Melvin A. Cook papers, 1802-1989

Melvin Alonzo Cook is a physical chemist with experimental, theoretical, and industrial contributions. The diversity of his career is represented from its beginning as an explosives research chemist at Du Pont to Professor of Metallurgy at the University of Utah. He founded a major corporation, IRECO Chemicals, based on his development of a new field of industrial explosives known as "slurry." Throughout his life he also contributed numerous writings in science and religion.

His living circumstances have been similarly diverse from rural roots to a life of numerous challenges and world travel. He was born in 1911 to Alonzo Laker and Maude Osmond Cook at Swan Creek, Utah, near Bear Lake, and was the third child in a family of ten children. The family soon moved from Bear Lake to Bothwell, Utah where they acquired a dry farm. They were isolated some distance from neighbors; many hours were spent at a large "round table" telling stories, discussing histories, and teaching religion. Music was also part of family life and the children were provided with musical instruments. Melvin learned to play the clarinet which provided employment and recreation during his high school and college years.

Education was very important to Cook's parents: his father, an electrical engineering graduate, and mother, a gifted poet, were a great influence in his life. All nine of their surviving children were college graduates. Cook attended the University of Utah and graduated with a B.A. in chemistry in 1933 and an M.A. in physical chemistry in 1934. He received a Ph.D. in 1937 from Yale University in physical chemistry and was the recipient of the Loomis Fellowship given to the top Ph.D. graduate in chemistry. It provided the large sum at that time of fifteen hundred dollars. Professors Blare Saxton in thermodynamics; Lars Onsager, Nobel laureate, and H. S. Harned in electrochemistry; and A. J. Hill in organic chemistry all provided outstanding instruction and research guidance at Yale which resulted in the publication of five articles on thermo-electrochemistry of aqueous solutions in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, before Cook's graduation, and in his dissertation, "Thermodynamics of Potassium Hydroxide Solution from Electromotive Force Measurements."

Cook married Wanda Garfield, a graduate of Brigham Young University and elementary school teacher, on June 19, 1935, after his first year at Yale. She returned with him in the fall of 1935 to New Haven, where they lived until his graduate work was complete. Cook's first job offer came from Eastern Laboratory of Du Pont Company four months before graduation. This was readily accepted, in spite of the suggestion from Professor Hill that he wait to consider other, perhaps better, offers. The interviewer, Dr. Walter Lawson, was very persuasive and financial need was a primary concern. The Cooks moved from New Haven to Woodbury, New Jersey, which was home for ten years. Four of their children were born there: Barbara Jean in 1937, Melvin Garfield in 1940, Virginia in 1943, and Merrill Alonzo in 1946. Krehl Osmond, the fifth child, was born in 1949 in Salt Lake City, Utah.

The early years at Du Pont were inspired by access to perhaps the finest explosives library in the world, and Cook became familiar with English, German, and French explosives literature. There were also many opportunities to travel in North America introducing the new explosives he developed such as Nitramon A and EL357, an oil well explosive. Nitramon A was an improvement on the Nitramon patent that became the most popular explosive in open pit blasting for more than 20 years. It required a high pressure booster for initiation instead of a blasting cap, a very important safety factor. EL357 eliminated the need for the very sensitive and dangerous liquid nitroglycerin for shooting deep oil, water, and gas wells.

Cook's most important development during the Du Pont period was his "Theory of Detonation," published first for commercial use but later revised for military application. Given to the Allies during World War II, it is considered one of the major developments in the history of explosives. It is an important part of his book The Science of High Explosives, American Chemical Society Monograph No. 139, first published in 1958.

During World War II, Cook served as Du Pont's representative on the "Brain Trust" that included approximately 25 of America's leading physical scientists such as Einstein, Eyring, Bethe, Gamov, and Kistiakowsky. They worked primarily on theories of explosives and detonation. Most commercial work was discontinued during the war in order to concentrate effort on military explosives and explosive devices. Cook's work on shaped charges substantially improved the effectiveness of the Bazooka. The original patent was bought from Mohaupt in France, but it could not penetrate German tanks until the improvements were made. He received a special citation by the U.S. Army at Picatinny Arsenal May 1992, for this and other important contributions.

