Two important periods in the history of mechanochemistry

Some form of mechanochemical experience has existed from fine grinding of materials since prehistoric times, yet the first systematic investigations on the chemical effects of mechanical action were carried out only at the end of the nineteenth century. Walthére Spring studied the consolidation and reactions of powdered materials due to high pressure at the University of Liège, in order to understand the formation of minerals in the earth’s crust and M. Carey Lea carried out experiments on the decomposition of compounds by grinding in a mortar. In some of his experiments mechanical action produced distinctly different result from the effect of heat. The first part of this paper compares the circumstances and results of Spring and Lea. The other important period in the history of mechanochemistry was the 1960s, the time when the first dedicated conferences were organized and a broader community of mechanochemists formed. This happened in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe where several groups were working on subjects related to mechanochemistry. In 1968, the first dedicated conference was organized as a special session of the yearly meeting of Soviet colloid chemists. An attempt is made to reconstruct the circumstances leading to that event and the roles played by Rebinder and Thiessen in bringing it together. The next conference on mechanochemistry was already a separate event and it started a yearly series. Extensions have led to the INCOME conferences, including this one in Ko?ice in 2017.     

Aaron Siskind

Abstract

When I met Aaron Siskind in his home in Pawtucket, a short, stocky figure slowly greeted me with an infectious smile. He was open and gracious about the interview—he did not mind the recorder and seemed very pleased by my interest in his life and work. Files, boxes and prints surrounded us in his dining room, all carefully labelled and organized. He was conscious, and proud, of his place in history. In conversation, he proved to be, at once, both prickly and charming, and his deep, rumbling laughter punctuated much of our conversation. He admitted to a faulty memory in 1989, his 86th year. But we talked for two hours and even then I was sorry to leave with so much more to discuss     

Photographs in the Janos Scholz Collection

Abstract

Janos Scholz (1903–1993), who was to become one of the great cellists of the twentieth century, began collecting when he was a child in Sopron, Hungary. After completing his studies at the Royal Hungarian Academy of Music, Scholz was named first cellist with the Budapest Symphony Orchestra. In 1932 he joined the Roth Quartet, and the following year he left Hungary to tour with the quartet in the United States. He became an American citizen in 1933 and made his home in New York until his death in 1993. Scholz began to collect prints and drawings in 1935 and over the next three decades he amassed an unrivalled collection ofItalian drawings. In keeping with the nature of his life as a musician, in which he shared his music through public recitals, Scholz announced in 1973 that he had decided to give his drawings to the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York. Soon afterwards he began a new collection, one that focused upon nineteenth-century European photographs on paper.     

A talk with Paul Starnd; France,Summer 1974

Abstract

Ideas often come from unexpected directions. While I was talking to Paul Strand, I noted him watching his wife Hazel arrange a bouquet of flowers in their home near Orgeval outside Paris. He said to me in mid conversation that he had just arrived at a solution to a problem he had been thinking about for the past few years. He went on to say that beginning over 10 years ago he had made a series of informal portraits of men and women important in French cultural life. How to use these photographs in a meaningful way was a problem, for already there were available a number of picture books of famous personages. Publishers had told him that they felt new photographs of the cultural tlite of France would duplicate much that had already been done. He had also found that publishers who were interested in his pictures wanted to have a say in the selection of people to be included in a book of this kind. Strand indicated he did not want to relinquish control to this degree. The rcsult was that the portraits had been put away for future consideration.     

Bildungsbürgertum und “nervöser” Zeitgeist der Jahrhundertwende im Spiegel einer Kasuistik—Zum Wirken von Heinrich Helferich

The essay delineates the professional evolution of the German surgeon Heinrich Helferich (1851–1945). Being of a learned family, Helferich embraced a medical career. He succeeded with strong scientific ambition and outstanding laboriusness and became professor in ordinary at Greifswald University in 1885, at Kiel University in 1899. In 1907, his career came to a sudden end, when he was discharged because of severe deficiencies and personal lapses in his administration. They were considered as consequences of nervous exhaustion. Helferich's life—looked upon as a case report —reveals both tendencies within the social group called “Bildungsbürgertum” and characteristics of the contemporary illness “Neurasthemia”.     

