The New Chemistry 58
| The New Chemistry | |
| author | Nina Hall, ed. |
| pages | 500 |
| publisher | Cambridge University Press |
| rating | 8.5 |
| reviewer | Danny Yee |
| ISBN | 0-521-45224-4 |
| summary | an overview of modern chemistry and its applications. |
The New Chemistry provides an overview of modern chemistry and its applications, with seventeen review articles by specialists. Though commissioned for this volume, these take different approaches and are pitched at different levels: some are quite broadly accessible, while others assume the reader has studied chemistry at university (I found my physics and biology background helped a lot). Apart from multiple explanations of semiconduction, there is little repetition and an immense range of material is covered. The result is a fascinating picture of the science underpinning much modern technology.
The first five articles involve a fair bit of physics. "The Search for New Elements" looks at the synthesis of elements beyond uranium. "Bonding and the Theory of Atoms and Molecules" touches on a mix of theory: chemical bonds, reaction dynamics, simulation of liquids, and mathematical chemistry. "Chemistry in a New Light" and "Novel Energy Sources for Reactions" look at new tools for controlling reactions: lasers, electrosynthesis, microwaves, and ultrasound. And "What, Why and When is a Metal?" explains how the well-known criteria for distinguishing metals and insulators don't always work; this is one of the more accessible chapters, with a good selection of colour illustrations and historical "boxes."
The more "pure chemistry" chapters were the ones I had the most trouble following. These include "The Clothing of Metal Ions: Coordination Chemistry at the Turn of the Millenium," "Surface Chemistry", and "New Roads to Molecular Complexity." Other chapters connect more with biology. "Medicines from Nature" illustrates the search for new medicines through a case study of Erythromycin biosynthesis. "From Pharms to Farms" has two parts, one surveying major drugs and fragrances and the other pesticides. And "The Inorganic Chemistry of Life" is an unusual abstract overview of life from the point of view of an inorganic chemist.
A range of chapters are oriented towards engineering applications; these will be of particular interest to those following new computing technologies. "Supramolecular Chemistry" is an accessible look at the building of structures, at the chemical approach to nanotechnology. "Advanced Materials" focuses on applications to electronics - alternatives to silicon, packaging materials, liquid crystals, plastic batteries, and more - while "Molecular Electronics" focuses on actual circuits, on conductors and switches and molecular computing. "Electrochemical and Photoelectrochemical Energy Conversion" looks in detail at a range of traditional and experimental battery and fuel cell systems, and more briefly at photoelectrochemical cells and photochemical waste disposal.
"Chemistry Far from Equilibrium: Thermodynamics, Order and Chaos" is the most mathematical chapter, presenting some dynamical theory with a few examples. And a final chapter "Chemistry in Society" outlines the contributions of chemistry back to the Industrial Revolution, and urges better research both to avoid environmental problems and to correct popular misconceptions.
Purchase The New Chemistry from FatBrain or check out Danny's 600 other reviews. Want to see your own review here? Just read the book review guidelines, then use Slashdot's handy submission form.
New Chemistry? (Score:1)
bitterness... (Score:2, Insightful)
For example, organic chemists probably have no idea what a fast fourier transform is, although it powers one of their most important instruments, namely the NMR. And don't ever try to ask a chemist to explain quantum mechanics to you. They're taught a completely hand-waving version of it in school, and pass it on from generation to generation.
That said, sometimes it's pretty frustrating because while they don't seem to have as good a fundamental knowledge of the physics or math, they get a damn lot more money in grants etc. I guess practical things, like medicines, are important in that sense.
Look at any large organic chemistry group around the country, and I guarantee they'll have power macs up the wazoo, origin 3000 machines configured as mail servers, stereoscopic visualization goggles, etc. And they generally have no idea what to do with them....
Re:bitterness... (Score:2)
Look at any large organic chemistry group around the country, and I guarantee they'll have power macs up the wazoo, origin 3000 machines configured as mail servers, stereoscopic visualization goggles, etc. And they generally have no idea what to do with them....
