The Beginnings of Piezoelectricity

by Katzir, Shaul

• ISBN13: 9781402046698
• ISBN10: 1402046693
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-12-04
• Publisher: Springer Verlag

Summary

Involving electricity, elasticity, thermodynamics and crystallography, several scientific traditions and approaches and leading physicists, the history of piezoelectricity provides an advantageous perspective on late nineteenth century physics and its development. The beginnings of piezoelectricity, the first history of the subject, exhaustively examines how these diverse influences led to the discovery of the phenomenon in 1880, and how they shaped its subsequent research until the consolidation of an empirical and theoretical knowledge of the field circa 1895. It studies a particular subdiscipline representative of many similar 'mundane' branches of physics that did not bear revolutionary consequences beyond their field. Although most research is of this kind, such branches have rarely been studied by historians of science. Shaul Katzir's historical account shows that this mundane science was an intriguing intellectual and practical enterprise, which involved, among other things, originality, surprises and controversies. Thereby, it displays the fruitfulness of studying such a field.Employing exceedingly rich material Katzir gains interesting insights into the nature of scientific development from this history. Among the themes raised here are: the sources of a discovery, the interplay between molecular-atomistic and phenomenological approaches and between scientific practice and protagonists' philosophy of science, the role of thermodynamic formulation, the interaction of different levels of theories with experiment, the use and design of qualitative versus precise quantitative experiments, the employment of symmetry in physics and the role of national and local experimental and theoretical traditions. Observations regarding these and other issues in this book portray an unexpected picture of turn of the century physics.

Author Biography

Shaul Katzir is a historian of science.  He teaches history of science [and general history] at Bar Ilan, Ben Gurion, and Tel Aviv universities, at the Hebrew university of Jerusalem and at the Academic College of Tel Aviv Jaffa.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	xi
List of Abbreviations	xiii
Introduction	1	(14)
The structure of the book	13	(2)
1. The Discovery of the Piezoelectric Effect	15	(50)
The appearance of the effect	15	(9)
A brief history of pyroelectricity	24	(5)
The Curies' model	29	(2)
The causes of the discovery	31	(4)
Predicting a converse effect	35	(4)
The experimental detection of the converse effect	39	(9)
The Curies' experiment	39	(5)
Röntgen 's and Kundt's experiments	44	(4)
Early experiments and the examination of the geometry of piezoelectricity	48	(7)
Hypotheses on the source of piezoelectricity	55	(6)
Mallard and the systematic presentation of piezoelectricity	61	(4)
2. The Road to the Descriptive Theory	65	(34)
Czermak's research on quartz	65	(9)
Czermak's theory	66	(2)
Experimental examination	68	(4)
Absolute measurement of the piezoelectric coefficient	72	(2)
The discovery of the electric effect of torsion in quartz	74	(3)
Voigt's general theory: motives and basic assumptions	77	(2)
The roots of Voigt's employment of symmetry	79	(10)
Neumann on symmetry	80	(3)
The French molecular school	83	(4)
Neumann's students	87	(2)
The general theory: scope and results	89	(4)
The basic piezoelectric laws of all crystals	89	(1)
The effects due to various stresses	90	(2)
Pyroelectricity	92	(1)
Concluding remarks to Part I	93	(6)
3. Theories and Models about the Causes of the Piezoelectric Phenomena	99	(50)
Approaches toward elasticity and electricity	101	(6)
Theories of elasticity	102	(2)
Theories of dielectrics	104	(3)
Lodge and Thompson's hypothesis of unilateral conductivity	107	(3)
Duhem's thermoelectric theory	110	(8)
Molecular theories	118	(14)
Riecke's molecular theory of pyroelectricity	118	(4)
Riecke's elaborated molecular explanation for piezoelectricity	122	(6)
Voigt's elaboration	128	(2)
Voigt's alternative	130	(2)
Lord Kelvin's mechanical models	132	(12)
First molecular model	132	(4)
The method of models	136	(2)
Second molecular model	138	(3)
An atomistic model	141	(3)
Concluding remarks	144	(5)
4. Theoretical Elaboration of Voigt's Theory	149	(38)
Pockels's theory of the converse effect	150	(6)
Electro-optic theory	151	(2)
Theory of the converse piezoelectric effect	153	(3)
Duhem's thermodynamic theory	156	(9)
The thermodynamic functions	157	(1)
Duhem's application	158	(4)
The converse effect	162	(1)
Merits and limitations of Duhem's work	163	(2)
Duhem and Pockels on the reciprocity of the phenomena	165	(3)
Riecke's thermodynamics of tourmaline	168	(7)
Voigt's theory of secondary phenomena	175	(4)
Piezoelectricity and theory of dielectrics	179	(8)
5. Empirical Work in the 1890's	187	(40)
Voigt and Riecke's determination of piezoelectric constants	187	(11)
The confirmation of the theory	187	(5)
German versus French methods of determination	192	(3)
Determining the constants	195	(2)
Pyroelectricity	197	(1)
Hankel and Lindenberg's experiments	198	(2)
Pockels's study of the relation between piezoelectricity and electro-optics	200	(5)
The relation between piezoelectricity and pyroelectricity	205	(2)
Voigt's examination of Thomson's hypothesis	207	(3)
The monopoly of Göttingen and the place of piezoelectric research in a wider context	210	(4)
Röntgen's and J. Curie's later determination of Quartz's piezoelectric constant	214	(7)
Conclusions: experiments and their roles in a theoretical phase	221	(6)
Concluding Remarks	227	(12)
Pretheoretical and theoretical phases of study	227	(3)
National or international science?	230	(3)
Molecular and phenomenological theories	233	(6)
Appendix 1. Earlier Appearances of Electricity by Pressure	239	(8)
Appendix 2. Mathematical Works on Voigt's General Theory	247	(2)
Appendix 3. Voigt's Concepts of Electric Charge	249	(2)
Appendix 4. Tables	251	(6)
Table A.1. Chronological table of major events in the history of piezoelectricity	251	(2)
Table A.2. Annual publications on piezoelectricity 1880-99	253	(1)
Table A.3. Contributors to piezoelectricity by national division 1880-98	254	(1)
Table A.4. Major theories suggested for piezoelectricity	255	(1)
Table A.5. Discoveries of the effects of conversion in crystals	255	(2)
Bibliography	257	(10)
Index	267