The Beginnings of Piezoelectricity: A Study in Mundane Physics , Shaul Katzir , Springer, Dordrecht, the Netherlands, 2006. $149.00 (273 pp.). ISBN 978-1-4020-4669-8
Even though Shaul Katzir’s The Beginnings of Piezoelectricity: A Study in Mundane Physics is published as part of the Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science series, it will also interest applied scientists and engineers working on modern aspects of piezoelectricity and electromechanical transduction in materials. The field is still very active and has produced many important devices such as ultrasonic transducers, frequency generators for clock control, and precise small-scale movement stages. Advancements have reopened some of the fundamental questions discussed in the book: the preparation and optimization, over the last few decades, of polar piezoelectric polymers and of piezoelectrets and ferroelectrets from nonpolar polymers; the recent attention to space-charge and fatigue effects in piezoelectric crystals and ceramics; and the ongoing development of techniques for examining the dynamics of fast structural changes in condensed matter.
As a historian and philosopher of science at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, Katzir is mainly interested in the development of scientific methods and thoughts at the end of the 19th century. He subscribes to the traditional view of piezoelectricity as a phenomenon restricted to crystals that do not have a center of symmetry; therefore, he assumes that Woldemar Voigt’s classical theory based on crystalline symmetry is comprehensive. According to Katzir’s view, the experimental and theoretical treatment of piezoelectricity was essentially complete around 1900. As a consequence, the author must consider earlier and later works on mechano-electrical (mechanical to electrical) or electromechanical (electrical to mechanical) transduction effects in various materials as only loosely connected to piezoelectricity. Hence he concludes that the seminal experiments of brothers Jacques and Pierre Curie represent the discovery of piezoelectricity. That conclusion is correct, but the role of previous contributions to the field should not be underestimated.
Katzir’s book demonstrates how the works of leading British, French, and German physicists contributed to piezoelectricity research during the last two decades of the 19th century. Those scientists’ names are still well known today. Among them are the Curie brothers, Voigt, Lord Kelvin, Wilhelm Röntgen, August Kundt, and Friedrich Pockels. The author shows how innovative experiments, new and refined theoretical concepts, and precise measurements led to the quick and relatively complete exploration and explanation of piezoelectricity in crystals. By drawing extensively on the original publications, the author tells an intriguing story of a rapid scientific development that was not yet driven by the potential for commercial applications but instead by the desire to understand the causes of observed phenomena. He also shows how several national and local schools and scientific traditions, such as the style of performing experiments, strongly influenced and shaped the course of the early exploration of piezoelectricity.
Of the three main theoretical approaches to piezoelectricity—the phenomenology of thermodynamic systems, the microscopic mechanisms of atomic and molecular interactions, and the structural symmetry of crystals—the last one is clearly preferred in the book. The author’s choice is appropriate from a historical point of view; but because researchers today have much better access to microscopic and nanoscopic phenomena, a modern perspective would probably put more emphasis on the first and especially the second approach.
Katzir developed his book from his 2001 PhD dissertation. Its origin is evident from the many footnotes that sometimes contain essential thoughts. The book also contains several errors of fact and instances of poor editing, which are stumbling blocks that reduce the reader’s enjoyment. Examples include y and z instead of γ and Z z or an equal sign instead of a multiplication sign (page 172); misstated scientific terms, such as “convention” instead of “convection” (pages 48 and 109) or “bond charge” instead of “bound charge” (page 166); wrong German spelling and grammar, such as “Lehere” instead of “Lehre” in several instances or “Piezoelektricität” instead of “piezoelektrische” (page 207). One factual inaccuracy is footnote 85 on page 182: The similarities between electrical and magnetic phenomena were already known to the ancient Greek writer Thales and Elizabethan physician William Gilbert. And contrary to footnote 50 on page 211, the “Deutsche Mark,” or DM, was introduced only after World War II. Careful copyediting by the publisher could have eliminated most of those problems.
Such shortcomings need to be repaired in a second edition of the book. Some of the extensive summaries of references should probably be replaced by verbatim quotes from the well-written original papers, along with good translations. Nevertheless, even the present first edition of The Beginnings of Piezoelectricity is a useful and thought-provoking study of an often-neglected but exciting seminal field of materials physics.
