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"Guimarães captures beautifully our romance with magnets. And in
this, clear, readable book also shows us how trying to understand
magnetic forces gave us the capability of manipulating with ease the
electric and magnetic fields that make the modern electronic world."
Prof. Roald Hoffmann, Nobel Laureate 1981
Hardcover: 200 pages
Publisher: Wiley-VCH (2005)
ISBN: 3527405577 |
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From the
Back Cover
This elegantly written book makes the topic accessible to interested
readers without a scientific background. The popular science author,
A. P. Guimarães, traces the history of magnets from their Greek
origins to today's supermagnets. Throughout, he emphasizes the
history of scientific ideas and magnetism, relating them to the
general development of science as a whole, and shows how magnets
play a significant role in modern life. |
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Product
Description:
This easily accessible description charts the historical development
of magnetism -- dating back some three thousand years. A. P.
Guimarães starts with the Greeks, with the first records of
magnetism, and ends with hard disks and magnetic resonance imaging.
Nowadays every electric and electronic device involves the use of
magnets, such that magnetic devices, including magnetic media and
recording equipment, represent a world market of over 100 billion
dollars each year.
Enjoyable reading for graduates, physics students, libraries, public
libraries, school libraries, those interested in the natural
sciences, lay readers, historians of physics. |
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Guimaraes: From Lodestone to Supermagnets
Physik Journal no. 1 (2006), pg. S55
Translation:
A.P. Guimaraes addresses a readership interested in
science and its history in his scientific popularization,
`From Lodestone to Supermagnets`. The subtitle
‘Understanding Magnetic Phenomena’ suggests a strong
physical-technical orientation which the book adopts only
in its second half. The author is interested primarily in
giving a thorough description of the historical facts and
interrelations of our understanding of magnetism from
ancient times up to the present, which has shaped our
lives more than almost any other physical phenomenon. One
always has the impression that the text is based on
careful research. Place, time, and objects relevant to
events described are given in detail and supported by
numerous literature references. The author introduces
scientific and technical treatments in a gentle and
careful manner and only to the extent that they are needed
for understanding the material, and he forgoes
mathematical details.
The book in its seven chapters does not attempt to give an
exhaustive treatment of the topic of magnetism, but rather
includes the relevant cultural- and scientific-historical
background in its descriptions. Thus, Chaps. 1 and 2 shed
light on ancient reports of magnetic phenomena, as they
were documented for example in Greece and China, and
consider the technical application of the magnetic compass
which appeared in the Middle Ages, as well as the first
scientific questions and descriptions relating to these
phenomena, among them the picture of the magnetic force
lines of the Earth which is well known today. Chapter 3
emphasizes how important the connection between the
magnetism of minerals and electromagnetism, based upon
electric currents, which was discovered in the 18th and
19th centuries, has become in providing the basis for the
information technology which is so important to our modern
world. Chapter 4 treats basic considerations such as how
forces can act over long distances in space, with examples
involving magnetic forces. Finally, Chaps. 5 through 7
assume a stronger physical and technical orientation,
quite in the sense of the book’s subtitle, and discuss
modern concepts for the description of the phenomenon of
magnetism as well as current areas of its application.
This book can, owing to its good readability, be
recommended reading for all those interested in science
and its history. For readers who are especially interested
in obtaining an overview of the current state of the art
of magnetic technology, Chap. 7 in particular will provide
a good popular-scientific summary.
Privatdozent Dr. Peter Wellmann, Institute for Materials
Science, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg.
http://www.pro-physik.de/Phy/External/PhyH/1,9289,2-3-0-0-1-phy_book_review_detail-0-23141,00.html |
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MAGNETS
THROUGH THE AGES
J.D.
Livingston, Physics World 19 (2006) 40.
With
declining enrolments in science courses in the US and Europe, and
with much of society viewing key results of science with
scepticism, the term "popular science'' sometimes seems like an
oxymoron. But thankfully, many scientists continue to write
popular-science books, in which they attempt to convey to
non-scientific readers some of the excitement and human side of
science, and the impact of science on our history and culture.
