Great Scientists Wage the Great War : The First War of Science 1914-1918

"Sales/posting to the USA suspended". Hard cover dust wrapper, 242pp, b&w plates. Light wear to edges of dw/boards; a near fine copy. The work of six great scientists and its impact on the war is described for general readers. Lawrence Bragg pinpointed the position of enemy artillery pieces with sound ranging, which enabled British tanks to break through in late 1917 and 1918. His father worked with the French to develop high frequency echolocation; if the war had gone on longer sonar would have curbed the U-boats. Ernest Starling led a group that discovered the cause of wound shock and saved shocked men with artificial plasma. He also utilized what was known about metabolism to ration food fairly in Britain while improving the poor's nutrition. Otto Hahn worked on poisons for gas warfare and devised and tested filters to trap the poisons. He also became an expert on tactics for breaking through enemy lines with gas. Chaim Weizmann and other chemists produced molecules essential for making high explosives. Anti-aircraft defence was developed by the physiologist A. V. Hill who led more than 100 scientists and mathematicians, youths or elders on either side of conscription age, who learned how to aim supersonic shells to explode near fast-moving targets.…