Like running a Quake server?
don't know about you... (Score:2)
Re:bitterness... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:bitterness... (Score:2)
Re:bitterness... (Score:1)
Re:bitterness... (Score:4, Informative)
One of the main difference between chemists and physicists is that more chemists tend to be experimentalists and more physicists tend to be theorists. That is, a good deal of chemistry is focused on physical experiments with the end goal of being able to produce physical substances. A much larger percentage of physics is focused on mathematical theory and mathematical constructs. For many more branches of physics than of chemistry the focus is on producing models rather than physical objects.
This doesn't mean that chemists are not versed in physics or math. It's just that for many branches of chemistry the focus on higher-order physics and math is not as necessary. This is just like for physicists the focus is not on higher-order chemistry and biochemistry. Most chemists do have a good understanding of fast fourier transforms and quantum mechanics because these things are integral to the field of chemistry. I wouldn't expect, however, for a chemist to instantly know all there is to know about general or special relativity, or string theory - this are topics not vital to a chemist's job.
Chemists do get a good share of the grant money out there, but don't discount the amounts that physicists get. There are quite a few physics centers out there that pull in the big bucks, such as Kamioka Observatory [u-tokyo.ac.jp], CERN [welcome.cern.ch], and Fermilab [fnal.gov], among others. Sure the total amount of money that all physics projects receive is not as much as the total that all chemistry projects receive, but people are more focused on the quicker fruits that chemistry tends to produce rather than the future fruits that physics tends to produce. This does not diminish the importance of the work of physicists and physicists should not blame chemists for getting the grant money, it's not a horse race for who can get the most cash.
Re:bitterness... (Score:3, Insightful)
It comes down to Physics gets diddly, Chemistry gets some but don't forget that hands down Biology is where the grant money is. As for money it seems the further away from math you get the more the grant money.
you do your job and I'll do mine. (Score:1)
Would you ask the person running your local mailserver to look at two small molecules and guess which one would be a better inhibitor of the kinase du jour?
Having a basic understanding of how the nmr works is sufficient for what I do on a day-to-day basis. Being able to build one on my own from scratch (there are organic chemists who have done their doctorate doing just this) is not going to help me in drug discovery.
Re:bitterness... (Score:5, Insightful)
You use the NMR as an example. The NMR was developed by chemists (and I believe the inventors got the Nobel a few years ago for it). Some of the technology is end-use developed from other fields (for example, spinning magnets I would expect from friends in physics), but the fundamental science that NMR uses (looking at spin coorelations between neighboring atoms in a molecule) is pure chemistry, and putting together those end-use systems as well as unique elements together in such a way to be able to capture that is what makes the NMR invention unique. This is typically the way with most chemical instrumentation.
Now, just because NMR or other equipment that a chemist uses has a FFT in it, does it mean they need to know it? Typically not: they should be aware that the time-based signal they are collecting is being converted to frequency, which is the data of most interest, but they don't need to know all the mathematical computations that go into the FFT. That's not to say that chemists don't know it; there is a large body of chemists that overlap with mathematicians and comp scis to develop new and improve existing algorithms common in analysis. Even typical organic chemists that work mostly in a lab will know what the FFT transform is, though not necessarily being able to fully describe it.
And I would argue heavily with chemists not knowing quantum mechanics. There's typically 4 (recently 5) unofficial divisions of chemistry: organic, inorganic, analytical, theorhetical, and of late, bio-organic; the division is heavily weighted with organcis and bio, but the other 3 divisions are about equal in terms of distribution. I'd estimate that between 5 and 10% of chemists are in theorhetical, based on my experiences at grad schools and paper outputs. And theorhetical chemists spend most of their time working with molecular simulations, quantum mechanics, and other computer tools to develop models and predictions for how matter interacts. These models certainly aren't perfect, but they do know quantum theory quite well since most of these simulations account for quantum-type effects. As for other chemists, there is a need to know what quantum theory is, but in the typical lab reaction that most chemists do, it doesn't make a big difference. So therefore, they know the quantum theory, but they never need to apply it at large.