Cook worked closely with Eyring and his students at Princeton after meeting him on the "brain trust." Eyring accepted the position of Dean of the Graduate School at the University of Utah in 1946, and encouraged Cook to pursue a position at the University. The offer of Full Professor of Metallurgy with tenure came in 1947. The idea of returning home to Utah had great appeal for his family. Cook left Du Pont at that time and moved his family to Utah, but was retained as a consultant for five years.

As Professor of Metallurgy at the University of Utah, Cook taught solid state physics and surface chemistry and directed research for doctorate candidates. His work there included the development of his flotation theory in 1947, which he defended for about ten years against two other theories proposed by Guadin of MIT and Taggart of Columbia, until Cook's theory was accepted by the scientific community. Studies on the adsorption of gases on solids were published in 1948. Cook was called on later in 1970 to analyze and publish results on adsorption of rare gases on moon rock.

The U.S. Armed Services came to the University in 1952 to discuss undertaking a research project that resulted in Cook's directorship of the Explosives Research Group (ERG) and the Institute of Metals and Explosives Research (IMER). These projects brought to the University substantial research funds and accomplished some of the important research into the mechanism of detonation.

Cook served as a consultant for at least one hundred different companies throughout the world: in America, Canada, England, Germany, Switzerland, Africa, and Australia. He was called to the committee of scientists chosen to investigate the Texas City disaster of 1947, when two shiploads of ammonium nitrate fertilizer blew up in the harbor at Galveston, Texas, destroying the surrounding areas and killing over 600 people including 300 scientists in the Monsanto Laboratory. He became the expert witness for the plaintiffs. Cook consulted for the Association of American Railroads from 1948-1951 regarding the tariffs for the hazards involved in the transportation of explosives. He also served on an Armed Services advisory committee on the Minute Man for Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey, and the ad hoc committee for Cryogenic Propellants.

Cook's greatest commercial explosives invention was formulated in December of 1956, while consulting for Iron Ore Company of Canada at the Knob Lake Mine in Labrador, where he created a new blasting agent using an unusual mixture of ammonium nitrate, aluminum powder, and water. The safety and efficiency of this new explosive were apparent, and the use of water was revolutionary. Tests that followed resulted in the development of a new field of explosives: slurry explosives, boosters, and pump trucks for their bulk delivery. This invention converted the commercial explosives industry from "dangerous dynamite" to "safe slurry" and dry blasting agents, ANFO.

As a result of the Knob Lake experiment, the Iron Ore Company of Canada supported research on slurry explosives beginning in 1957. Following increased demand for research work and boosters, the Intermountain research and Engineering Company was organized in 1958 by Dr. Cook and six graduate students: Douglas Pack, Robert Keyes, Robert Clay, Wayne Ursenbach, Kirkwood Collins, and Earl Pound. Mesabi Blasting Agents was founded in 1960 for operation on the Mesabi Iron Range. In 1963 these two companies merged and became IRECO Chemicals, a worldwide operation.

IRECO serviced some of the largest mines in the world from 1962 to 1964 including Eagle Mountain, California; Palabora, South Africa; and Hammersley, Australia. By 1965 these operations had spread into Scandinavia, Switzerland, Germany, and England. IRECO continued to grow, and in 1966 half the shares of this privately held company were acquired by Rio Tinto Zinc (RTZ) London. RTZ owned some of the largest mines in the world, and this purchase gave them an advantageous supply of explosives for their mines.

The years Cook spent at IRECO involved much world travel in order to establish new accounts and apply expertise to improving blasting methods at leading mining companies. This also included the writing of many technical papers on explosives and blasting. As a result of the many developments at IRECO during these years, over 100 patents regarding new types of slurry and emulsion blasting agents and delivery methods were filed. Cook kept a complete record of career travel, spanning the years 1934 to 1985, to six continents of the world and often remote areas where many mines were located. Family members were included in many of these interesting and unusual trips.

Cook was President of IRECO until 1972 when he oldest son, M. Garfield Cook, became President. After two difficult proxy battles in 1970 and 1974 Cook also resigned the Chairmanship of the Board of Directors. The last important work he completed while at IRECO was his book The Science of Industrial Explosives, published in 1974.

Gulf Resources and Chemical Corporation of Houston, Texas acquired IRECO Chemicals in 1975 and retained the IRECO management group. IRECO had become a leading commercial explosives company throughout the world by 1974 and has remained so since. To continue the IRECO history, the company was eventually acquired in 1984 by DYNO Industries AS, Oslo, Norway.

