The Handbook of Mathematical Functions by Milton Abramovich and Irene Stegun is the one book I would wish to have on a desert island. Unlike a novel, it withstands infinities of rereadings. Its “characters”, the orthogonal functions, the spherical Bessel functions, the Legendre polynomials, and so on, behave in such a variety of ways they make even the Sopranos look like wooden posts. There are infinite, unpredictable twists to the “plot”, with sudden revelations of “kinship” as if you had discovered a Soprano was in fact second cousin to a Walton. Like the Bible or the Koran, it captures the wisdom of the ages, although the wisdom is more reliable, of universal validity, and a source of harmony rather than conflict.

I am not sure quite how this book has influenced me, any more than I know how a close companion or reliable old friend has, except subconsciously. But I know I owe it a lot. Mathematical software may now be able to do much of what it offers, but on a desert island my laptop battery wouldn’t last long.

Chemistry has a long history in China, but after its early successes
it slept while the West made phenomenal progress. James Reardon-Anderson
explores the pain that China and chemistry suffered when the country sought
to catch up, and examines the history of chemistry and the chemical industry
in China from 1840 to 1949. Yet this is not a book merely about chemistry:
the author is at pains to point out that chemistry is merely the focus,
and not the entire field of vision.

The Study of Change seeks to put the assimilation of chemistry into
a broader social and political context and to examine the rise of science
in a single, rather special state. It looks also at the impact of science
on the nature of society. Reardon-Anderson chose chemistry because its influence
is socially all-pervasive. He examines how an emerging, modernising society,
with its own deep cultural roots, adjusts to a subject that has grown to
maturity in an alien culture.

Chemistry returned to China, scarcely recognisable after its time in
the West, in the mid-19th century. The two men to whom China owes most for
enabling the return of chemistry were two failures who cast around for new
opportunities and found it in purveying the West’s intellectual goods by
means of technical translation. One, John Freyer, was a failed missionary;
the other, Hsu Shou, had failed the Chinese Civil Service examination. Both
worked in the Kiangnan Arsenal, where they found an outlet for their attitudes,
which were in contradiction to the generally revered traits of the time
– the stylistic and the literary.

Even with a language, though, how do you teach chemistry when there
is no indigenous manufacturer of apparatus? When everything except a few
basic chemicals must be imported? When teachers are missionaries first and
scientists second? When the language of instruction is beyond the ability
of most instructors? And when the cultural tradition is so far removed from
that needed for success in science?

The old literary tradition died hard even under the impact of Western
attitudes. One problem with the spread of science in China was the authoritarian
mode of instruction – dogmatic lectures, with little encouragement to discussion
or independent work by students.

Many students were cowed by the unfriendly attitude of the teacher,
and the lectures were often simply direct readings from texts. The view
was instilled that knowledge came from books, so the lesson was drawn that
the aim was to memorise them wholesale.

As may be expected, original active research took longer to establish
than sedentary, passive learning. By the early 20th century, the advantages
of applying chemistry to agriculture, industry and medicine were unmistakably
apparent; yet the new republic did little to foster interest.

The government was content with the tangible success of the extraction
of minerals (and supported geology) but was less sure about the importance
of modifying (and adding value) to the spoils of the ground.

Once again, the impetus for progress came largely from foreigners, with
yet another failure, Wu Hsein on this occasion, helping to achieve the necessary
change. At last a Chinese chemist of considerable stature emerged, and arguably
no-one contributed more to the establishment of a chemical tradition than
Wu. China and chemistry were lucky that Wu had failed the Civil Service
examination.

Yet even the fledgling subject had a hard time in its early years, partly
because there was little drive from a vigorous chemical industry. Here China
had bad luck, for the impetus that would have come from a vigorous iron
industry was lacking, for that industry came to grief in the 1920s. As a
result there was little demand for coke and sulphuric acid. The ramifications
included a high price for fixed nitrogen, a diminutive market for sulphuric
acid, and too little coal tar to support a viable organic chemistry industry.

The blame for the slow pace of progress has been placed at the door
of the Nationalist government, yet that would not seem entirely fair. The
Nationalists did promote chemical industry; they operated factories and
arsenals that relied on the introduction of new technologies for a variety
of chemicals; and they promoted private investment.

The Second World War changed attitudes almost as much as it led to the
transformation of the country’s government. ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´s and intellectuals
were driven from the urban districts in the coastal areas, where there was
relatively ready contact with the West, into the hinterland. In that ‘Great
Rear’, Chinese scientists had to adopt local solutions and adapt traditional
techniques; simple copying was stifled. In short: they were on their own,
and to survive, they had to invent.

For the Communists, too, war was a revelation. Until 1939, ‘science’
for them had been an abstraction in a largely irrelevant philosophical debate.
But now, as they came in contact with actual political control, they realised
that science could be used to develop wealth and power. This timely union
of awakened attitudes and opportunities, however, did not run smoothly and
China threw away so much of her intellectual flower during the night of
the Cultural Revolution.

