Chivalrous Chemistry

In Science as Public Culture (1992), Jan Golinski argued that Humphry Davy’s career was “substantially responsible” for allowing chemistry to emerge “with greatly enhanced esteem and respectability” from the “crisis” of the 1790s, when it had become associated with the radical politics of the chemists Joseph Priestley (1733–1804) and Thomas Beddoes (1760–1808). In this paper, I will flesh out the transformation noted by Golinski of chemistry into a respectable discipline under Davy’s tenure at the Royal Institution. The dissociation of chemistry from radical politics was achieved through the influence of Davy’s upper-class, female-audience at the Institution. Davy’s audience wanted chivalry, therefore Davy made his chemistry chivalrous. To borrow from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s (1772–1834) assessment of his friend in 1804, Davy was “more and more determined to mould himself upon the age in order to make the age mould itself upon him.”     

Humphry Davy: Analogy,Priority, and the “true philosopher”

This essay explores how Davy fashioned himself as, what he called in his poetry, a “true philosopher.” He defined the “true philosopher” as someone who eschewed monetary gain for his scientific work, preferring instead to give knowledge freely for the public good, and as someone working at a higher level than the mere experimentalist. Specifically, Davy presented himself as using the method of analogy to reach his discoveries and emphasised that he understood the “principle” behind his findings. He portrayed himself as one who perceived analogies because he had a wider perspective on the world than many others in his society. The poem in which he describes the “true philosopher” offers us Davy’s private view of this character; the essay then demonstrates how Davy attempted to depict his own character in this way during critical moments in his career.     

Humphry Davy and the Problem of Analogy

Analogy, the comparison of one set of relations to another, was essential to Humphry Davy’s understanding of chemistry. Throughout his career, Davy used analogical reasoning to direct and to interpret his experimental analyses of the chemical reactions between substances. In his writing, he deployed analogies to organise and to explain his theories about the relations between physical processes and between the properties of different chemical elements and compounds. But Davy also regularly expressed two concerns about analogical comparison: first, that it was founded not on the rational interpretation of facts but on imaginative speculation; and second, that it was a kind of rhetoric, the persuasiveness of which depended not on material evidence but on misleading figures of speech. This article discusses the influences that informed Davy’s ambivalent assessment of the value of analogy, and it examines the distinct yet overlapping ways in which this assessment was expressed in his notebooks, his lectures and treatises on chemistry, his philosophical writings, and his poetry.     

Research strategies in click chemistry: Measuring its cognitive contents and knowledge flow

The issue about how outstanding scientists obtained innovative findings has drawn the interest of researchers in science, policy and scientometrics. Here, we attempt to address this question by using computational methods to measure the cognitive content and concepts of K. Barry Sharpless’ research and estimate the knowledge flow of his click chemistry to other fields. First, we traced Sharpless' conceptual journey over time through topic modeling approach, mapping and clustering of the epistemic network from distant reading his publications. We find that connectivity and functions, the core features of click chemistry, are embodied in his constant search for simplicity. What makes simplicity possible is his continuous work with collaborators on reactivity and reaction mechanisms. Moreover, citation and link analysis show that click chemistry had a much richer impact on other research fields than what is generally acknowledged, and drew solutions to significant and practical questions back to chemistry from biology. Together with these findings, we propose that the click chemistry philosophy follows the way that values nature's principle. Chemistry has a clear-cut epistemic domain in modeling Nature. Thus, click chemistry as a concept on doing science beyond a connective technology goes across the boundaries between disciplines and impacts many other fields.     

