Order in the Heavens
Hearnshaw's and Chown's books, listed previously, provide a good overview of the impact of the discovery of spectroscopy on nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century astronomy. In addition, see Agnes Clerke, A Popular History of Astronomy during the Nineteenth Century (Edinburgh: A. & C. Black, 1885); and several articles on Sir William Huggins, the first and most enthusiastic stellar spectroscopist: W. W. Campbell, “Sir William Huggins, K.C.B., O.M.,” Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific 22, no. 133 (October 1910): 148–63; Barbara Becker, “Celestial Spectroscopy: Making Reality Fit the Myth,” Science 301 (September 5, 2003): 1332–33; and Barbara Becker, “Eclecticism, Opportunism, and the Evolution of a New Research Agenda: William and Margaret Huggins and the Origins of Astrophysics” (PhD diss., Johns Hopkins University, 1993).
A Stranger in the Stars
An excellent overview of articles about and by Paul Merrill is listed on the Bruce Medalists website at http://www.phys-astro.sonoma.edu/brucemedalists/merrill/index.html (accessed March 13, 2012). My overview of Merrill was compiled from the following, along with a visit to the Reyn Restaurant where he enjoyed his daily lunch: A. H. Joy, “Paul Willard Merrill, 1887–1961,” Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific 74, no. 3 (1962): 41–43; George W. Preston, “Mount Wilson Observatory: Contributions to the Study of Cosmic Abundances of the Chemical Elements,” in Origin and Evolution of the Elements: Carnegie Observatories Astrophysics Series, vol. 4, ed. Andrew McWilliam and Michael Rauch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004) pp. 1–7; Alan Sandage, “The Mount Wilson Observatory: Breaking the Code of Cosmic Evolution,” in Centennial History of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005); Hale, Study of Stellar Evolution; Olin C. Wilson, “Paul Willard Merrill 1887–1961,” biographical memoir, National Academies of Sciences (1964): 235–66; Paul W. Merrill, “From Atoms to Galaxies,” Leaflets of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific 7, leaflet no. 349 (June 1958): 393–400; Paul W. Merrill, “Spectroscopic Observations of Stars of Class S,” Astrophysical Journal 116 (1952): 21; Albert Stwertka, A Guide to the Elements, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002); Harry J. Emeléus and Alan G. Sharpe, eds., Advances in Inorganic Chemistry and Radiochemistry, vol. 11 (New York: Academic Press, 1968); Charlotte Moore, “Technetium in the Sun,” Science 114 (July 20, 1951): 59–61; Paul W. Merrill, “Technetium in the Stars,” Science 115 (May 2, 1952): 484; and, finally, the posthumously published Paul W. Merrill, Space Chemistry (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1963).
Sources of Direct Quotations by Page
(page 37) “The tiny, twinkling stars of the night sky…” Paul W. Merrill, “Stars as They Look and as They Are,” Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific 38, no. 221 (1926): 14.
(page 42) “It is not too much…” Hale, Study of Stellar Evolution, p. 1.
(page 42) “We are now in a position to regard the study of evolution…” Ibid., p. 3.
(page 45) “Men will never encompass…” Comte, Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte, p. 132.
(page 46) “Experiment is, of course, impossible.” Ibid.
(page 46) “could take place only…” Ibid., p. 134.
(page 46) “measuring angles…” Ibid.
(page 46) “if the knowledge of…” Ibid., p. 133.
(page 47) “the work for which Bunsen…” Crew, “Robert Wilhelm Bunsen,” p. 303.
(page 51) “If there should be substances…” Kirchhoff and Bunsen, “Chemical Analysis by Observation of Spectra,” p. 189.
(page 55) “Spectrum analysis…opens to chemical…” Kirchhoff, Researches on the Solar Spectrum, pp. 20–21.
(page 55) “If we were to go to the Sun…” Becker, “Celestial Spectroscopy,” p. 1332.
(page 56) “The news reached me…” Campbell, “Sir William Huggins,” p. 150.
(page 60) “a most seriously, serious scientist.” Sandage, “Mount Wilson Observatory,” p. 284.
(page 60) “cloud over like a summer thunderstorm…” Ibid., p. 285.
(page 61) “a truly monumental mass…” Wilson, “Paul Willard Merrill 1887–1961,” p. 242.
(page 61) “passionate enthusiasm for the study…” Ibid., p. 240.
CHAPTER 3. THE ORIGIN OF THE ELEMENTS
Two key books that contributed to many parts of this chapter are Eric R. Scerri, The Periodic Table: Its Story and Its Significance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007); and Marcus Chown, The Magic Furnace: The Search for the Origin of Atoms (London: Jonathan Cape, 1999).