Lyndall F. Urwick (1891–1983): British Management Authority and His Engineering Management Connection

ABSTRACT

This paper briefly outlines the life and contributions of one of the world's most remarkable figures in management of the twentieth century: the British management authority, Lyndall F. Urwick.

Urwick was influenced considerably by two engineers, American mechanical engineer Frederick Winslow Taylor and French mining engineer Henri Fayol. He was the first British director of the International Management Institute in Geneva. Later he was to set up one of the largest management consulting firms in Britain: Urwick, Orr and Partners. His early ideas on management were influenced by engineers including V. A. Graicunas. As a management consultant, he became associated with American industrial engineers such as H. B. Maynard and Lillian Gilbreth. Urwick was a prolific writer on management, with more than 200 books and papers to his credit. He became a widely known international management authority. The international recognition of Elton Mayo was due partly to Urwick.

Urwick's early acknowledgment of the considerable debt that the field of management owed to engineers received little recognition. He was early concerned about the importance of management training of young engineers but later stressed the difference but close connection between management and engineering. Urwick was an integrator of management concepts. His contribution and his relationship to engineering management are outlined.     

Cranky no more: The life and legacy of Charles Franklin Kettering

Charles Franklin Kettering (1876–1958) was an inventor well-known during his lifetime, earning 186 US patents. His most notable invention was the automobile electric starter which put an end to the difficult and dangerous practice of hand cranking. Some of his later work—leaded gasoline and Freon—was controversial and had unintended environmental consequences. He led both the National Inventors' Council and the National Patent Planning Commission. Kettering characterized himself as “just a plain old inventor,” but he was a shrewd businessman. He is still remembered fondly by scientists and staff at the General Motors R&D Center he founded in 1920.     

Alvin Langdon Coburn

Abstract

One of the most intriguing aspects of Alvin Langdon Coburn's life began when he stopped making photographs. At thirty-six years of age, Coburn had a well established photographic career. He had photographed some of the most important people of his day and was admired and befriended by many of them. A member of the Photo-Secession and the Linked Ring, Coburn was involved in the promotion of photography as an art form. He made Vortographs in 1917 and therefore he is also credited by many as the first purely abstract photographer. Yet, in 1918, Coburn stopped photographing professionally. In his autobiography he said:     

Lord Rayleigh: John William Strutt, third Baron Rayleigh

John William Strutt, first son of the second Baron Rayleigh, was born on November 12, 1842. He was a sickly boy, so his schooling was sporadic. Nevertheless, he graduated first in his year at Cambridge and subsequently was a Fellow of Trinity College until his marriage in 1871. His father died in 1873, and he succeeded to the title third Baron Rayleigh. He converted the stable block of his country house, Terling Place, into a laboratory. In 1879, he moved back to Cambridge as Professor of Experimental Physics, but he returned to Terling in 1884. He published The Theory of Sound in 1877/1878 and, in his lifetime, 466 scientific articles. He received the 1904 Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of argon and made numerous seminal contributions to scientific progress. In the field of acoustics, he studied scattering, the diffraction limit, surface waves, resonance phenomena, reciprocity, streaming, radiation force, cavitation, relaxation, and binaural perception. He received many honors, was President of the Royal Society, one of the founding members of the Order of Merit, and Chancellor of Cambridge University. He also was interested in psychical research. Lord Rayleigh died on June 30, 1919.     

Ermakov album

Abstract

When I first met Henry Ries in his home in Manhattan in the mid-1980s, I was struck by his generosity in telling me about his career. Born in 1917 in Berlin-Wilmersdorf in an assimilated Jewish family, Henry (born Heinz) Ries left for New York on 13 January 1938. Initially, he found employment in Bridgeport, Connecticut, where he taught photography at the Jewish community centre and could use their laboratory for his own work. He tried to enlist in the United States Army in December 1941, but this was not possible, since he was an 'enemy alien' and a recent emigrant without American citizenship. In May 1943, he joined the Army Air Corps and received American citizenship. Initially posted to the Pacific theatre, making aerial photographs of China for the 20th Bomber Command, he subsequently transferred to the European theatre, arriving in London in late May 1945. Assigned to the ‘Office Director of Intelligence’, his first job was to evaluate Heinrich Himmler's ‘secret state library’ correspondence with the SS, Hitler, Goebbels, Goring, and others, which was later utilized in the Nuremberg Medical Trial. Three months later, Ries was transferred to Berlin.     