“The Fitness of Their Union”: Travel and Health in the Letters of Humphry and Jane Davy

The letters of Humphry Davy and his circle, to be published shortly, shed new light on his marriage to Jane Apreece. This paper examines the journeys undertaken by the couple, together and separately, with particular attention to the therapeutic benefits they sought from travel. I argue that their increasingly divergent itineraries reflected a growing understanding that Humphry and Jane had different humoral temperaments or constitutions, leading them to seek different climatic conditions to cure their ailments. While Jane’s temperament was classified as melancholic, requiring her to travel to warmer and sunnier climes during the English winter, Humphry’s was believed to be sanguine, meaning he had to avoid excessive heat along with stimulating food and drink. He relied on classical ideas about individuals’ different humoral constitutions, and the therapies appropriate to them, while measuring atmospheric variables to determine the best places to restore his health. The Davys’ letters reveal the beliefs about bodily differences and atmospheric conditions that shaped their therapeutic travels.     

Robert Hare's Theory of Galvanism: A Study of Heat and Electricity in Early Nineteenth-Century American Chemistry

As a professor of chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania, Robert Hare actively shaped early American science. He participated in a large network of scholars, including Joseph Henry, François Arago, and Jacob Berzelius, and experimented with and wrote extensively about electricity and its associated chemical and thermal phenomena. In the early nineteenth century, prominent chemists such as Berzelius and Humphry Davy proclaimed that a revolution had occurred in chemistry through electrical research. Examining Robert Hare’s contributions to this discourse, this paper analyzes how Hare’s study of electricity and the caloric theory of heat led him to propose a new theory of galvanism. It also examines the reception of Hare’s work in America and Great Britain, highlighting the contributions of early American chemists to the development of electrochemistry.     

Louis Pasteur,Chemical Linguist: Founding the Language of Stereochemistry

Pasteur’s major discovery in chemistry was the recognition of molecular chirality, in 1848. He understood that his new science needed its own language, and introduced new terminology and nomenclature, thereby launching modern stereochemical language. He was eminently prepared for this task as a refined user of language, skills recognized by his election to the Académie française, the supreme institution for the protection and promotion of the French language. The terms chiral and chirality did not exist at the time and he adopted the French word dissymmétrie (dissymmetry) for the phenomenon of handedness. Although in his time almost nothing was known about molecular constitution and configuration, his insights allowed him to create useful language some of which is still used today in stereochemistry, e. g., racemic for the 1 : 1 mixture of the two enantiomers, and the use of the prefixes levo‐ and dextro‐ in the names of optically active substances. On the other hand, the limitations in the knowledge of organic chemistry at the time prevented him from creating some needed terms, e. g., for the phenomenon of diastereoisomerism. He also failed to adopt the enantio terminology introduced in the 1850s by German mineralogist Carl Friedrich Naumann. Analysis of Pasteur’s linguistic innovations is of interest from the point of view of the history of chemistry and is also useful in throwing light on the fundamental nature of the concepts of stereochemistry. Such understanding has acquired a new relevance due to the considerable misuse and misunderstanding of this language seen in the literature today.     

Chemistry,Mechanics and the Making of Anatomical Knowledge: Boerhaave vs. Ruysch on the Nature of the Glands

Abstract

A controversy between the well-known medical teacher Herman Boerhaave and the anatomist Frederik Ruysch on the nature of the glands shows how chemical knowledge had a decisive influence on the way in which Boerhaave perceived the anatomy and working of the glands. While Ruysch maintained that the glands are no more than the extremities of arteries and act as mechanical instruments separating the fluids into smaller particles, Boerhaave examined the glands as membranous follicles in which chemical processes prepare the fluids for their different uses in the body. Boerhaave, in other words, turned to the chemical properties of particles rather than the vessels that contain them. Boerhaave's viewpoint was new and resulted from his belief in chemistry as the discipline par excellence for the explanation of the most basic processes in the body. More than anything else, the controversy shows how chemistry was not contained within fixed disciplinary boundaries, but had a decisive influence on Boerhaave's construction of anatomical knowledge.     

Sir Humphry Davy: Boundless Chemist,Physicist, Poet and Man of Action

The years 2007 and 2008 mark the bi‐centenary of two brilliant discoveries by Sir Humphry Davy: the isolation of sodium and potassium (1807) and the subsequent first observation (1808) of the beautiful blue and bronze colours now known to be characteristic of the solvated electron¹ in potassium–ammonia systems. In celebration of these dazzling discoveries, we reflect on Davy’s many extraodinary contributions to science, technology and poetry. Humphry Davy, a truly great man, of Cornish spirit, brought immeasurable benefits to humankind.     

