Metals and the Royal Society PDF

FOREWORD

Of the world's continuously-existing scientific academies, the Royal Society is the oldest. Its origins date back to 1645 when an assembly of scholars began to meet in London to discuss experimental philosophy (one source of their inspiration being the writings of the courtier and philosopher, Francis Bacon, who had died nineteen years earlier). Robert Boyle christened the group 'the invisible college'. During the Protectorate (1653-59) some of the group continued to meet at Gresham College, where they attended lectures by Lawrence Rooke and Christopher Wren, while others, including Robert Boyle and John Wilkins, went to Oxford and met in Wilkins's rooms at Wadham.

After the Restoration, the meetings were resumed in London where, on 28th November 1660, after one of Wren's lectures at Gresham College, the assembly withdrew to Rooke's apartment in the College and discussed 'a designe of founding a College for the Promoting of Physico-Mathematicall, Experimentall Learning'. Those present at that meeting, were: William, Viscount Brouncker, Robert Boyle, Alexander Bruce, Sir Robert Moray, Sir Paul Neile, John Wilkins, Jonathan Goddard, William Petty, William Ball (Balle), Lawrence Rooke, Christopher Wren and Abraham HilL These, together with William Croone, can be taken as the original Founder Fellows.

Sir Robert Moray informed his friend, Charles II, of the proposed formation of the Society and the King 'did well approve of it, and would be ready to give encouragement to it'. Morley presented this good news at the second meeting of the Society on 5th December 1660. On 15th July 1662 the King granted 'The Royal Society' its first Charter, and a second Charter was granted on 22 April 1663 when he made the grant of the Arms. The motto chosen by the Society, Nullius in verbia, was an expression of determination to verify all statements by an appeal to facts, in the best Baconian tradition. In this second Charter the Society was referred to as 'The Royal Society of London for promoting Natural Knowledge' .

The King presented the Society with a handsome Mace and the Founders Book, which is still signed by every newly-elected Fellow (currently there are approximately 1200 FRSs together with 100 Foreign Members). At that time the King himself was in straightened circumstances so there was no grant of government funds. This absence of official aid gave the Society a degree of independence (and hence to be free, as it was quaintly put, 'to follow the whims of the afternoon'), but it is also true that acute shortages of cash have curtailed the Society'S activities on a number of occasions throughout the succeeding years.

Of course the purpose of the regular meeting of the Society was to enable natural philosophers to communicate, a procedure which had previously been achieved mostly by the exchange of letters. An international epistolatory network had in fact been created during the first half of the 17th century, and the focal point and enablers for this 17thcentury 'internet' were the 'intelligencers'. The most important of these was Martin Mersenne, a French monk whose main contact in England was Samuel Hartlib, though in due course Theodore Haak and Henry Oldenberg also became involved in these activities. Following the creation of the Royal Society, Oldenburg became its joint secretary and in 1665 started to publish Philosophical Transactions, a scientific periodical which reduced the need for the exchange of letters.

As well as creating one of the world's oldest scientific journals, Oldenberg put the recording of the Royal Society's affairs on a firm basis, and the creation over the succeeding years of the Society's huge archives and collection of published works is due in no small part to his initiative. As well as records of proceedings a growing feature of the Society'S archives and publications over the years has been comprehensive descriptions of its Fellows' lives, activities and achievements. These biographies, in the form of Notes, Obituaries and Memoirs, provide a unique source of information on the evolution of almost all scientific, medical and engineering disciplines during the past three and a half centuries. To avoid being swamped with detail it is necessary to chose a discipline, or sub-discipline, and trace its development through the comprehensive literature.

Both authors of this volume are practising metallurgists and the core of the approach to their writing has stemmed from their identification and study of a metallurgical thread running through the activities of the Society. This thread has related to the Society acting collectively and actively (such as when one of its Working Parties advised the government on, for example, corrosion of ships) and indirectly by electing to the Society scientists or engineers whose work has a strong metallurgical component. In the latter case information on this metallurgical activity eventually appears in the individual FRS's biographical memoir.

During the first two centuries of the life of the Society metallurgical strands can be traced through the work of physicists, chemists, mathematicians and engineers. It was not until the second half of the 19th century, stimulated largely by the application of science to the large-scale production of steel, that metallurgy began to appear as a separate discipline, having hitherto been in effect largely a sub-branch of chemistry with strong industrial associations. At about the same time the essential crystalline nature of metallic materials was widely recognised, and the extensive use of reflected light microscopy had excitingly opened up the world of microstructure. The full implications of the fact that metals consist of polycrystalline aggregates were recognised for the first time. The science of thermodynamics developed apace and the use of equilibrium phase diagrams grew in importance. As the distinguished metallurgist and historian of science, C.S. Smith, has written: 'the structure-property relationship has been the central theme of the last century of metallurgy and its statement constitutes the metallurgist's major contribution to science', see Appendix 8, Gen. Ref. 22.

X-ray diffraction, as discovered and widely applied from the early years of the 20th century, permitted quantitative evaluation of the crystalline state, not only in metals but also for a whole spectrum of other materials, inorganic, organic and biological. The advent of the electron microscope, together with advances in the theory of the solid state, added a new dimension to the study of metallurgy. The transition from the dominant role of empiricism in metallurgy to science-based development has been a vital feature of the past half century, and materials' artifacts with specific structures and properties can now be designed on an increasingly secure basis.