Alberto Guimarães, a physicist at the Brazilian Center for
Physical Research in Rio de Janeiro, has been active for many
years popularizing science in Brazil, and now has extended his
reach with this book focusing on the long and colourful history of
magnets and magnetism.
Guimarães
begins his account as far back as the second millennium BC, noting
references in Mesopotamian tablets to “grasping hematite'' (presumably
magnetite, i.e. lodestone). He discusses possible knowledge of
magnets in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica and writings about lodestones
in ancient Greece, Rome and China. He also points out that the
north-south orientation of magnets was first reported in China and
then only appeared in European literature many centuries later.
The first
paper on magnets displaying a hint of the scientific method is the
"Letter on the Magnet" written in 1269 by Pierre de Marincourt,
who is better known today by his Latin name Petrus Peregrinus.
Written when he was part of the army besieging the Italian city of
Lucera, the letter is also the first recorded attempt to design a
perpetual-motion machine based on magnets - a strange obsession
that remains prevalent even today.
Other
contributions that are discussed in the book are William Gilbert's
De Magnete (1600), which is often called the world's first great
work of experimental physics, as well as Galvani and Volta's
experiments with electricity, and the familiar discoveries of
Oersted, Ampere, Faraday and Maxwell that unified electricity and
magnetism in the 19th century. Guimarães humanizes his history
with portraits of 11 of the scientists whose work he discusses,
from Gilbert and Galileo to Planck and Einstein.
Throughout
the book, the author sets the history of magnetism in its broader
social and cultural context, and the gradual development of
scientific thought and method. A section on early Greek thought
includes a discussion of the writings of Homer, Anaximander and
Pythagoras, even though they wrote little about magnets. His
treatment of quantum mechanics considers its relation to causality
and determinism; subjectivity and objectivity; and chaos theory.
In a section
entitled “Can we explain magnetism?, the author raises the
question of whether science can explain anything at all, which
leads to the ultimate question, “Why is there anything, rather
than nothing?''. Other forays into philosophy include an
exploration of concepts like the unity of nature and the conquest
of nature; while Karl Marx, John Stuart Mill, Immanuel Kant and
Martin Heidegger all make brief appearances.
However,
readers who are interested in learning about advances in magnetic
materials "from lodestone to supermagnets'' must be patient,
because this subject does not appear until near the end of the
book. Even then, the progress from lodestones to steels, “alnico”
alloys, hard ferrites and rare-earth supermagnets is discussed all
too briefly. The text closes with a review of progress in magnetic
recording, a timelier of important events and a glossary of
technical terms. The development of ferrite and rare-earth magnets
in the late 20th century revolutionized much of modern technology,
allowing the miniaturization of many electromechanical devices,
including electric motors, earphones and laptop computers. However,
this important point is only really made in passing.
One problem
with this book is that it covers such a wide range of topics in so
few pages that no topic is treated in great depth. However, it is
well written and can give non-scientists a broad view of the
important role that magnetism has played in the development of
science. It could also help to remind scientists of certain facets
of intellectual history they may have forgotten.
Like many
other popular-science authors, Guimarães uses no equations, and
only rarely employs numbers. There are, however, a few errors. On
one page he incorrectly defines the maximum energy product of a
magnet, and, a few pages later, confuses energy product with
coercivity. In one chapter, he defines the rare-earth elements as
including the lanthanides plus yttrium and scandium, as is often
done, but in another chapter, scandium is mysteriously replaced by
zirconium. He gives the chemical formula for hard ferrites as
Fe9M12O, where M is barium or strontium, instead of Fe12MO19 (a
big difference!). I also find it odd that his further reading
lists omit any mention of Gerrit Verschuur's 1993 book Hidden
Attraction: The Mystery and History of Magnetism, which covers
similar ground.
Despite
these flaws, From Lodestone to Supermagnets can provide
informative reading for those who want a short but wide-ranging
and accessible overview of the long and fascinating history of
magnetism.