Sources by Sections
Of Stars and Atoms
For a thoughtful, detailed history of the Kellogg Radiation Laboratory, with a focus on William Fowler's research, see Olivia Weaver Walling, “Research at the Kellogg Radiation Laboratory, 1920s–1960s: A Small Narrative of Physics in the Twentieth Century” (PhD diss., University of Minnesota, 2005). A much shorter historical reflection by one of the key players is Thomas Lauritsen, “Kellogg Laboratory: The Early Years,” Engineering and Science (June 1969).
The Alchemist's Dream
A fantastic account of Newton's life as not the first great modern scientist but the last of the great magicians is Thomas Levenson, Newton and the Counterfeiter: The Unknown Detective Career of the World's Greatest Scientist (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009).
Specific details on William Crookes were drawn from Chown, Magic Furnace; and Scerri, Periodic Table; see also “William Crookes: A Victorian ‘Man of Science,'” http://www.chem.ox.ac.uk/icl/heyes/lanthact/biogs/crookes.html (accessed December 1, 2010); and William Crookes, “Genesis of the Elements,” Chemical News 55 (February 25, 1887).
A Recipe for Sunshine
A. S. Eddington, Stars and Atoms (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1927); and A. S. Eddington, “The Internal Constitution of Stars,” Nature 106 (September 2, 1920): 34–49. For background on Hans Bethe's work, see Martin Harwit, “The Growth of Astrophysical Understanding,” Physics Today 56, no. 11 (November 2003): 38–43; and Hans Bethe, “Energy Production in Stars,” Physical Review 55 (March 1, 1939): 434–56.
Big-Bang Atoms and Let There Be Hoyle
Three scholarly books on the discovery of stellar nucleosynthesis provided guideposts for this chapter: Simon Mitton, Conflict in the Cosmos: Fred Hoyle's Life in Science (Washington, DC: Joseph Henry Press, 2005); Jane Gregory, Fred Hoyle's Universe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005); and Ken Croswell, Alchemy of the Heavens: Searching for Meaning in the Milky Way (New York: Anchor Books, 1995).
In addition, the protagonist tells his own engaging version of the history in Fred Hoyle, Home Is Where the Wind Blows: Chapters from a Cosmologist's Life (Mill Valley, CA: University Science Books, 1994).
For a historical overview of the science of the origins of the universe, see Simon Singh, Big Bang: The Origin of the Universe (New York: HarperCollins, 2004); and “Big Bang or Steady State? Creation of the Elements,” American Institute of Physics, http://www.aip.org/history/cosmology/ideas/bigbang.htm (accessed December 9, 2011).
The original scientific articles putting forth the big-bang origin of the elements are S. Chandrasekhar and Louis R. Henrich, “An Attempt to Interpret the Relative Abundances of the Elements and Their Isotopes,” Astrophysical Journal 95 (1942); George Gamow, “The Origin of the Elements and the Separation of the Galaxies,” Physical Review 74 (1948): 505–506; George Gamow, “Expanding Universe and the Origin of the Elements,” Physical Review 70 (1946): 572–73; and A. Alpher, H. Bethe, G. Gamow, “The Origin of the Chemical Elements,” Physical Review 73 (1948): 803–804.
Fred Hoyle's two key papers arguing for ongoing stellar nucleosynthesis are “The Synthesis of the Elements from Hydrogen,” Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 106 (1946): 343–83; and Fred Hoyle, “On Nuclear Reactions Occurring in Very Hot Stars. I. The Synthesis of Elements from Carbon to Nickel,” Astrophysical Journal Supplement 1 (1954)
: 121–46.
Detailed historical overviews of the search for the origin of the elements are Virginia Trimble, “The Origins and Abundances of the Elements before 1957: From Prout's Hypothesis to Pasadena,” European Physical Journal H 35 (2010): 89–109; Arno Penzias, “The Origin of Elements,” Nobel lecture, December 8, 1978, in Nobel Lectures, Physics 1971–1980, ed. Stig Lundqvist (Singapore: World Scientific, 1992), http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1978/penzias-lecture.html (accessed August 9, 2011); David Arnett, “Hoyle's Synthesis of Heavy Elements,” Astrophysical Journal, Centennial Issue 525 (1999): 597–98; Somak Raychaudhury, “And Gamow Said, Let There Be a Hot Universe,” Resonance: Journal of Science Education 9, no. 7 (2004): 32–43; and Donald Clayton, “Hoyle's Equation,” Science 318 (December 21, 2007): 1876–77.
