What do Ruth Belville, Albert Einstein, Louis Armstrong, and David Eagleman have in common?
In unpredictable ways, Ainissa Ramirez melds their stories together as she mixes social history with materials science in a fascinating book for the general public. She presents more than a synergistic relationship between science and societal needs. The Alchemy of Us, Ramirez writes, “shows how materials were shaped by inventors, but also how those materials shaped culture.” This angle, then, also renders the book interesting for the materials research community.
For example, in the Western world, the invention of artificial light led to a new sleep pattern, which then drew a need for human-made timepieces. That, in turn, altered our construct of time. This is where Ruth Belville comes into the story.
In 1908, Belville made her rounds in London with her trusty pocket watch named Arnold. Because of exquisite developments in materials science accomplished by an inventor born 200 years earlier, the steel spring—along with the brass gears and ruby pivots—clicked five times a second. Belville compared Arnold to the master clock at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, received a certificate identifying the difference, then proceeded to “sell” time to her customers, who used Belville’s information to determine the accurate time against their own clocks.
This pursuit of precision in timekeeping continued to elicit materials innovations. One of these was the use of piezoelectricity in quartz that led to incorporating the gem in a clock. “For generations,” Ramirez writes, “society has struggled to make better and better clocks so we can coordinate our interactions during the day.” Ramirez’s study does not stop there, though. With further exploration in physics (Einstein), music (Armstrong), and neuroscience (Eagleman), she shows how “precision”—that holy grail—keeps evading our reach.
With other examples of materials research, Ramirez bridges Abraham Lincoln, a patent race between Sir Henry Bessemer and William Kelly, and the advent of Christmas caroling. She traces the evolution of materials for photography as they affected the progress and regression of social bias in the United States and South Africa. In addition, a recurring theme in the book is how materials change the “shape of data,” which subsequently changes the human brain, concerns of which are still under intense research.
What makes the book a fun read is not just the “information,” but also the stories Ramirez tells. As a writer, I’m mesmerized by the choices she makes to connect with the general reader, which I’m sure to probe later in the MRS Bulletin blog, MaterialsConnect.org.
I can see this book making it to the “gift list” for (1) family and friends, so that they can understand the field I work in; (2) science writers, so they can study a grand example of how to tell a story that makes materials research understandable to the general population; and (3) materials researchers, who can see their work from a perspective beyond the laboratory.
Reviewer: Judy Meiksin, News Editor, MRS Bulletin.
