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Feb. 9th, 2026 09:12 amCathedrals of Science by Patrick Coffey
I picked it up because Wikipedia says Gilbert Lewis was nominated for a Nobel Prize 41 times and never won and I was like, there's gotta be a story there. I couldn't find a bio of Lewis, but I did find this, which is a group bio of Lewis and a cohort of physical chemists who revolutionized chemistry in the early 20th century. Lewis is joined in the main cast by Arrhenius and Nernst and Langmuir and Seaborg, all names I'd heard before but didn't really know.
Lewis had some Massachusetts blue blood, but he grew up in Nebraska before returning to attend Harvard and finishing his studies in Europe. And it seems clear that he was always a bit of a social oddball, even once he established himself as the king of chemistry at Berkeley.
The book has some serious parts when it covers the intersection of chemistry and the world wars, and Lewis's strange and tragic death, but mostly it's about how amazingly petty chemists are. I loved reading about how they kept stealing credit from each other for discoveries and doing backroom deals to keep each other from winning Nobel prizes.
To be clear, because I still don't understand how Nobel Prizes are awarded, it's not that Lewis was nominated in 41 years and never won. He received nominations from 41 people over a span of something like 25 years, for multiple discoveries and theoretical advancements in the field. He also devoted those 25 years, and the 20 before, to publically trashing the science of several of the people who decided who would win the prize, or had influence on the decides. Coffey digs up amazing documentary evidence of the coordinated campaign against Lewis, but also makes you think maybe you don't blame them for it.
Anyway, a long running theme in this journal is the way science doesn't move in a sphere of pure ideas but is instead a function of imperfect personalities in collision, and this was a brilliant illumination of that theme.
And if you just think Chemistry: The Soap Opera sounds fun, this is the book for you.
I picked it up because Wikipedia says Gilbert Lewis was nominated for a Nobel Prize 41 times and never won and I was like, there's gotta be a story there. I couldn't find a bio of Lewis, but I did find this, which is a group bio of Lewis and a cohort of physical chemists who revolutionized chemistry in the early 20th century. Lewis is joined in the main cast by Arrhenius and Nernst and Langmuir and Seaborg, all names I'd heard before but didn't really know.
Lewis had some Massachusetts blue blood, but he grew up in Nebraska before returning to attend Harvard and finishing his studies in Europe. And it seems clear that he was always a bit of a social oddball, even once he established himself as the king of chemistry at Berkeley.
The book has some serious parts when it covers the intersection of chemistry and the world wars, and Lewis's strange and tragic death, but mostly it's about how amazingly petty chemists are. I loved reading about how they kept stealing credit from each other for discoveries and doing backroom deals to keep each other from winning Nobel prizes.
To be clear, because I still don't understand how Nobel Prizes are awarded, it's not that Lewis was nominated in 41 years and never won. He received nominations from 41 people over a span of something like 25 years, for multiple discoveries and theoretical advancements in the field. He also devoted those 25 years, and the 20 before, to publically trashing the science of several of the people who decided who would win the prize, or had influence on the decides. Coffey digs up amazing documentary evidence of the coordinated campaign against Lewis, but also makes you think maybe you don't blame them for it.
Anyway, a long running theme in this journal is the way science doesn't move in a sphere of pure ideas but is instead a function of imperfect personalities in collision, and this was a brilliant illumination of that theme.
And if you just think Chemistry: The Soap Opera sounds fun, this is the book for you.