For an excellent, accessible overview of cosmic elemental abundances, see Katharina Lodders, “The Chemical in the Cosmos,” Glimpse Journal 2, no. 4 (2009–2010): 28–37.
The Astronomer's Periodic Table
Along with the above titles, the story of the how the Burbidges, Fowler, and Hoyle arrived at a detailed explanation of stellar nucleosynthesis is drawn from two reflections by the principals: Margaret Burbidge, “Synthesis of the Elements in the Stars: B2FH and Beyond,” in Origin and Evolution of the Elements: Carnegie Observatories Astrophysics Series, vol. 4, ed. Andrew McWilliam and Michael Rauch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 8–10; and Margaret Burbidge, Geoffrey Burbidge, and Fred Hoyle, preface to George Wallerstein et al., eds., “Synthesis of the Elements in Stars: Forty Years of Progress,” Reviews of Modern Physics 69, no. 4 (October 1997): 997–98. The original B2FH paper is Margaret E. Burbidge, G. R. Burbidge, William Fowler, and F. Hoyle, “Synthesis of the Elements in Stars,” Reviews of Modern Physics 29, no. 4 (October 1957): 547–641. The critical information that guided their understanding of the cosmic abundance of elements is found in Hans E. Suess and Harold Urey, “Abundances of the Elements,” Reviews of Modern Physics 28, no. 1 (January 1956): 53.
For further biographical information, see Dennis Overbye, “Geoffrey Burbidge, Who Traced Life to Stardust, Is Dead at 84,” New York Times, February 7, 2010; “Fred Hoyle: An Online Exhibition,” St. John's College, University of Cambridge, http://www.joh.cam.ac.uk/library/special_collections/hoyle/exhibition/radio (accessed August 9, 2011); and David DeVorkin, “Oral History Transcript—Margaret Burbidge,” American Institute of Physics (1978).
Nobel Conclusions
Fowler's Nobel acceptance speech is in William Fowler, “Experimental and Theoretical Nuclear Astrophysics; the Quest for the Origin of the Elements,” in Nobel Lectures, Physics 1981–1990, ed. Tore Frängsmyr and Gösta Ekspång (Singapore: World Scientific, 1993), pp. 172–79, “William A. Fowler—Nobel Lecture,” Nobelprize.org, http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1983/fowler-lecture.html (accessed August 10, 2011).
An overview of the runner-up in the discovery of the origin of the elements can be found in John Cowan and James Truran, “In Memory of Al Cameron,” Proceedings of Science (2006): 1–8.
Sources of Direct Quotations by Page
(page 67) “It is a rather interesting…” Walter Adams, “The Interior of a Star and How It Maintains Its Life,” Scientific Monthly, April 1928, p. 363.
(page 68) “his theoretical and experimental studies…” “The Nobel Prize in Physics 1983: Subramanyan Chandrasekhar, William A. Fowler,” Nobelprize.org, http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1983/ (accessed December 6, 2011).
(page 70) “Dear Fred, After the initial…” William Fowler, letter to Fred Hoyle, November 3, 1983, Caltech Archives, Fowler correspondence, box 12, folder 17.
(page 72) “Just as the world…” Levenson, Newton and the Counterfeiter, p. 85.
(page 73) “In the very words selected…” Crookes, “Genesis of the Elements,” p. 83.
(page 74) “If the views we…” Scerri, Periodic Table, p. 39.
(page 75) “In these our times…” Crookes, “Genesis of the Elements,” p. 83.
(page 75) “I have in this glass…” Ibid., p. 85.
(page 76) “a genetic relation…” Ibid., p. 83.
(pages 77–78) “We may say, with certainty…” Chown, Magic Furnace, p. 50.
(page 79) “The problem…was that Eddington…” Hoyle, Home Is Where the Wind Blows, p. 146.
(page 79) “If the [gravitational] contraction theory…” Eddington, “Internal Constitution of Stars,” p. 18.
(page 80) “If we decide to inter…” Ibid.
(page 81) “that all the elements are constituted…” Ibid.
(page 95) “It was the most rapid…” Croswell, Alchemy of the Heavens, p. 166.
(page 100) “the abundances of the elements…” Suess and Urey, “Abundances of the Elements,” p. 53.
(page 100) “Dear Hans…” William Fowler, letter to Hans Bethe, July 10, 1956, “Hans Bethe 1949–1991,” Caltech Archives, Fowler correspondence, box 3, folder 33.
(page 103) “The grand concept of…” Fowler, “Experimental and Theoretical Nuclear Astrophysics,” pp. 172–79.
(page 103) “And so God said…” Paul Davies, Cosmic Jackpot: Why Our Universe Is Just Right for Life (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2007), p. 139.
