Soap, Science, and Flat-Screen TVs: A History of Liquid Crystals; Structure and Properties of Liquid Crystals
DOI: 10.1063/PT.3.1219
Chemist David Dunmur and physicist Tim Sluckin have made important contributions to the field of liquid-crystal research and are respected by all of us who toil in it. Soap, Science, and Flat-Screen TVs: A History of Liquid Crystals is yet another contribution, but of a very different sort—namely, “somewhere between history of science and popular science,” to use the authors’ own words. Their desire is to “communicate the excitement of liquid crystals to a wider audience.” To do that, they explain the important concepts and techniques necessary to understand the historical narrative, frequently placing them in boxes so as not to disrupt the storyline. But there’s no mistaking that the book focuses on bringing to life the people who did the experiments and formed the theories, by including a good deal about their personalities, interactions, intellectual proclivities, and historical settings. The result is a well-written, accurate, and totally engaging look at the history and science of liquid crystals from near the middle of the 19th century up to the present.
As someone who has been engaged in liquid-crystal research for several decades, I found that the historical narrative in Soap, Science, and Flat-Screen TVs filled in my knowledge of many of the characters. It also created in my mind portraits of those researchers as people. I would have guessed that they possessed both amazing talents and serious foibles, but those extremes don’t capture the full landscape of their lives, which the authors reveal with sensitivity and wit. All the facts given in the book are consistent with what I have learned over the years. Thus the authors must be congratulated for the accuracy and nuanced perspective that characterizes the book.
What will nonexperts think? For readers who enjoy learning some new science, this book will be a wonderful read. They will be able to follow both the science and the personalities; as a result, they will understand the convoluted scientific path that led to our understanding of liquid crystals and come to appreciate that science, after all, is done by people. I find it more difficult to gauge the reaction of readers who might be interested in the book’s characters but not in the scientific questions with which those characters grappled. Without an appreciation of those questions, I think a good deal of what makes the characters interesting is lost. Such is the peril of trying to teach science in a history book.
The authors note that their explanations do not include equations and mathematical rigor; as a result they expect to be criticized by experts. I found the explanations both clear and correct for the most part, so their expectation may not be realized. At one point, however, there is confusion about whether it is the direction of propagation or the direction of polarization that determines the index of refraction in an anisotropic material. Still, that is a minor criticism and in no way decreases my admiration for what the authors have accomplished. This is a truly stimulating look at the history and science of a little-understood phase of matter and a material that affects our lives every day.
For experts looking for a more rigorous lesson on liquid-crystal science, a textbook is the obvious place to turn. And because few texts exist for a course on the subject, Structure and Properties of Liquid Crystals is a welcome addition. Its author, Lev Blinov, has long been a leading contributor to the field, and his taking the time to write a high-quality text is a wonderful gesture. By design, the book fills a gap between other available textbooks such as Introduction to Liquid Crystals: Chemistry and Physics (Taylor & Francis, 1997) by Michael Hird and me, The Physics of Liquid Crystals (2nd edition, Oxford University Press, 1993) by Pierre-Gilles de Gennes and Jacques Prost, and Liquid Crystals: Fundamentals (World Scientific, 2002) by Shri Singh. The first book contains only selected topics but develops the necessary background chemistry and physics. The other two books cover many more topics at a higher mathematical and scientific level, but contain little background information on general chemistry and physics.
Structure and Properties of Liquid Crystals discusses the theoretical concepts necessary to understand the liquid-crystal phase from the perspective of an experimentalist. All the necessary theory is there for a wide range of topics in the physics of liquid crystals. But whenever possible, Blinov makes connections to experimental techniques and results, and he includes some development of the general physical ideas that form the foundation of our knowledge in this field. Line drawings are used throughout the text to help with the explanations, as are simple analogies and references to familiar concepts. The book is certainly suitable for advanced undergraduates and graduate students taking a course on liquid crystals.
Some minor shortcomings appear in the text. One concerns the presence of numerous grammatical mistakes and misspellings. Those never rise to the level of causing confusion, but they are noticeable. The second concerns a slight unevenness in how much background physics is supplied for the myriad topics covered in the book. In most cases, Blinov nicely relates his topic to basic physics before developing the ideas important to liquid crystals. But sometimes he makes a connection to a fairly sophisticated idea; in such cases readers unfamiliar with the concept will wish the author had offered a more fundamental discussion. But the weaknesses are fairly inconsequential; Structure and Properties of Liquid Crystals is a truly useful addition to the pedagogical literature on liquid crystals.
More about the Authors
Peter Collings, whose research on liquid crystals spans nearly 40 years, is the Morris L. Clothier Professor of Physics at Swarthmore College in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. He is the author or coauthor of two books on liquid crystals and has edited a handbook on liquid-crystal science.
