MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY. Cyril Stanley Smith Dies at 88 September 2, 1992

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1 MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY Cyril Stanley Smith Dies at 88 September 2, 1992 Dr. Cyril Stanley Smith, 88, a world renowned metallurgist and historian of metallurgy, died of cancer August 25 at his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Dr. Smith was a retired faculty member of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he taught from 1961 until his retirement in His three titles there reflected the facets of his rich and varied career in science, technology, history and the arts. He was an Institute Professor Emeritus, a title reserved for only a few whose work transcends the boundaries of traditional departments and disciplines. As professor emeritus of the history of science and technology he was recognized as an authority on the historical relationships between people from the beginning of human history and the materials they came to understand and use. Professor Smith was a pioneer in the application of materials science and engineering to the study of archaeological artifacts. As professor emeritus of metallurgy, he was renowned for his research in physical metallurgy, particularly in areas such as the role of interface energy and topology in the structure of polycrystalline materials and the application of metallography to the study of artifacts. Professor Smith's important contributions to the nature of structure in inorganic matter began with the application of simple topology to the shapes of metal grains and then, by extension, to all levels of the structural hierarchy. Eventually his work included exploration of the structures, on different scales, underlying patterns in both art and science. Professor Smith was born in Birmingham, England, in He received the B.Sc. degree in metallurgy from the University of

2 Birmingham in 1924 and the Sc.D. degree from MIT in From 1927 until 1942 he was a research metallurgist at the American Brass Company, where he received some 20 patents and contributed numerous papers to technical publications. His research was focused on the electrical and thermal conductivity, and the mechanical and magnetic properties of copper alloys. After brief service with the War Metallurgy Committee in Washington, Dr. Smith joined the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos where he directed the preparation of the fissionable metal for the atomic bomb and other materials for nuclear experiments. He received the Presidential Medal for Merit for this work in He joined the University of Chicago in 1946 where he became the founder and first director of the Institute for the Study of Metals, the first interdisciplinary research organization dealing with materials in the United States. It was, he said, "a natural outgrowth of the close association of metallurgists with chemists and physicists on the Manhattan Project." At MIT Professor Smith designed his joint appointment in the Departments of Metallurgy and Humanities to "encourage the understanding of human history and human activity through the scientific investigation of the material record of the past." He used the methods of the materials engineer to explore the technologies behind the production of art and archaeological artifacts. The Laboratory for Research on Arhcaeological Materials which Dr. Smith established at MIT in 1967 led to the founding 10 years later of the Center for Materials Research in Archaeology and Ethnology, a consortium of eight Boston area universities and museums devoted to research and graduate education in this new field. Professor Smith was named by President Truman as one of the original nine members of the general advisory committee to the Atomic Energy Commission. He also served on the Committee on Science and Public Policy of the National Academy of Sciences, the President's Science Advisory Committee and the

3 Smithsonian Council. He was the first chairman of the board of governors of Acta Metallurgica, a leading international journal, and a member of the editorial board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. He was also a member of the American delegation to the First International Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy in Professor Smith's view that the decorative arts, especially ceramics and metals, led to scientists' understanding of the properties of materials is explained in From Art to Science, (MIT Press, 1980). The book was an outgrowth of a 1978 exhibit he arranged for the Smithsonian and MIT. His other books include A History of Metallography: The Development of Ideas on the Structure of Metals to 1890, Sources for the History of the Science of Steel, and A Search for Structure. He was co-editor of a number of translations of classic works and author of some 200 papers for scholarly journals Dr. Smith received the Francis J. Clamer Medal of the Franklin Institute in 1952, the 1961 Pfizer Medal from the History of Science Society and the 1961 Gold Medal of the American Society of Metals. In 1963 he received the Douglas Medal from the AIME, the third time that society had chosen him for an award. He received the Leonard da Vinci Medal from the Society for the History of Technology in 1966, the Platinum Medal of the Institute of Metals in His memberships included the National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Academie Internationale d'histoire des Sciences, the American Physical Society, the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers, the American Society for Metals the History of Science Society, the Society for the History of Technology, the Iron and Steel Institute, and the Newcomen Society. He was also an honorary member of the Institute of Metals, Akademie der Wissenschaften, the Indian Institute of Metals and the Japan Institute of Metals. In 1991 Professor Smith received the Gemant Award from the

4 American Institute of Physics for "pioneering the use of solid state physics in the study of ancient art and artifacts to reconstruct their cultural, historical and technological significance." Some of his works published by MIT Press: A History of Metallography The Development of Ideas on the Structure of Metals before 1890 Cyril Stanley Smith Cyril Smith's study of the structure of metals and alloys and the properties that result from their processing remains, after more than two decades, a foundational work on the history of metallography. It starts from the intuitive knowledge of metals achieved by such early artists and craftsmen as Biringuccio, Descartes, Réaumur, Bréant, Osmond, Sorby, Brinell, Tschernoff, Howe, Percy and others, and then describes the evolution of the modern scientific understanding of materials. Throughout, the author emphasizes the interplay of contributions from practical engineering, from experimental and theoretical science, and from the workings of the aesthetic imagination. Cyril Stanley Smith is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT, and author of A Search for Structure: Selected Essays on Science, Art, and History (MIT Press paperback). The original hardcover edition of A History of Metallography won the Pfizer Prize of the History of Science Society The Beginning of the Use of Metals and Alloys Edited by Robert Maddin Foreword by Cyril Stanley Smith These thirty original essays form a landmark contribution to the

5 history of metallurgy: together they present the first systematic survey of the beginning of the use of metals and alloys throughout the world. What distinguishes the book as a whole is the orientation of the writers toward seeing the objects they uncover in human-historical terms, reminding us that at all stages in history and in every part of the world, cultural change and advances in the use of metals are often closely intertwined. The articles are arranged in roughly chronological-geographical order; some are specific studies of sites, objects, and processes; others examine more general aspects of archaeometallurgy within a general field that has come to be called "archaeometry"; and still others are interpretive and reflective essays on human history and cultural change (a particularly fine example of this approach is Heather Lechtman's essay on Central Andean metalworking). Archaeologists, historians, metallurgists, chemists, and geologists cover topics as diverse as iron trade in northern Scandinavia, the fabrication of gold foil in Japan, copper mining in eastern India, prehistoric metallurgy in Thailand, iron bloomery in Africa, early copper smelting in Palestine, and Chinese techniques for casting old belt plaques. And in his Foreword, Cyril Stanley Smith proposes structural metaphors that describe the historical reworkings of human society in terms of the transformations of materials. Robert Maddin is Honorary Curator of Archaeological Sciences, Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University. The Beginning of the Use of Metals and Alloys was derived from the second international conference on the subject, held in Zhengzhou, China in A Search for Structure Selected Essays on Science, Art and History Cyril Stanley Smith

6 These fourteen essays celebrate the necessary unity between aesthetic curiosity and scientific and technological discovery. Drawing on his own experience as a metallurgist and his wideranging studies of ancient and modern artifacts, Cyril Smith offers an intriguing and generously illustrated exploration of the relationship between material structure and our sense of beauty. From Art to Science Seventy-Two Objects Illustrating the Nature of Discovery Cyril Stanley Smith