(page 103) “Dear Willy…” Fred Hoyle, letter to William Fowler, November 8, 1983, Caltech Archives, Fowler correspondence, box 12, folder 17.
(page 104) “The fiction is that…” Hoyle, Home Is Where the Wind Blows, p. 272.
(page 104) “Scientific discovery is not really…” Ibid., p. 272.
(page 105) “When singer Joni Mitchell said…” S. M. Faber et al., “Tribute to Geoffrey Burbidge (1925–2010),” Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics 48 (August 2010).
PART 2: THE INVISIBLE UNIVERSE
CHAPTER 4. THE ATOMS OF LIFE
Sources by Sections
Darwin's Gap
I attended the October 12, 2010, meeting of the Committee on the Origins and Evolution of Life in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. The meeting agenda is available at National Academies of Sciences, Space Studies Board, http://sites.nationalacademies.org/SSB/ssb_052326 (accessed April 27, 2012). NASA astrobiologist Mary Voytek presented the “NASA Astrobiology Program Update,” via video conference. Darwin's thoughts on the origin-of-life debate are recounted in J. Peretó, J. Bada, and A. Lazcano, “Charles Darwin and the Origin of Life,” Origins of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere 39 (2009): 395–406. An inspiring article is George Wald, “The Origins of Life,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 52 (August 1964): 595–611.
On the Origin of Life
Initially oriented by a very helpful discussion with Antonio Lazcano, this section is based on the following: Antonio Lazcano, “Historical Development of Origins Research,” Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Biology 2 (November 2010): 1–16; and Iris Fry, “The Origins of Research into the Origins of Life,” Endeavour 30, no. 1 (March 2006): 24–28.
For an overview of scientific context in which Oparin's ideas emerged, see Loren R. Graham, Science in Russia and the Soviet Union: A Short History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).
The Spontaneous-Generation Debate
The copy of Oparin's masterwork to which I referred was A. I. Oparin, Origin of Life, 2nd ed. (New York: Dover, 1965).
The American response to Oparin's book is taken from William Marias Malissoff, “How Did Life Begin on This Strange Planet?” New York Times, May 29, 1938.
For an overview of the debate, see John Farley, The Spontaneous Generation Controversy from Descartes to Oparin (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977); and from a more technical, rearview-mirror perspective, see Horst Rauchfuss, Chemical Evolution and the Origin of Life, trans. Terence N. Mitchell (Berlin: Springer, 2008).
The discussion of Pasteur's role is based largely on Oparin, Origin of Life, pp. 19–30; John Wilkins, Spontaneous Generation and the Origin of Life, TalkOrigins Archive, http://www.
talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/spontaneous-generation.html, 2004 (accessed June 2011); David Cohn, “The Life and Times of Louis Pasteur,” http://pyramid.spd.louisville.edu/~eri/fos/interest1.html#Spontaneous%20Generation (accessed December 20, 2011); and Gerald L. Geison, The Private Science of Louis Pasteur (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995).
An Elemental View of Life
Stanley Miller, William L. Schopf, and Antonio Lazcano, “Oparin's ‘Origin of Life': Sixty Years Later,” Journal of Molecular Evolution 44 (1997): 351–52.
Oparin, Origin of Life, p. 30.
A. I. Oparin, “Introductory Address,” in Proceedings of the First International Symposium on the Origin of Life on the Earth, ed. F. Clark and R. L. M. Synge (New York: Pergamon, 1959), p. 2.
Aditya Chopra and Charles H. Lineweaver, “The Major Elemental Abundance Differences between Life, the Oceans and the Sun,” Australian Space Science Conference Series: 8th Conference Proceedings, National Space Society of Australia, 2009, p. 2.
T. H. Huxley, “On the Physical Basis of Life,” Fortnightly Review (New Haven, CT: College Courant, 1869), p. 16.
Molecular Evolution
This section draws directly from Oparin, Origin of Life, with additional perspective gained from Miller, Schopf, and Lazcano, “Oparin's ‘Origin of Life,'” pp. 351–53.
Earth in Glass
This section is reassembled based on the following: Antonio Lazcano and Jeffrey Bada, “Stanley L. Miller (1930–2007): Reflections and Remembrances,” Origins of Life and Evolution of Biospheres 38 (2008): 373–81; James E. Strick, “Creating a Cosmic Discipline: The Crystallization and Consolidation of Exobiology, 1957–1973,” Journal of the History of Biology 37 (2004); and Clark and Synge, eds., Proceedings of the First International Symposium on the Origin of Life on the Earth.
The Stardust Revolution Page 33