A Sixth Sense: The Life and Science of Henri-Georges Doll, Oilfield Pioneer and Inventor

The first biography of the giant of engineering and geophysics.

On March 18, 1940, French army lieutenant Henri-Georges Doll came to the U.S. embassy in Paris to give a deposition before American Vice-Consul John Wood. Europe was at war. A graduate of two of France's grandes coles of science, engineering, and civil service, Doll had been summoned back from the French-German border to work on a new system for detecting land mines, which the Germans were deploying on a vast scale.

Doll's deposition, however, had nothing to do with war. He had come to the embassy to testify in a court case pending in Houston, Texas-a patent lawsuit, Schlumberger Well Surveying Corportion v. Halliburton Oil Well Cementing Company. It marked one of the first great industrial battles for control of the technology of oil and gas exploration.

One of the most prolific inventors of the twentieth century, Doll was a pioneer in the technology of "seeing underground" using electrical current, radio waves, and sound, which enabled the explosive growth of world oil production. He also directed his inventive genius toward military and medical research; but, as demonstrated in this important biography, his work had the deepest impact on commerce and engineering, which is still felt today.