Oxygen [Paperback]

The authors of this play comfortably inhabit both of C.P. Snow's "Two Cultures". Roald Hoffmann is a winner of the 1981 Nobel Prize in Chemistry and Carl Djerassi performed the first synthesis of a steroid oral contraceptive. Prior to "Oxygen", Hoffmann had published widely acclaimed poetry and other "cross cultural books" for scientists and non-scientists while Djerassi had published successful novels as well as a play and a book of poems.

Nobel Prizes are awarded to living practioners and the practice has been, where sharing is appropriate- usually in the sciences- no more than three co-awardees. But in 2001, the hundredth anniversary of the Nobel Prize, Astrid Rosenquist, the first female chair of a chemistry Nobel committee springs two surprises on her three male committee members. The first is that the Swedish Academy of Sciences will begin a new Retro-Nobel Prize for early discoveries. The second is the participation of a mysterious and alluring recorder or "amanuensis" named Ulla Zorn.

The play alternates scenes between the Court of King Carl Gustav the Third and the Stockholm of 2001. The discussion of candidates by the modern committee rapidly converges to the discovery of oxygen and the understanding of fire that transformed chemistry into a modern science. The problem is this-we now know that Scheele first discovered oxygen around 1771-2; Priestley discovered it totally independently in 1774, disclosed his discovery to Lavoisier during a visit to Paris in that year and published first. History proves that Scheele also disclosed his discovery in a letter addressed to Lavoisier two weeks before Priestley's visit. Lavoisier never responded to Scheele's letter. But Priestley and Scheele did not understand the significance of their discovery. They believed that the new "fire air" sucked an essence of fire (phlogiston) from burning matter. It was Lavoisier who understood that burning, rusting and respiration all involved addition of oxygen (oxidation) rather than loss of something to the air. One committee member, Bengt Hjalmarsson, is reasonably fluent in French and is assigned Lavoisier. Scheele is assigned to Sune Kallstenius, comfortable in the German language frequently employed by Scheele. Ulf Svanholm is assigned Priestley. Not surprisingly they each become advocates for their "charges". But other human frailties emerge. Bengt and Astrid have a history. Ulf harbors a grudge against Sune, who he is convinced, caused him to be "scooped" on his major discovery. The stage has been set to play off the issues of scientific priority, ambition and motivation, complicated by human passions, among powerful women and men of the eighteenth and twenty-first centuries. Indeed, it is the women who, according to Ms Zorn, are "...usually expected to clean up the dirt" and so they do by clarifying history and moving the modern committee to an acceptable concensus.

The issue of priority for the discovery of oxygen is to be settled in The Judgement of Stockholm. Did Lavoisier, Scheele and Priestley ever meet together? Probably not- but what an exciting thought. And in the best tradition of modern science, the critical experiments of one must be performed by another. There are thrilling scenes here: Lavoisier performing Scheele's generation of "fire-air" under the latter's supervision; Antoine confiding his intuition about Scheele to Marie ("I trust him"); Joseph to Mary about Scheele ("I trust him"); Carl Wilhelm to Fru Pohl on Lavoisier ("I do not trust him"). And there is an extra bonus. There is evidence that to celebrate their chemical revolution, Antoine and Marie performed a brief play or masque. Alas, the script, if one ever existed in writing, is unknown. But Djerassi and Hoffmann offer us a delight- Marie, as "oxygen" publicly humiliates and vanquishes Antoine, as "phlogiston", in a performance witnessed, with amusement, by King Carl Gustav and with increasing discomfort and then consternation by the Priestleys, Scheele and Fru Pohl.

The twists, surprises and the denouement will be left for the discovery of the reader. The authors have succeeded wonderfully in combining solid history, with the informed nuances and rich humor of two of the world's most accomplished scientists. Hoffmann and Djerassi do not recognize the boundaries of the "Two Cultures" and readers of this play will be the richer as a result. One last thought- the number of actors in this play is quite small and the settings simple. A reading of the play can be readily staged by high school or college chemistry classes. What a way to enliven chemical history and bridge the sciences, humanities and fine arts!

"Oxygen" offers an insider's glimpse into two facets of science often shrouded in mystery, but filled with expressions of human splendor--and folly: the struggle for recognition of ones scientific discoveries and the awarding of a Nobel Prize for discoveries deemed singularly important.

The playwrights, Carl Djerassi and Roald Hoffmann, have each contributed their own singular scientific discoveries and literary creations to the world. They use the occasion of the centenary of the Nobel Prizes to mirror fictional experiences involving the historical chemists Lavoisier, Priestley, and Scheele--and the women in their lives--with the arguments and self-reflections of a committee of modern-day Swedish scientists trying to award a retro-Nobel for the most important discovery in chemistry before 1901.

Both sets of characters, those of the 18th Century who discovered oxygen and those of the 21st who seek to honor that discovery, act out the passions that drive the men and women who pursue science--and do so in ways at home in either century. The play reveals to the reader, whether a student of science (of any age) or not, the issues and emotions that underlie a scientist's compulsion to question, and hopefully to understand, the workings of the natural world, all the while striving for primacy in discovery. The book offers a voyage of discovery worth taking.