Michael Faraday's Contributions to Archaeological Chemistry

The analysis of ancient artefacts is a long but largely neglected thread within the histories of archaeology and chemistry. This paper examines Michael Faraday's contributions to this nascent field, drawing on his published correspondence and the works of his antiquarian collaborators, and focusing in particular on his analyses of Romano-British and ancient Egyptian artefacts. Faraday examined the materials used in ancient Egyptian mummification, and provided the first proof of the use of lead glazes on Roman ceramics. Beginning with an assessment of Faraday's personal interests and early work on antiquities with Humphry Davy, this paper critically examines the historiography of archaeological chemistry and attempts to place Faraday's work within its institutional, intellectual, and economic contexts.     

“Agricultural Chymistry is at present in it's infancy”: The Board of Agriculture,The Royal Institution and Humphry Davy

In this paper I sketch the institutional interactions between the Board of Agriculture and the Royal Institution in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. This includes analysing the composition of memberships and committees of both bodies in which, inter alia, I challenge Morris Berman's account of their institutional relations. A key figure was Humphry Davy who, because of his career ambitions, occupied a slightly uncomfortable position as Professor of Chemistry to both organisations. Davy's lecture notebooks and his subsequent publication Elements of Agricultural Chemistry reveal that he drew almost all his direct knowledge of the subject from Britain and Ireland. Yet, despite such parochial shortcomings that might be expected of an infant science at time of war, the popularity of his book, particularly in North America, provided continuity between the end of the Board of Agriculture in 1822 and the start of the impact of Justus Liebig's work in the 1840s.     

Chemistry, mechanics and the making of anatomical knowledge: Boerhaave vs. Ruysch on the nature of the glands

A controversy between the well-known medical teacher Herman Boerhaave and the anatomist Frederik Ruysch on the nature of the glands shows how chemical knowledge had a decisive influence on the way in which Boerhaave perceived the anatomy and working of the glands. While Ruysch maintained that the glands are no more than the extremities of arteries and act as mechanical instruments separating the fluids into smaller particles, Boerhaave examined the glands as membranous follicles in which chemical processes prepare the fluids for their different uses in the body. Boerhaave, in other words, turned to the chemical properties of particles rather than the vessels that contain them. Boerhaave's viewpoint was new and resulted from his belief in chemistry as the discipline par excellence for the explanation of the most basic processes in the body. More than anything else, the controversy shows how chemistry was not contained within fixed disciplinary boundaries, but had a decisive influence on Boerhaave's construction of anatomical knowledge.     

Science and Arts,Philosophy and Science: Why after All? Why Not?

This perspective summarizes some interdisciplinary aspects of science and the relation to philosophy, also including the basic motivations and aims as they might be discussed with young scientists starting their careers and presented also in the form of a commencement speech. The contents of this speech were repeatedly discussed also with Jack Dunitz, who showed great interest in it, given his broad interests. The speech also referred to an earlier commencement speech by Jack Dunitz in 1989. In the introduction of our essay, we mention the early common history of science and humanities under the name of philosophy. This early history can be traced back to ancient Greek philosophy and the ‘academy’ of Platon in Athens with a history of more than 1000 years until closure in 529 AD, in modern times revived as the National Greek Academy in Athens in the 19th and 20th centuries. Other ‘academies’ in Europe started in the 17th century and had publications under various names involving ‘philosophy’ with a focus on what we call science (natural science) today. After about 1800 there was increasing fragmentation of the various fields of knowledge and philosophy was considered to be part of the modern ‘humanities’ quite separate from science, and the natural sciences were fragmented into physics, chemistry, biology etc., and even finer subdivisions. The essay also describes an effort at ETH Zurich, reintegrating the various subfields of science and also stressing an education of scientists and engineers in the humanities. The essay concludes with a discussion of several global risks for mankind and a scientific imperative to maintain life on Earth. The common aspects and the foundations of all sciences as fields of knowledge aiming for an understanding of the world around us and of human beings as part of it are discussed from various perspectives.     

