Objects of inquiry in classical chemistry: material substances

I argue in the paper that classical chemistry is a science predominantly concerned with material substances, both useful materials and pure chemical substances restricted to scientific laboratory studies. The central epistemological and methodological status of material substances corresponds with the material productivity of classical chemistry and its way of producing experimental traces. I further argue that chemist??s ??pure substances?? have a history, conceptually and materially, and I follow their conceptual history from the Paracelsian concept of purity to the modern concept of pure stoichiometric compounds. The history of the concept of ??pure substances?? shows that modern chemists?? concept of purity abstracted from usefulness rather than being opposed to it. Thus modern chemists?? interest in pure chemical substances does not presuppose a concept of pure science.     

Contexts and Limits of Lavoisier's Analytical Plant Chemistry: Plant Materials and their Classification

Abstract

This paper concerns eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century chemists' ontologies of materials, along with their modes of classification. The focus is on plant substances, their place in the "chemical revolution" in the last third of the eighteenth century, and the ways in which chemists individuated, identified, and ordered plant substances in the five decades before and after that event. The main goal of the paper is to describe the problems that the "new chemists" confronted in their attempts to assimilate plant materials into their analytical taxonomic programme. Historical analysis shows that there were both external and internal obstacles to that assimilation, and these can be illuminated by studying the programme's broader historical context.     

Chemistry in Times of Artificial Intelligence

Chemists have to a large extent gained their knowledge by doing experiments and thus gather data. By putting various data together and then analyzing them, chemists have fostered their understanding of chemistry. Since the 1960s, computer methods have been developed to perform this process from data to information to knowledge. Simultaneously, methods were developed for assisting chemists in solving their fundamental questions such as the prediction of chemical, physical, or biological properties, the design of organic syntheses, and the elucidation of the structure of molecules. This eventually led to a discipline of its own: chemoinformatics. Chemoinformatics has found important applications in the fields of drug discovery, analytical chemistry, organic chemistry, agrichemical research, food science, regulatory science, material science, and process control. From its inception, chemoinformatics has utilized methods from artificial intelligence, an approach that has recently gained more momentum.     

Atom and aether in nineteenth-century physical science

This paper suggests that the cases made for atoms and the aether in nineteenth-century physical science were analogous, with the implication that the case for the atom was less than compelling, since there is no aether. It is argued that atoms did not play a productive role in nineteenth-century chemistry any more than the aether did in physics. Atoms and molecules did eventually find an indispensable home in chemistry but by the time that they did so they were different kinds of entities to those figuring in the speculations of those natural philosophers who were atomists. Advances in nineteenth-century chemistry were a precondition for rather than the result of the productive introduction of atoms into chemistry.

The Invention of Theoretische Chemie : Forms and Uses of German Chemistry Textbooks, 1775–1820

Abstract

The most significant outcome of an analysis of the German chemistry textbooks published between 1775 and 1820 was the emergence of the concept of theoretische Chemie. Rather than providing fundamental explanations for substances, affinities or reactions, theoretische Chemie ordered the available chemical facts. For the large group of university-based chemists who lacked technical facilities for experimental research, building these kinds of ordered systems proved an adequate way of contributing to chemistry. Furthermore, theoretische Chemie was important for the self-image of chemistry as a science by offering a framework for integrating new knowledge from various nonscientific fields of practice. In spite of this function, textbook authors discussed their very different ordered systems merely in terms of didactic appropriateness rather than in terms of scientific justification or correspondence with nature.     

近代化学巨匠:尤斯图斯?冯?李比希

尤斯图斯?冯?李比希是近代化学史上最杰出的化学家之一。李比希的人生经历中蕴含着许多教学元素,如教育报国,创新改革化学教育模式;不畏艰难,开拓学科新领域;开放创新,创建基于大学的自然科学学派;辩证唯物,坚持真理的科学态度;学以致用,联系实际的实践精神等值得我们深入分析,并将其精华在新时代的教学育人和学科建设中实践应用。     

What did “theory” mean to nineteenth-century chemists?

Some recent philosophers of science have argued that chemistry in the nineteenth century “largely lacked theoretical foundations, and showed little progress in supplying such foundations” until around 1900, or even later. In particular, nineteenth-century atomic theory, it is said, “played no useful part” in the crowning achievement of nineteenth-century chemistry, the powerful subdiscipline of organic chemistry. This paper offers a contrary view. The idea that chemistry only gained useful theoretical foundations when it began to merge with physics, it will be argued, is based on an implicit conception of scientific theory that is too narrow, and too exclusively oriented to the science of physics. A broader understanding of scientific theory, and one that is more appropriate to the science of chemistry, reveals the essential part that theory played in the development of chemistry in the nineteenth century. It also offers implications for our understanding of the nature of chemical theory today.     