--------
James D.
Livingston is author of Driving Force: The natural Magic of
Magnets (1996 Harvard University Press) and a senior lecturer in
the Department of Materials Science and Engineering of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, US, e-mail
jdliv@ mit.edu |
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Guimaraes, Alberto P.
From Lodestone to Supermagnets: Understanding Magnetic Phenomena.
(Illus.) NY: Wiley, 2005, xi+236pp, $27.95. ISBN 3527405577. Index;
C.I.P.
EA-YA, GA Ac
From Lodestone to
Supermagnets is intended for “graduates, physics students,
libraries, those interested in the natural sciences, lay readers,
[and] historians of physics.” This is a tall order – too tall,
perhaps for a 200-page popular book. The volume focuses heavily on
the history of magnets, discussing the writings of the Greeks, the
Chinese, the Romans, the Arabs, and the ancient Chinese. The
author is a physicist, but he speaks through the eyes of a
historian. He carefully avoids the use of any equations, even when
using a simple equation might make some ideas easier to understand.
Modern magnetism is treated
rather hastily. Supermagnets get only a couple of pages, with
almost no explanation as to what makes them “super.”
Superconducting magnets are not mentioned at all.
The average reader who
really wishes to learn about magnets would probably be better off
consulting one of the many fine books on the subject, such as
James D. Livingston’s Driving Force: the Natural Magic of
Magnets (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996), which,
curiously enough, is not in the author’s list of references.
The book is easy to read,
and it appears to be quite free of errors (although one might
question some of the definitions in the glossary). If the reader
is interested in a historical and philosophical perspective on
magnetism, this book will probably provide it. – Thomas D.
Rossing, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL.
(Science Books & Films,
American Association for the Advancement of Science, Washington,
January-February 2006, vol. 42, no. 1, p. 28) |
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Physics
in Perspective, Vol. 8 (2006) 353
Book
Reviews
Alberto P. Guimarães,
From Lodestone to Supermagnets: Understanding Magnetic Phenomena.
Weinheim: Wi1ey-VCH, 2005, xii + 236 pages. $27.95 (cloth).
In his book Natural
Magick (1589), the Italian physicist John Baptista Porta
reports on one of his experiments as follows:
It is a common Opinion
amongst Sea-men, that Onyons and Garlick are at odds with the
Loadstone: and Steersmen ... are forbidden to eat Onyons or
Garlick, lest they make the Index of the Poles drunk. But when l
tried all these things, l found them to be false: for not onely
breathing and belching upon the Loadstone after eating of Garlick,
did not stop its Virtues: but when it was all anoynted over with
the juice of Garlick, it did perform its office as well as if it
had never been touched with it…l
That was good news for
sailors, since “Sea-men would sooner lose their lives, than
abstain from eating Onyons and Garlick.'' This is just one (of
many) delightful anecdotes from the extraordinary history of
magnetism - a science that rivals astronomy in its antiquity, its
contemporary importance, and its central role in the development
of physics. Guimarães surveys the subject in a wonderful little
book (the text itself is only 181 pages, supplemented with a
useful timeline and glossary, 20 pages of references and a
complete index). He seems to have tracked down every mention of
magnetism (except Porta) from the earliest written records (Mesopotamia,
in the second millennium BC) to Gilbert's classic De Magnete
(1600) - arguably the first real physics book. This occupies one
third of Lodestone to Supermagnets; the rest is a whirlwind
trip from Kepler (who apparently thought the planets were held in
orbit by magnetic forces), Coulomb, Oersted (a close friend, we
learn, of his namesake Hans Christian Anderson), Ampère, Faraday
and Maxwell (along with many lesser figures), through the quantum
theory of the structure of matter, to modern devices such as CDs
and MRIs.
Guimarães is a professor of
physics at the Brazilian Center for Physical Research in Rio de
Janeiro, and a specialist on magnetism with a keen interest in the
popularization of science. In a way, he offers us two books in one.