Reardon-Anderson wonders why the Chinese have found it difficult to
find and keep a balance between authority and freedom that, when present,
has allowed science to flourish. He argues that it may, in part, be the
difficulty of reconciling the desperation (and hence haste) of the political
elite to develop their country with the patience of the scientific elite
which, in common with their counterparts elsewhere, have an inclination
to invest time in the acquisition of ‘useless’ knowledge.

Another factor, he argues, is the persistent urge in China toward unity
of politics and culture; the drive to achieve a single, unified system.

Reardon-Anderson’s sprightly and thoughtful text is a fascinating analysis
of a cultural phenomenon that has resonances with our own time and place.
It will interest anyone with an affection for the Chinese, and their struggle
to join this century before it becomes the next.

Peter Atkins is a fellow of Lincoln College and a lecturer in physical
chemistry at the University of Oxford.

ANY BOOK that seeks to share chemistry with the world at large is welcome,
for it is a subject that deserves to be better understood. The ever-present,
popular, gloomy subjects of chemical discourse are easy game for science
writers. However, there is room for a much broader appreciation of our insight
into matter that chemistry provides. We can all take greater delight from
our actions, and appreciate our surroundings more deeply, if we can understand
them in terms of their composition and the ebb and flow of chemical change.
Enjoyment is rarely diminished by knowledge, and the rich texture of the
everyday is exposed perhaps more clearly by chemistry than by any other
branch of science. Chemistry is truly a central science: its foundations
lie in physics while its applications and elucidations are found increasingly
in biology.

There are very few books that reach out to the hearts of people, touch
them with chemistry and impart to them a sensitivity to the qualities and
life of atoms, ions and molecules. Andrew Scott has made a brave attempt
in Molecular Machinery, and through its pages readers will begin to see
something of how a chemist thinks about the world.

The first seven chapters introduce the chemical principles in outline.
These include atomic structure, bonding, chemical equilibrium and reaction
rates. The remaining 12 chapters are essentially vignettes that show applications
of these principles. They include brief accounts of topics such as fire,
air, fibres and medicine. Scott also adds a helping of molecular biology
with descriptions of DNA, proteins, photosynthesis and the like. The entire
book is written in a nonpedantic, racy, unflagging, personal style that
some may find condescending and others agreeably light.

There is quite a lot that I like about the book, and some things that
I do not. I shall comment on the latter first because I would like to end
with a positive impression, which is my overall opinion. Chapter 1 is an
example of how not to present science, let alone the sensitive bloom of
chemistry. It is a discourse on the philosophy of scientific interpretation,
drawing attention to the fact that models are ephemeral, hence subject to
prejudice and change. That may well be so, but putting it at the start of
a book in which you hope to seduce your readers into insight is a perfect
way of eliminating any self-confidence they may already have. Warnings of
this kind, although well-meant and ap posite in some contexts, are barriers
to seduction. The book is also let down by its diagrams, which are scrappy
and in some cases downright confusing.

As with all science books of this kind, there is a tension between what
can be left out completely and what should be present as background information.
Scott looks for a solution by providing boxes at the ends of chapters to
flesh out topics such as bonding, electronegativity, chemical formulas and
so on. Some of these boxes go on for many pages. I sometimes wondered whether
it would have been better to swallow the bullet or spit it out completely:
either to put these central ideas into the text (since after all they are
the central conceptual structure of chemistry) or to leave them out altogether,
giving the reader a clear overview of the field shorn of detail. Like all
compromises, the use of boxes has its good points, in particular that the
reader can avoid them. However, I still feel uncomfortable with boxes that
are almost as long as the chapters they amplify.

Another central problem with presenting chemistry to the general reader
is the choice of analogies, particularly those for conveying nonclassical
concepts. Scott does a reasonably good job here, with some imaginative ideas,
but he occasionally overextends his licence. For instance, he goes too far
with his admittedly frayed analogy between completing electron shells and
the crowded orbits of terrestrial satellites. Finding a plausible similarity
there is a truly testing challenge! His analogies do help on the whole,
and he uses them well.

The vignette chapters are of variable quality, but all are very superficial.
The chapter on serotonin is interesting in its way, but steps over the border
between books and journalism with its attributed quotes from workers in
the field. They give a sense of immediacy and dynamism, but the style clashes
with the rest of the book. The real challenge with writing about chemistry
is to convey excitement about topics other than the ‘gee-whiz’ aspects of
molecular biology, and this still remains to be done successfully.

I consider Molecular Machinery to be a reasonably good attempt at the
popular exposition of chemistry. It is by no means wholly successful, but
does convey some features of the range of chemistry’s concepts and of chemists’
attitudes towards matter.

Peter Atkins is tutor in physical chemistry, Lincoln College, Oxford.