Mechanochemical synthesis of metastable solid solutions: Phase composition and microstructure evolution

The formation of Cu-Sn, Cu-In, Ni-Sn, and Ni-In supersaturated solid solutions during mechanochemical synthesis was studied. It was found that, in the process of synthesis, intermetallic compounds were formed first. Electron-microscopic examination revealed the presence of stacking faults and microstrains nonuniformly distributed in the initial stages of mechanochemical synthesis. Further mechanical activation makes the microstrain distribution more uniform. The microstructure of the metastable solid solutions is well described by models taking into account the major types of structural imperfections—second-order microstrains and deformation stacking faults.     

Maxwell and the science of colour

This non-technical review of Maxwell's contributions to the quantitative theory of colour was presented at a symposium in Aberdeen to celebrate the 150th anniversary of his appointment as professor of natural philosophy at Marischal College. Maxwell maintained his interest in the science of light and colour from his childhood to the last decade of his life. He lavished the same care and imagination on these studies as he did on his epochal contributions to electromagnetism and statistical physics.     

Thomas Fincke and trigonometry

Thomas Fincke (January 6th, 1561 - April 24th, 1650), born in Flensburg (Germany), was one of the very most important and significant scientists in Denmark during the seventeenth century, a mathematician and astrologer and physician in the beginning of modern science, a representative of humanism and an influentual academic organizer. He studied in Strasbourg (since 1577) and Padua (since 1583) and received his M.D. in Basel (1587), he practised as a physician throughtout his life (since 1587 or 1590) and became a professor at Copenhagen (1591). But he was best known because of his Geometriae rotundi libri XIIII (1583), a famous book on plane and spherical trigonometry, based not on Euclid but on Petrus Ramus. In this influentual work, in which Fincke introduced the terms tangent and secant and probable first noticed the Law of Tangents and the so-called Newton-Oppel-Mauduit-Simpson-Mollweide-Gauss-formula, he showed himself to be ,,abreast of the mathematics of his time".     

J.N. Aldington and electric lighting

Much has been written about the development of the electric arc and the filament lamp, but very little about the history of discharge and fluorescent lighting. Their development may, however, be followed in the technical journals from the late 1920s on, and the name of J.N. Aldington often appears. He was actively involved in many aspects of lighting development, though his special interest was the high-pressure mercury arc. He wrote and lectured on lamps and lighting, and on the history of electric lighting. He became a Fellow of the IEE and President of the Illuminating Engineering Society. This paper gives an account of his life and the developments in which he was involved and is drawn mainly from papers which the Aldington family have recently given to the Institution Archives     

Synthesis and features of binary cobaltite spinels

The main developments in the synthesis of cobaltites are surveyed. Solid state reactions between oxides, thermal decomposition of mechanical mixtures of transition metal salts, the use of complex compounds as precursors, mechanochemical synthesis, deposition of cobaltites on supports and cobaltite synthesis by thermal treatment of coprecipitated compounds are discussed and the specific advantages and disadvantages of each method pointed out. The binary spinel cobaltites find applications as materials in many fields, their main importance being as catalysts. In order to achieve high specific surface area, cobaltite synthesis by thermal treatment of coprecipitated precursors proves to be the most promising method. Different kinds of precursors are regarded. Transition metal basic salts are promising for the synthesis of binary mixed oxides and, in particular, of cobaltites. The conditions suited by the coprecipitated precursors for the synthesis of cobaltites with preset properties, such as high-dispersity, homogeneity, a definite stoichiometry and a low impurity content, are indicated. Special attention is paid to hydroxidecarbonates. Their use as precursors ensures these demands for the final product and also evolution of toxic gases during the thermal decomposition is avoided.     

Os 30 Valérios

Abstract

Valério Vieira (1862–1941) was born in Angra dos Reis in Rio de Janeiro. As a young man he went to the capital where he enrolled in the Escola de Belas Artes (School of Fine Arts) without his parents' approval. It appears that he began his photographic activities in the 1880s in several cities of the Vale do Paraíba and in Ouro Preto, an old town in the State of Minas Gerais. Around 1888, he married Carmen Augusta Villas-Boas Teixeira, and in 1892 he came to São Paulo, where he installed his studio at No. 19, Rua da Imperatriz, now the XV de Novembro street.     