In 1973, Cook and his son, Merrill A. Cook, formed Cook Associates for consulting purposes. They undertook the development of a new patented slurry and pump truck system. Atlas Powder Company approached them to buy it and they became associated with Atlas during 1977 working on the Iron Range in Minnesota. After the contract with Atlas terminated, other new pump trucks and slurry products, such as their emulsion perchlorate slurry, were invented and marketed by Cook Associates dba Cook Slurry Company. In 1994 Cook sold his interest in Cook Associates and its successors to Merrill A. Cook.

Cook had effectively been on retirement since 1983 and began work again on his three volume autobiography. The project began originally in 1973 with Volume I, which is a treasure for posterity of genealogical information, family histories, and photographs. However, much of his time was devoted to prehistory. Cook has always held a close relationship between his scientific and religious philosophies. The usual tendency is to keep science and religion separate, but he has often worked allowing science and religion to augment each other with careful attention to observational and experimental fact, using mathematics as the means for making the connections.

The belief that religion, specifically Mormonism, held keys to a fundamental understanding of many scientific principles and the universe, occasionally surfaced in Cook's writings and talks. In his Reynolds lecture in 1952 he went outside the printed text to mention that he thought the real source of solar energy was "borrowed light," i.e. accretion, and that nuclear fusion was a minor contribution, if any at all. This resulted in mild attack several days later in the seminar reviewing his Reynolds lecture.

Another conflict in the scientific community was instigated when Cook was asked by a General Authority of the LDS Church, Joseph Fielding Smith, to write "An Introduction" to his new book Man: His Origin and Destiny. The strong criticism of this book led Cook to a position of defending it and to a deeper involvement in issues pertaining to Science and Religion. He gained notoriety and perhaps some acceptance when he announced, in a well-publicized seminar at the University of Utah, that evolution violated the second law of thermodynamics. The press carried an article throughout the country regarding the idea. That fall the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Switzerland carried on a vigorous discussion of the issue. The next year a formal conference was held at Wistar Institute in Philadelphia to debate the subject. Most agreed that evolution does indeed violate the second law of thermodynamics, however, the conference came up with another theory, unproved, which they called "negentropy." Scientists needed to believe that there was increasing complexity with random mutation. Cook's efforts in this area have been devoted to showing that "negentropy" is a fallacious concept.

After these beginnings, Cook has delved deeply into the area of science and religion and has written bulletins, pamphlets, scientific articles, and three books in this area, of which two-Prehistory and Earth Models, and Scientific Prehistory--are almost exclusively scientific with religious implications. The third, Science and Mormonism, co-authored with M. Garfield Cook, openly describes both viewpoints in detail. A characteristic of these writings is that they deal extensively with experimental fact. Englishman Alasdair Beal, in a review of Prehistory and Earth Models described Cook's writing as a Creationist, saying that his approach is "intelligent and restrained."

These special scientific and religious interests have been for Cook a consuming interest and life's work, propelled by a deep focus and almost religious belief in the designated purpose of his life. Occasionally, he enjoys music and has served in various capacities in the Church of Christ of Latter-day Saints. Future hobbies will require more listening, as Cook can no longer read books or work at his computer without a large magnifying glass. In later life, he developed macular degeneration and lost most of his vision.

Cook has published over 200 scientific articles in leading journals in the fields of electrochemistry, surface chemistry, solid state and plasma physics, universal gravitation, explosives, prehistory, science and religion. He has also written six books, including the classics in the field of explosives, The Science of High Explosives, ACS Monograph No. 139, The Science of Industrial Explosives, and chapters in three other books.

The diversity of Cook's theoretical, experimental work and writings is evident, but he has been recognized primarily for his development of a new field of explosives: slurry explosives, boosters, and pump trucks for their bulk delivery. This has contributed enormously to the safety and cost effectiveness of the industry by replacing "unsafe dynamite" as a primary product. Cook patented over 100 inventions in the field of explosives, and received several awards in recognition of these contributions, among which are: Nitro-Nobel Gold Medallion, Stockholm, 1968; Chemical Pioneer Award, American Institute of Chemists, 1973; and the E. V. Murphree Award, American Chemical Society, 1968.