Crisis, change and creativity in science and technology: chemistry in the aftermath of twentieth-century global wars

This paper presents the organising ideas behind the symposium "Chemistry in the Aftermath of World Wars," held at the 23rd International Congress of History of Science and Technology, Budapest, 2009, whose theme was "Ideas and Instruments in Social Context." After first recounting the origins of the notion of "crisis" as a decisive turning point in general history as well as in the history of science, the paper presents war and its aftermath as a form of crisis that may affect science and technology, including chemistry, in a variety of contexts and leading to a variety of types of change. The twentieth-century world wars were exemplary forms of crisis, whose aftermaths shaped the contexts for decisive changes in modern chemistry, which continue to offer challenging opportunities for historical research. In discussing these, the paper cites selected current literature and briefly describes how the individual papers of the symposium, including the three papers published in this volume, approached these challenges.     

新型能力框架下高等分析化学研究生课程的构建

课程是实现教育目标的主要载体。本研究根据材料化学类研究生的需要,以"高等分析化学"课程为研究对象,采用"教学研、立体化"的课程教学理念,构建了"探究式"教学方法。在课堂教学中采用以问题导入为驱动、科研探究和知识传授为基础、第一课堂和第二课堂相结合的能力框架体系。通过几年的实践,该体系日臻完善,效果良好,充分实现了教与学的完美统一,为材料化学类研究生的科研能力培养打下良好基础,有利于将当代研究生培养成为既掌握理论知识又具有实践能力的综合型人才。     

Off the Beaten Track—A Hitchhiker's Guide to Beryllium Chemistry

This Minireview aims to give an introduction to beryllium chemistry for all less‐experienced scientists in this field of research. Up to date information on the toxicity of beryllium and its compounds are reviewed and several basic and necessary guidelines for a safe and proper handling in modern chemical research laboratories are presented. Interesting phenomenological observations are described that are related directly to the uniqueness of this element, which are also put into historical context. Herein we combine the contributions and experiences of many scientist that work passionately in this field. We want to encourage fellow scientists to reconcile the long‐standing reservations about beryllium and its compounds and motivate intense research on this spurned element. Who on earth should be able to deal with beryllium and its compounds if not chemists?     

Origins and spread of the "Giessen Model" in university science

In seeking to understand the rise of Justus Liebig's model for research and teaching, three interrelated and overlapping factors intrinsic to his specialty of organic chemistry have not been sufficiently brought into the explanatory field: the discovery of isomers, the novel practice of using "paper tools," and the "Kaliapparat" method of organic analysis. The existence of these three interacting factors, all of which emerged suddenly and essentially simultaneously around 1830, led to an explosive expansion in the new field of organic chemistry. Moreover, they made it a uniquely positioned context within which to create in Germany the practices that eventually were associated with all modern research universities. For comparative purposes, the spread of the new model to France, and more briefly, to the United States is also examined here. The eclectic approach used in this paper places greater emphasis on the contingencies of time, place, and discipline than many earlier studies of this problem have done; it is thus intended to provide a helpful complementary perspective.     

The Lewis legacy: the chemical bond--a territory and heartland of chemistry

Is chemistry a science without a territory? I argue that "chemical bonding" has been a traditional chemical territory ever since the chemical community amalgamated in the seventeenth century, and even before. The modern charter of this territory is Gilbert Newton Lewis, who started the "electronic structure revolution in chemistry." As a tribute to Lewis, I describe here three of his key papers from the years 1913, 1916, and 1923, and analyze them. Lewis has defined the quantum unit, the "electron pair bond," for construction of a chemical universe, and in so doing he charted a vast chemical territory and affected most profoundly the mental map of chemistry for generations ahead. Nevertheless, not all is known about the chemical bond" the chemical territory is still teaming with new and exciting problems of in new materials, nanoparticles, quantum dots, metalloenzymes, bonding at surface-vapor interfaces, and so on and so forth.     

发现化学之美感悟科学魅力

本文指出化学教学的关键,在于引导学生发现化学之美,感悟科学魅力,激发学生的学习兴趣及创造潜能。全文阐述了化学的外在美、揭示了化学的内在美———化学学科思想 (科学之美 )、崇尚化学家的人生之美及化学教师的人格之美。作者认为：化学教师的人格之美源自“以学生发展为本”的教育理念和对学生及化学教育事业的挚爱。本文旨在倡导广大教师更新教育观念,增强自身素质,升华崇高人格,真正实现化学教学中“教师快乐教学,学生享受学习”。     

“双一流”建设背景下化学拔尖班学生的国际化培养模式探索与实践

四川大学化学学院于2009年开始实施"化学拔尖学生培养试验计划",致力于培养化学领域领军人才。在化学学科入选教育部"双一流"学科建设的背景下,学院立足本专业特点、依托校院两级资源,从师资、课程、学生、办学等多方面构建拔尖学生国际化培养体系,做出了诸多尝试并取得了良好的成效。本文在对现有国际化建设策略讨论的基础上,进一步对加强拔尖学生全球胜任力进行思考、提出建议。     

Wissenschaft und Patriotismus. Der deutsch‐französische Krieg 1870/71

Much has been published about the role of chemistry in both world wars. However, little is known about the role of chemistry in the Franco‐Prussian war of 1870/71, a war, which killed and injured more people than any previous conflict of the modern age, although it lasted only 190 days. The French and the German Chemical Societies supported their nations' respective war efforts: The German chemists successfully supplied their army with disinfectants, namely carbolic acid; while the French chemists tried to improve the supply of munitions and food to their besieged capital Paris.     

