|
Showing 1 - 5 of
5 matches in All Departments
This book examines the history and fundamentals of the physical
organic chemistry discipline. With the recent flowering of the
organic synthesis field, physical organic chemistry has seemed to
be shrinking or perhaps is just being absorbed into the toolkit of
the synthetic chemist. The only Nobel Prize that can be reasonably
attributed to a physical organic chemist is the 1994 award to
George Olah, although Jeffrey I. Seeman has recently made a strong
case that R. B. Woodward was actually a physical organic chemist in
disguise (I). 2014 saw the awarding of the 50th James Flack Norris
Award in Physical Organic Chemistry. James Flack Norris was an
early physical organic chemist, before the discipline received its
name. This book provides insight into the fundamentals of the
field, and each chapter is devoted to a major discovery or to noted
physical organic chemists, including Paul Schleyer, William
Doering, and Glen A. Russell.
This volume consists of written chapters taken from the
presentations at the symposium "100+ Years of Plastics: Leo
Baekeland and Beyond," held March 22, 2010, at the 239th ACS
National Meeting in San Francisco. The symposium celebrates the
100th anniversary of the formation of General Bakelite Corp., which
was preceded by Leo Baekland's synthesis of Bakelite in 1907 and
the unveiling of the Bakelite process in 1909. It is quite
reasonable to use the synthesis of Bakelite as the starting point
of the Age of Plastics. Indeed, Time magazine in its June 14, 1999,
issue on the 100 most influential people of the 20th century chose
Leo Baekeland and his Bakelite synthesis as the sole representative
of chemistry.
Leo Baekeland and Bakelite are the topics of the first four
chapters of this volume. The first two chapters come from the
perspective of Baekeland family members. Carl Kaufmann is related
to the Baekeland family through marriage and is the author of the
only full-length biography of Baekeland, published as a master's
thesis from the University of Delaware. As a family member Kaufmann
had access to all of Baekeland's papers. This first chapter (Leo H.
Baekeland) is not only a biographical sketch, but an exploration of
Baekeland's effect on the chemical industry. Hugh Karraker is
Baekeland's great-grandson, and his chapter (A Portrait of Leo H.
Baekeland) provides a family picture of the great inventor. Gary
Patterson's chapter (Materia Polymerica: Bakelite) goes into the
history of Bakelite chemistry, while Burkhard Wagner's contribution
(Leo Baekeland's Legacy-100 Years of Plastics) covers the history
of Bakelite manufacture through time and space, finishing with a
description of another Baekeland legacy, the Baekeland Award given
through the North Jersey Section of the ACS.
In later chapters, Les Sperling (History of Interpenetrating
Polymer Networks Starting with Bakelite-Based Compositions) covers
the improvements in interpenetrating networks. James Economy and Z.
Parkar (Historical Perspectives on Phenolic Resins and
High-Temperature Aromatic Polyesters of p-Hydroxybenzoic Acid and
Their Copolyesters) follow the paths of resoles, novolaks, and
related chemicals.
The Nobel Prize is the only scientific prize that has achieved
worldwide recognition among the general public. Each year,
announcement of the prizes is covered by the national news media,
and countries and universities brag about how many Nobel Prize
winners they have. As of 2015, 172 individuals have received the
Nobel Prize in chemistry. This book explores the reasons why the
Nobel Prize has not been awarded to various deserving chemists over
the years, and points specifically to eleven deceased chemists in
particular who did not receive the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
The field of quantum chemistry has grown so immensely that the
importance of some of the earliest work and the earliest pioneers
of quantum chemistry is unfamiliar to many of today's youngest
scientists in the field. Thus, this book is an attempt to preserve
some of the very valuable, early history of quantum chemistry,
providing the reader with not only a perspective of the science,
but a perspective of the early pioneers themselves, some of whom
were quite interesting characters. The symposium on which this book
is based came about because one of the co-editors (ETS) came to a
conviction that the contributions such as those by George Wheland
to quantum chemistry and Otto Schmidt to free electron theory
should be better appreciated and known. He organized a symposium in
which quantum chemistry pioneers, both those celebrated by everyone
and those seemingly overlooked by posterity, would be recognized.
While this volume is certainly not a history of quantum chemistry,
it does cover many highlights over a period of about sixty years.
This volume consists of chapters based upon ten of the
presentations at the symposium "Pioneers of Quantum Chemistry" held
March 28, 2011, at the 241st ACS National Meeting in Anaheim, CA.
The symposium on which this book is based originated after Tom
Strom organized a successful American Chemical Society (ACS)
symposium in March 2016, on the Posthumous Nobel Prize in
Chemistry. Afterward, Vera Mainz pointed out that the chemists
represented in that symposium and its subsequent symposium volume
were "all dead white guys." The fact that only white men were
included in the first symposium partly reflects the prevailing past
(and continuing) gender imbalance in chemistry, but it also shows
the power of the Matilda effect, first articulated by Matilda
Joslyn Gage (1826-1898). The Matilda effect is an implicit bias
against acknowledging the achievements of women scientists, whose
work is often attributed to their male colleagues. An implicit bias
is one which is not conscious or deliberate, but nevertheless real.
The gender imbalance in the previous symposium was also noted in
the on-line comments for the Chemical and Engineering News article
that reported on it. Redressing that imbalance was the purpose of
the current symposium entitled "Ladies in Waiting for the Nobel
Prize in Chemistry. Overlooked Accomplishments of Women Chemists."
This symposium, which took place in August 2017, was sponsored by
the ACS History of Chemistry Division (HIST), the Women Chemists
Committee (WCC), and ACS President Allison Campbell. In the Preface
to The Posthumous Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Volume 1: Correcting
the Errors and Oversights of the Nobel Prize, Mainz and Strom noted
that "any chemist with a decent background in chemical history
could readily add other deserving chemists to our list."
Undoubtedly, this is also the case for the current symposium: There
are other women as well as noteworthy scientists of color who could
have been included. These men and women should be the topic of a
future symposium. By highlighting this group of extraordinary women
scientists, this book raises awareness of the Matilda effect, but
more importantly, it honors them and their accomplishments.
|
You may like...
Jazz
Various Artists
CD
R69
Discovery Miles 690
Time Out Time
The Little Band from Gingerland
CD
R136
Discovery Miles 1 360
Sir Prise
The Little Band from Gingerland
CD
R94
Discovery Miles 940
|