'l'he first is a meticulously researched and richly detailed
history of magnetism, an inspired labor of love that will be of
great interest to practicing physicists and especially teachers of
the subject. The second is a qualitative account of the underlying
physics, for “interested readers without a scientific background''
(to quote from the dust jacket). I found the first more effective
than the second.
A unique feature of this
book is its careful attention to quasiphilosophical issues.
Guimarães emphasizes that the original fascination of the
lodestone arose because - like the electrical forces associated
with rubbing amber, but more dramatically - magnetism involves
action at a distance. (On1y later - much later - was it
realized that gravity is a third example.) Discomfort at this
notion (shared famously by Newton himself led eventually to field
theory, for which magnetic fields (made manifest by patterns of
iron filings around a magnet) were the inspiration. In this sense
magnetism is the true source for much of modern physics. l was
surprised that Guimarães does not make the case for magnetism as
the one relativistic phenomenon commonly encountered in everyday
life - the argument (beautifully presented by Purcell and others)
is just the sort of thing that would appeal to his eye for
conceptual implications.2
As a popular account the
book is less successful. Guimarães cannot bear to leave anything
out, so we get a superficial paragraph or two on subjects like
chaos theory, quarks, decoherence, and quantum computing. I'm
afraid much of this will be unintelligible to the layperson, and
in his haste he short- changes the physics of magnetism itself.
For example, there is nothing here on magnetic monopoles,
superconductors, or the Meissner effect, and I doubt many
nonphysicists will get much out of his efforts to explain what a
''field'' is, or the structure of atoms, or spin, superposition,
and exchange forces. A tighter focus would have made a better
book. Guimarães scrupulously avoids equations, as perhaps befits a
popular account, but I wonder whether it is really preferable -
even for the mathematically illiterate - to write that ''there is
a one-to-one correspondence in vacuum'' between wavelength and
frequency, as opposed to stating the formula λƒ=c.
The text is generally free
of errors, and the English only rarely betrays the author as a
nonnative speaker. The editing leaves something to be desired - I
was distracted on practically every page by the close-quote symbol,
which is frequently set as an open-quote (or vice-versa; in one
instance both of them are wrong). I enthusiastically
recommend the book for anyone with a serious interest in the
history of magnetism; ''readers without a scientific background''
will find it fascinating, but perhaps also at times confusing.
David J. Griffiths
Department of Physics
Reed College
Portland, OR 97202 USA
e-mail: griffith@reed.edu
1 Quoted in D. C.
Mattis, Theory of Magnetism (New York: Harper &Row, 1965),
p. 6.
2 E. M. Purcell, Electricity and Magnetism, 2nd
edition (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1985). |
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Chemical
Heritage Newsmagazine
Spring
2007, Vol. 25, No. 1 |Reviews
Book to
Note
Alberto P. Guimarães. From Lodestone to Supermagnets:
Understanding Magnetic Phenomena. Hoboken , NJ : Wiley-VCH, 2005.
xii + 236 pp. $32.50.
Reviewed
by Keith Nier
Neither a popular-science
exposition of the current understanding of magnetism, nor a
history of the development of scholarship on magnetism, this book
is pitched at the level of good journalism about magnetic
phenomena and recent magnetic technology. Alberto Guimarães
reports on recent scientific discoveries, identifies the people
most directly involved, and provides historical context. Details
of research—experimentation, technology, or mathematics—are almost
totally avoided. Once the reader accepts the book’s character it
can stimulate as well as inform. It compellingly relates our
widespread dependence on human mastery of magnetic effects and can
serve as a list of future topics for research by historians of
technology. Guimarães points to many recent developments,
particularly in chemistry and materials science, that have
received little if any scrutiny from scholars. CHF’s research into
the chemical history of electronics is a good start in correcting
this oversight, but more exciting work remains to be done on the
aspects of magnetic and electromagnetic materials and phenomena
set forth in this brief book. |
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Other books by the same author:
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Last updating:
12.16.2010 |
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