Gelatin Silver Halide Emulsion: A History

In 1850 Robert Bingham of England was the first to publish information about his invention — photographic plates containing a gelatin silver halide layer which produced negatives in a camera. The practicability of his procedure was confirmed in recent experiments.

The use of gelatin extends to the very beginning of the photographic negative-positive system which was invented by W. H. F. Talbot. Quantitative analyses have revealed that Talbot placed his coatings on paper bases which were heavily sized with gelatin.     

A second ceramic age—A new materials frontier

A second ceramic age started in the mid-twentieth century as a new, exciting materials frontier. Electroceramics with phenomenally wide range of electrical resistivity (spread over 30 orders of magnitude) span insulators, semiconductors, metal-like conductors, ionic conductors, and, recently, superconductors. They also include ferroelectrics, piezoelectrics, pyroelectrics and electro-optics beside ferrites. Advances in electroceramics have been fascinating and rapid, leading to unprecedented rates of industrial growth. Age-old limitations of poor mechanical strength and brittleness of ceramics are being overcome by outstanding toughness and strength achieved in zirconiabased ceramics exploiting the martensitic transformation at the tetragonal-monoclinic phase change. The dimensional changes at this transition which prevented the use of zirconia earlier has now been turned into a mechanism for toughening ceramics to significant levels. Ceramics with near-zero overall thermal expansion coefficient offer new opportunities to science and industry. Distinguished Materials Scientist of the Year Award Lecture presented at the MRSI meeting, New Delhi, on February 9, 1991. Professor E C Subbarao, born on 8 August 1928 in Narsapur, Andhra Pradesh received his B.Sc. Tech degree in Glass Technology from Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi in 1949, his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Ceramic Engineering from the University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA in 1952 and 1953 and his Ph.D. degree in Ceramic Technology from the Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA in 1957. He was employed by the Parry and Co. Ltd., Ranipet, TN from 1949 to 1951 and as a Research and Fellow Engineer by Westinghouse Research Laboratories, Pittsburgh, Pa, USA from 1956 to 1963. Joining the Metallurgical Engineering Department of the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur in 1963 as an Associate Professor, he continued as a Professor from 1964 to 1981. He is the Founder-Director of the Tata Research Development and Design Centre, Pune since 1981. At IIT, Kanpur, he organised the Metallurgical Engineering Department as its first Head from 1963 to 1967 and the Inter-disciplinary Program in Materials Science as its first Convenor from 1971 to 1975. He was also the first Dean of Faculties at IIT, Kanpur from 1966 to 1972. Professor Subbarao published or edited nine books and published over 140 papers. He was elected a Fellow of the Indian National Science Academy, the Indian Academy of Sciences, the Indian Institute of Ceramics, and the (International) Academy of Ceramics. He has been awarded the National Metallurgists Award, the Homi Bhabha Award in Applied Science, and the Varshnei Memorial Award.     

Dr. Thomas Young—Natural philosopher

This year marks the 200th anniversary of Thomas Young’s presentation of his pivotal essay on cohesion in fluids in which, among other important insights into capillarity, he stated in qualitative terms the concept of the Contact Angle. This, together with the Young/Laplace Equation (relating the surface tension to the pressure and radius of curvature) have formed the foundations of Capillarity theory and practice. It is interesting and timely to review briefly the life and achievements of this remarkable man who formally trained as a medical practitioner. A child prodigy brought up in the classics, with a command of numerous ancient and existing languages, he was a rare spirit driven to understand all physical phenomena about him; a polymath in an age of scientific enlightenment, he left an indelible mark in the humanities, sciences and technologies—in linguistics, egyptology, optics, the strength of materials, bridge and road construction, among many other fields. What interests us particularly today is that he always returned to the intriguing question of how particles are associated and held together to form the various states of matter. He invoked a model of matter being held together by short range attractive and repulsive forces acting between particles and gave plausible explanations of phenomena such as rigidity, elasticity and rupture, and what interests us in particular for this Meeting, because of his involvement in the hydrodynamics of blood flowing through capillary vessels, he made astonishing insights into basic Capillarity.