Viewing chemistry through its ways of classifying

The focus of this contribution lies on eighteenth-century chemistry up to Lavoisier’s anti-phlogistic chemical system. Some main features of chemistry in this period will be examined by discussing classificatory practices and the understanding of the substances these practices imply. In particular, the question will be discussed of whether these practices can be regarded as natural historical practices and, hence, whether chemistry itself was a special natural history (part I). Furthermore, discussion of the famous Methode de nomenclature chimique (1787) raises the question of what modes of classification tell us about chemists’ understanding of the substances they deal with (part II). Finally, in investigating what taxonomic orders reveal about deep structures of chemists’ understanding of the world of substances, the contribution will examine the question of whether Lavoisier’s anti-phlogistic chemical system was a revolution on the level of a deep structure or a revision within the untouched frame of such a structure (part III).     

Enlightenment Chemistry Translated by a Brazilian Man of Science in Lisbon

Abstract

The Brazilian-born man of science Martim Francisco de Andrada (1775–1844) actively participated in some of the major publishing activities of the Portuguese Enlightenment, notably in the Arco do Cego printing house. For many Brazilians, technical and scientific activities provided a path to becoming part of the administrative system of the Portuguese Empire. This paper examines Andrada’s work as translator of Torbern Bergman’s book Sciagraphia Regni Mineralis, secundum principia proxima digesti, originally published in Latin in 1782 and soon translated into French. A comparison between the Portuguese and French editions allows us to understand the different ways in which translators intervened in texts. Martim Francisco established a dialogue both with Bergman and with his translators, Jean-André Mongez and Jean-Claude Delamétherie, in addition to the challenge of having to deal with the propositions set forward by the new pneumatic chemistry. We argue that the Brazilian translator’s main objective was to explore the possibilities of using the book as a teaching and fieldwork manual. From this perspective, the resulting translation gains significance when read at the confluence of these demands and intentions.     

Simulation vs. Understanding: A Tension,in Quantum Chemistry and Beyond. Part A. Stage Setting

We begin our tripartite Essay with a triangle of understanding, theory and simulation. Sketching the intimate tie between explanation and teaching, we also point to the emotional impact of understanding. As we trace the development of theory in chemistry, Dirac's characterization of what is known and what is needed for theoretical chemistry comes up, as does the role of prediction, and Thom's phrase “To predict is not to explain.” We give a typology of models, and then describe, no doubt inadequately, machine learning and neural networks. In the second part, we leave philosophy, beginning by describing Roald's being beaten by simulation. This leads us to artificial intelligence (AI), Searle's Chinese room, and Strevens’ account of what a go-playing program knows. Back to our terrain—we ask “Quantum Chemistry, † ca. 2020?” Then move to examples of AI affecting social matters, ranging from trivial to scary. We argue that moral decisions are hardly to be left to a computer. At this point, we try to pull the reader up, giving the opposing view of an optimistic, limitless future a voice. But we don't do justice to that view—how could we? We return to questioning the ascetic dimension of scientists, their romance with black boxes. Onward: In the 3rd part of this Essay, we work our way up from pessimism. We trace (another triangle!) the special interests of experimentalists, who want the theory we love, and reliable numbers as well. We detail in our own science instances where theory gave us real joy. Two more examples-on magnetic coupling in inorganic diradicals, and the way to think about alkali metal halides, show us the way to integrate simulation with theory. Back and forth is how it should be—between painfully-obtained, intriguing numbers, begging for interpretation, in turn requiring new concepts, new models, new theoretically grounded tools of computation. Through such iterations understanding is formed. As our tripartite Essay ends, we outline a future of consilience, with a role both for fact-seekers, and searchers for understanding. Chemistry's streak of creation provides in that conjoined future a passage to art and to perceiving, as we argue we must, the sacred in science.