对单原子催化术语的讨论

单原子催化,是由我国化学家提出的一个新概念,近年来在多相催化领域引领了一波研究热潮。单原子气体,是中学化学教育中的重要知识点。单原子催化这一术语,在文字上与单原子气体非常相似,但又有着完全不同的意义,存在一定的误导性,值得商榷。     

柳大纲的广博与执著

柳大纲(1904-1991)是20世纪中国著名的化学家、卓越的科研组织者和领导者,是中国硅酸盐化学、盐湖化学和光谱学等方向的先驱,是中国近现代科技史上推动前科学向科学质变的代表人物。他的早期科研经历和成长过程显示,他不仅推动了传统手工业陶瓷、制盐等向现代工业的革新,还使用完善的科学范式与方法来研究陶瓷、玻璃和制盐过程。以上这些积累,使他于1958年以“赛马式”研发模式推动了盐湖钾肥和硼砂生产由手工业跃进到现代工业。他参与筹建并领导中科院化学所,规划和发展其研究领域,进而以中科院化学所为孵育基地,抽调该所力量,建设了中科院青海盐湖所等多个研究机构。他重视人才培养,重视发展中国化学会和期刊建设工作。     

The emancipation of chemistry

In his classic work The Mind and its Place in Nature published in 1925?at the height of the development of quantum mechanics but several years after the chemists Lewis and Langmuir had already laid the foundations of the modern theory of valence with the introduction of the covalent bond, the analytic philosopher C. D. Broad argued for the emancipation of chemistry from the crass physicalism that led physicists then and later??with support from a rabblement of philosophers who knew as much about chemistry as etymologists??to believe that chemistry reduced to physics. Here Broad??s thesis is recast in terms more familiar to chemists. In the hard sell of particle physics, several prominent figures in chemistry??Hoffmann, Primas, and Pauling??have had their views interpreted to imply that they were sympathetic to greedy reductionism when in fact they were not. Indeed, being chemists without physicists as alter egos, they could not but side with Broad??s contention that chemistry, as a science that deals primarily in emergent phenomena which are beyond the purview of physicalism, owes no acquiescence to particle physics and its ethereal wares. Historically, among the most widely used expediencies in chemistry and materials science are additivity or mixture rules and their cohort transferability, all of which are devised and used under the mantle of naive reductionism. Here it is argued that while the transfer of functional groups between molecules works empirically to an extent, it is strictly outlawed by the no-cloning theorem of quantum mechanics. Several illustrative examples related to chemistry??s irreducibility to physics are presented and discussed. The failure of naive reductionism exhibited by the deep-inelastic scattering of leptons by A?>?2 nuclei is traced to the same flawed reasoning that was the original basis of Moffitt??s ??atoms in molecules?? hypothesis, the neglect of context, nuclei in the case of high-energy physics and molecules in the case of chemistry. A non-exhaustive list of other contexts from physics, chemistry, and molecular biology evidencing similar departures from the ideal of additivity or reductionism is provided for the perusal of philosophers. Had the call by the mathematician J. T. Schwartz for developments in mathematical linguistics possessed of a less single, less literal, and less simple-minded nature been met, perhaps it might have persuaded scientists to abandon their regressive fixation with unphysical reductionism and to adapt to new methodologies that engender a more nuanced handling of ubiquitous emergent phenomena as they arise in Nature than is the case today.     

构建“葡萄糖”立体化教学案例启迪科研创新思维

构建了"葡萄糖"立体化教学案例,将葡萄糖在生命体系中的代谢平衡、消化吸收、分子转运、糖尿病成因、血糖检测、无创诊断技术、分子诊疗等领域的研究串联起来,从微观与宏观、疾病与健康、生活应用与科研前沿的不同角度来展示相关内容。将该案例用于化学与生命相关知识的教学,探索其在本科生科研创新思维训练中的应用。     

“基础学科拔尖学生培养试验计划”中的物理化学教学

依托化学学科构建的"山东大学泰山学堂"培养模式,是以"培养一大批拔尖创新人才,使之成为相关基础学科领域的领军人物,并逐步跻身国际一流科学家队伍"为主旨。针对物理化学教学,关键是根据学生水平选择好教材,合理取舍授课的重点和内容,进行多元、多种、多次灵活授课;在传授物理化学基础知识、学习方法的同时,挖掘学生的创新能力,使学生具有较好的物理化学素养和强劲的适应能力。同时,注重理论和实验(课题组创新实验)结合,引导学生感悟"理论-实验-创新-创造-再理论"的认识深化过程。