Models: The Third Dimension of Science (review)

Mention models, and my thoughts immediately turn to the 3-D digital models of mouse embryos that I have recently been making; then my memory glazes over and I recall how, some 20 years ago, I was shown around the early models of protein structures at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge by one of the greats, Max Perutz. If it were not for the fact that the current generation of students have never heard of Perutz, I'd have said that this was a memory to pass on to the grandchildren.

Go back another 20 years, and I recall the most important physics lecture that I attended as an undergraduate: it was on the theory of the specific heat of solids, and the lecturer showed how working through the implications of some very basic assumptions led to an equation that gave a fine fit with the data. The elegance and clarity of this piece of work were not only a joy, but it explained to me the role of theoretical models in science—and it was not until 30 years later that I discovered that it was yet another lovely bit of work by Einstein. On the other hand, a visiting, elderly physicist who picked up the book on models that I am getting round to discussing expressed his disappointment that there wasn't at least one chapter dedicated to Playboy.

One word, so many meanings. I suppose that every scientist, no matter what his or her subject, will also be able to dredge up memories of models made as a child, models representing the large, the small, the inside, the outside, the geometry, the passage of time and more. So I looked forward to reading Models: The Third Dimension and to seeing how professional historians of science approached this fascinating topic.

The book itself is a collection of papers given at a conference in 1998 that took some six years to hit the bookshops—the subject of academic models is clearly not one that suffers from the pressures of competition and immediacy. Aside from an introduction and two commentary papers, there are 13 substantive papers shoehorned into sections entitled "Modelling and Enlightenment," "Disciplines and Display," and "New Media and Old." This partitioning may have worked well at the original meeting, but it made little sense to me (my focus is clearly more on content than form), particularly as it led to the dispersion of the three papers on anatomical topics and of the three papers on chemical and molecular models. Even if this organization reflects the way in which scientific historians think about models, it is not one intended to communicate a great deal to the rest of the scientific community and nor, I regret to say, did many of the papers. This was mainly because most of them stood alone, focusing on a particular aspect of the world of models in its local temporal context, rather than taking any broader view—although this may be what historians of science are expected to do. The net result is that the book has a fragmented feel, and its impact on a reader who is a scientist rather than a historian of science depends entirely on whether a significant number of the book's topics mesh with the interests of that reader.

Most of the book covers topics that I had the background to appreciate, and a few chapters were simply fascinating. I was drawn in to Thomas Schnalke's paper "Casting Skin," on moulages (or wax models of diseases, particularly skin disorders), items that were of key importance in educating dermatologists and checking diagnoses before the common availability of color photographs (something that this book cried out for). The chapter covers the history of moulages, their use, the techniques for making them, the physicians who used them, the mouleurs and mouleuses who modeled them, and the patients who were modeled. All in all, a very good read about...