As far as the structure of the book itself is concerned, the first chapter sets the scene and discusses the origins of man's use of metals during several millennia preceding the creation of the Royal Society. It is then shown that the mining of metal ores has stimulated developments in technology, and the assaying and use of metals by alchemists played an important part in creating the conditions within which the scientific revolution could take root.

The majority of the remaining chapters are thematic, concentrating on particular subject areas, such as platinum metallurgy, minting of coins, metallurgy and electrical supply, the manufacture of iron and steel, and so on. These cover the scientific and technological contributions of more than five hundred Fellows out of the total of more than eight thousand elected to the Society since its formation. (Sadly no women, whose chief work has been metallurgical, are included in the above number; indeed women were not elected to the Fellowship until 1945). Reference is also made to the contributions of scientists who were not elected to the Society.

The title of this book Metals and the Royal Society, if interpreted literally, could imply a severe restriction on the subjects which could be covered in the text. In fact a liberal view has been taken and the boundaries assumed to be very permeable, particularly in chapters, 17, 18 and 19. Chapter 17 in fact specifically deals with developments in nonmetallic materials, particularly during the last fifty years, illustrating the development of the broad field of materials science, technology and engineering, of which metallurgy now forms an integral part. The work of more than one hundred Fellows is described including, it is pleasing to report, several women scientists. The materials studied include semiconductors, superconductors, structural ceramics, polymers, composites and biological substances.

With the possible exception of the period when Sir Joseph Banks was President, physics has been regarded by the Fellows of the Royal Society as the senior discipline from which all others evolved. As the 19th century grew to a close, the great Lord Kelvin thought that physics had few more secrets to be revealed but along came Becquerel with his discovery of radioactivity and the resultant development of atomic science has so dominated the 20th century that it has become known as the 'Atomic Century' .

As well as the many nuclear discoveries made by its Fellows and Foreign Members, the Royal Society, as an organisation, has been intimately involved in the development of atomic science in Great Britain. The Society encouraged, by publishing their early papers, both Rutherford and Bohr even before they were involved in nuclear matters and it was in his 1920 Royal Society Bakerian Lecture that Rutherford first predicted the existence of the neutron. During the 1930s exodus of Jewish scientists from Europe, the Royal Society played an active part in finding them academic positions and helping them in other ways to settle in Great Britain. These scientists, including Peierls, Frisch, Simon, Kurti and Rotblat, made great contributions to the British nuclear programme. After the start of hostilities the Society facilitated the creation of, and acted as host for, the MAUD Committee, the body which co-ordinated Britain's early atom bomb programme.

Nuclear physics has also provided great insight into the structural, chemical and physical properties of metals. In addition, the technological manifestations of atomic science, nuclear weapons and atomic power stations, generated a multitude of metallurgical problems the solutions to which has involved the undivided attention of a large proportion of Britain's metallurgical talent for almost a third of a century. The subsequent diaspora of these metallurgists, particularly into the universities, has greatly enhanced the strength of the metallurgy and material science disciplines within these academic institutes. It is a truism that physical metallurgy owes more to atomic energy than atomic energy owes to physical metallurgy. Taking all this into account, it is not surprising that Chapter 18, 'Metals and Atomic Energy', has turned out to be the longest in the book.

The development of atomic power follows what could almost be described as a classic British pattern. The technology was based on brilliant fundamental scientific discoveries, many of British origin, and the dedication and skill of the pioneering technologists brought early success - remarkably, during the 1970s, Britain generated more nuclear electricity than the combined total of the rest of the non-communist world. Then, a combination of unwise government and industry-based decisions, and international factors, first stalled the progress of the industry which then started to decline.

Britain's pattern of failure to build commercial success upon scientific excellence started about 1870 and Britain's relative industrial weakness was vividly illustrated at the outbreak of war in 1914 when it was discovered that the electrical and steel industries were only half the size of Germany's. Britain would have lost the war by 1916 were it not for massive imports of steel from America. Much the same happened during the 1939--45, so apparently Britain was unable to learn effectively from experience, and this is borne out by the continued decline in the international industrial league from 1945 to the present time. The cause of this malaise lies deep in Britain's imperial past, religious heritage, and in the education system and social structure. During all of this period the Royal Society has been ipso Jacto Britain's National Academy of Science, which forces the question 'can the Society escape some responsibility for the continuing failure of Britain's industrial policy?' .

This and other questions are addressed in chapter 19, the last of the 'thematic' chapters. It is suggested that a revolution is needed in the government's understanding of scientific issues and it is hinted that impending revisions of the constitution of the House of Lords, should ensure an effective balance of representation of the Royal Society and other scientific and technological bodies.

In a considerable Section following the thematic chapters, at the end of the book, brief biographies are given of past Fellows and Foreign Members mentioned in the text, together with some biographical notes of selected contemporary Fellows. Additional information, for example, on the recipients of Royal Society Awards, a bibliography and references are presented in a number of Appendices.

Edited by: D.R.F. West, J.E. Harris