 pages of the book are given over to a range of appendices, mostly devoted to such matters as lists of Royal Society awards over the centuries (it is disconcerting that the Copley Medal, the society's highest honour and awarded annually since 1731, was only in 1995 at last given to a metallurgist, Sir Alan Cottrell). Nobel prize winners, various honours specific to metallurgy and materials science, a complete chronological list of the fellows and foreign members covered in the alphabetically arranged section of biographies, and finally a select bibliography of sources arranged chapter by chapter, conclude the book. 

As a metallurgist turned materials scientist who has developed a strong interest in the antecedents of the modern science, I salute this work as one of the most ambitious and comprehensive surveys of those antecedents. The book is not expensive in view of its size, it is beautifully produced, and even in these days of shrinking library budgets it should soon be found in a wide range of university libraries, and on personal shelves as well. 

Robert W. Cahn, FRS is a Distinguished Research Fellow in the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy at the University of Cambridge, UK.