Ignition: An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants (1972) [pdf]
It&#x27;s always a pleasure to see Sciencemadness linked here. The link is usually to this book, and with good reason. It&#x27;s a classic. You don&#x27;t have to be a chemist to enjoy it (though that helps). I have a main account here but I never comment on Sciencemadness submissions through it because the site so easily reveals my real-life identity.<p>I first discovered <i>Ignition!</i> on the shelves of the Medford, Oregon public library when I was 10 years old. I was hooked on my first reading and would go on to read it several more times before I entered my teens. It was tied with Tenney L. Davis&#x27;s <i>The Chemistry of Powder and Explosives</i> as my favorite non-fiction book.<p>I started the Sciencemadness library [1] a long time ago, before the big book-scanning initiatives like Google Books started. The library still contains a large number of books that are unremarkable except for the fact that they were among the first digitized books covering certain facets of chemistry to be made available online.<p>The library <i>does</i> contain a couple of books less famous than <i>Ignition!</i> but also potentially interesting to non-chemist readers:<p><i>Excuse Me Sir, Would You Like to Buy a Kilo of Isopropyl Bromide?</i><p>This is an anecdotal, autobiographical sketch of Max Gergel and his adventures as a young (then older) mad scientist building the business Columbia Organic Chemicals.<p>Columbia Organic Chemicals and its founder, Max Gergel, had the unusual honor of mention and praise by name in Kary Mullis&#x27;s Nobel lecture [2]:<p>&quot;I never tired of tinkering in labs. During the summer breaks from Georgia Tech, Al Montgomery and I built an organic synthesis lab in an old chicken house on the edge of town where we made research chemicals to sell. Most of them were noxious or either explosive. No one else wanted to make them, somebody wanted them, and so their production became our domain. We suffered no boredom and no boss. We made enough money to buy new equipment. Max Gergel, who ran Columbia Organic Chemicals Company, and who was an unusually nice man, encouraged us and bought most of our products, which he resold. There were no government regulators to stifle our fledgling efforts, and it was a golden age, but we didn&#x27;t notice it. We learned a lot of organic chemistry.&quot;<p>The chicken coop lab full of noxious chemicals isn&#x27;t far removed from how Max Gergel got his start in the chemistry business either.<p>In this humorous, anecdotal chronicle of Max&#x27;s life from high school mad scientist to successful operator of a chemical supply business, you&#x27;ll learn where metallic potassium should NOT be stored, how to prepare perfectly alcohol-free n-dodecyl bromide, and why one man would be crazy enough to want a preparative scale procedure for methyl isocyanide. You&#x27;ll also learn, humorously but quite clearly, how the golden age of &quot;no government regulators&quot; contained the seeds of its own destruction, as horrendous odors, accidental poisonings, dumpings, fires, and miscellaneous accidents and occupational hazards take their toll on Gergel and his employees, neighbors, and surrounding environs.<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;library.sciencemadness.org&#x2F;library&#x2F;books&#x2F;gergel_isopropyl_bromide.pdf" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;library.sciencemadness.org&#x2F;library&#x2F;books&#x2F;gergel_isopr...</a><p><i>The Scientific Method: A Personal Account of Unusual Projects in War and in Peace</i><p>Famed Harvard chemistry professor Louis Fieser&#x27;s personal history of development of incendiary weapons during WW II, including the infamous Bat Bomb, plus development of cortisone, antimalarial drugs, and educational material for students.<p>Louis Fieser joined the American war effort before America had even officially entered World War II, as one of 20 professor invited to the house of Roger Adams in October 1940 to join the National Defense Research Committee. He was instructed early on to work on chemical vesicants but, considering them inhumane, quickly made a lateral move to begin development of gelled gasoline incendiary weapons. He led the research effort behind napalm, several other components of large-scale incendiary ordnance, and smaller special purpose incendiary devices for use by spies and saboteurs.<p>Fieser&#x27;s strangest project was development of the Bat Bomb: a cluster-bomb arrangement of hibernating bats carrying time-delayed incendiaries. As the bats fell from bombers over enemy cities, they would rouse from hibernation mid-air and seek shelter in attics of the city below. Their incendiaries would then start concealed, hard-to-fight fires. The project was surprisingly successful for one never deployed, and included the own-goal immolation of an administrative building during testing.<p>When Fieser was not working on setting fires he also had time to begin work on the first edition of his organic chemistry textbook, research cortisone chemistry, and work on antimalarial drugs. The information given late in the book about getting cats to pose for photographs with chemical apparatus is invaluable because it comes from real experience.<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;library.sciencemadness.org&#x2F;library&#x2F;books&#x2F;the_scientific_method.pdf" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;library.sciencemadness.org&#x2F;library&#x2F;books&#x2F;the_scientif...</a><p>[1] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;library.sciencemadness.org&#x2F;library&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;library.sciencemadness.org&#x2F;library&#x2F;</a><p>[2]