Michael Polanyi: Science as Personal Knowledge and Social Practice

Tacit knowing: 2016 marked the 125th anniversary of the birth of the physical chemist Michael Polanyi, as well as the 40th of his death. This essay discusses his philosophy of science-in particular, his most significant work in this area, Personal Knowledge-from the perspective of his personal biography, as well as its lasting influence on the social sciences. In the photograph: Michael Polanyi at the Fritz Haber Institute in 1968.

Mine, thine, and ours: collaboration and co-authorship in the material culture of the mid-twentieth century chemical laboratory

Patterns of collaboration and co-authorship in chemical science from the 1920s to the 1960s are examined with an eye to frequency of co-authorship and differences in allocation of credit during a period of increasing team research and specialization within chemical research groups. Three research leaders in the cross-disciplinary and cutting edge field of X-ray crystallography and molecular structure are the focus of this historical study within a framework of sociological literature on different collaborative patterns followed by eminent scientists. The examples of Michael Polanyi in Berlin and Manchester, Linus Pauling in Pasadena, and Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin in Oxford demonstrate the need to de-centre historical narrative from the heroic 'he' or 'she' to the collaborative 'they.' These cases demonstrate, too, the roles of disciplinary apprenticeships, local conditions, and individual personalities for historical explanation that transcends universal generalizations about scientific practice, material culture, and sociological trends.

Quantum Theory's Silent Pioneer The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Quantum Genius Faber and Faber, London, 2009. 557 pp. £22.50. ISBN 9780571222780. The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom Basic Books (Perseus), New York, 2009. 557 pp. $29.95, C$37.95. ISBN 9780465018277

Farmelo explores the life and science of the brilliant and reticent theoretical physicist Paul A. M. Dirac.

Working tools for theoretical chemistry: Polanyi, eyring, and debates over the “semiempirical method”

Following along with the development of electron theory and quantum mechanics in the 1910s and 1920s, physical chemists began incorporating these new theories and approaches in their studies of activation energies, transition states, and chemical reactions for simple atomic and molecular systems. Among these chemists was Michael Polanyi, one of the founders of modern chemical dynamics, who collaborated with Henry Eyring in the development in the 1930s of a theory of the activated transition state and absolute reaction rates using potential energy surfaces and a semiempirical methodology. This paper examines the circumstances of their collaborative work, its reception, and its implications for further chemical research.

Portraits of science. "The most versatile physicist of his generation"

P. M. S. Blackett (1897-1974) entered Cambridge University and the Cavendish Laboratory as a young veteran of the first world war. His innovative research with the Wilson cloud chamber resulted in photographic evidence of nuclear transformation and the existence of the positron. In the 1950s and 1960s, he helped to pioneer the use of paleomagnetic evidence in support of the theory of continental drift. A leader of operational research during the second world war, Blackett became an outspoken critic in the postwar period of American atomic policy and British development of nuclear weapons, taking on a public role for which he was sometimes criticized.

What price politics? Scientists and political controversy

There is a long tradition within scientific communities that encourages governments, patrons and citizens to enlist scientific expertise in the service of the public good. However, since the 17th century, scientists who have engaged in public political controversy have often been judged harshly by scientific colleagues, as well as by political adversaries. Some prominent scientists were politically active in Germany, France and England during the 1920s and 1930s; controversial stands were taken by the British physicist P.M.S. Blackett and the American chemist Linus C. Pauling against their countries' nuclear weapons policy following the Second World War.

Nuclear magnetic resonance and ultraviolet studies of the effect of p2H on reduced nicotinamide-adenine dinucleotide

The effect of p2H on the chemical shifts of two adenine protons and one reduced nicotinamide proton of β-NADH have been examined. The adenine protons had a single pK at a p2H 3.85. The reduced nicotinamide proton showed no pK in the range p2H 3.00 to p2H 7.00. At low p2H values a new peak appeared in the nuclear magnetic resonance spectrum 0.31 p.p.m. downfield from the nicotinamide C-2 proton of β-NADH, and the nicotinamide C-2 proton peak gradually disappeared. It is suggested that this new peak is responsible for some of the anomalies in published results. The alterations in the ultraviolet spectra also indicate a change in the structure within the reduced nicotinamide moiety of β-NADH at low p2H values.