So I completely disagree that chemists hand-wave. A poor chemist will, but those that are trained at good graduate schools know that they can't get through doing that. But there is a point that you need to assume that the instrument or reading is correct and you don't need to understand the underlying principle in order to proceed forward; a good chemist knows how to test and calibrate an instrument to the point of being satisfied that the reading is as what should be predicted, and then will 'question' everything else beyond that.
(And the reason for macs is that much of the best chemical structure drawing and professional graphing (!Excel) software was developed on Macs first, and while PC versions have come out to equate those versions, its hard to get academics to spend the money to switch over when what they have *works* for their needs. Also, a lot of older equipment only has software that works on specific versions of an OS, and so they are limited by that as well.)
Re:bitterness... (Score:1)
As most chemists will tell you, during college they probably had to take quantum and physical chem. Many also took spectroscopy. If the chemists you know don't remember it, it's because it's a repressed memory.
Just kidding.
The point is, chemists probably did learn how the NMR and IR and Raman and AA machines work, but as they're just using them to obtain data (and not memorizing the intimate mechanisms), they probably don't remember the inner workings any more. There are technicians who specialize in a particular machine (say, NMR), and they certainly know all the magnetic fields and fluxes.
As a grad student, I'll say that there are no Power Macs in my group's inventory (or anywhere else, I don't believe), as almost all of the machines run programs that are Windows-based.
I took a hard-core P-chem class, complete with all sorts of derivations and theories and proofs, and I'm not the only one.
By the way, I've always thought that physicists are rather limited, as they don't seem to see "the end user," but only their own research. Don't ever let a physicist try to explain to you why you need baking soda (rather than baking powder) in cookies.
Bitterness? I'll show you bitterness! (Score:1, Funny)
I'm REALLY bitter! (Score:1, Funny)
Quantum Mechanics? (Score:1)
I took 2 PChem classes. The first dealt with mainly thermodynamics, the second dealt more with quantum mechanics. The 1st class has been very useful while the second class basically useless. The only practical application I can think of currently for quantum mechanics is in the semi-conductor field. Most things in this world are on a Macro scale.
And out two friends Kinetics and Thermodynamics are important there. Which chemists should have a good understanding of.
So in defense of chemists,they really don't need a great deal of quantum mechanics training.
Veramocor
Bitterness or changed curriculum? (Score:1)
I'd have to say, from my experience working at a college for ~15 years, that the curriculums themselves have changed and gotten more targetted. A ChemE could probably make similar charges against a "physicist", or even a math major could.
My personal advice is to take extra classes, yeah, it costs tuition and time, but round out your experience in college, since it's the best time you will ever find for expanding your knowledge base. (Heck, I even use chem and physics carryover into business programming) With the emphasis on computers in today's currculum, look for it to displace something, hence your study will be narrowed, whatever you are studying.
That's my 2.1414.. cents
Re:bitterness (Score:2)
How about all the quantum chemistry courses I have taken? While I agree that I haven't taken Relativistic QM, I feel I have a pretty good grasp of QM for a grad student. Plus, there is all that time I spent hacking GAMESS (a quantum chemistry program) in order to get it to output the data I needed. Wow, I did that without any knowledge of QM...pretty brave.
And, of course, I don't know how to use a computer. The fact I manage Linux and Tru64 boxes is just my delusion. You probably would hate that my institute (JILA) uses an XP1000 for mail serving. Now, it also runs enormous Gaussian and IDL jobs for us, but dammit, it is a mail server too...what a waste.
Wow, I guess I know what a troll is now, don't I?
The Anthropology of Science (Score:2)
I used to do scientific visualization in a mult-disciplinary research instutite. You're pretty spot-on when it comes to what physicists think of chemists.
Chemists, however, think of you as an anal-retentive obsessive-compulsive.
If you're an experimental physicist, the theoretical physicists think of you as some boy to do the grunt work.
If you're a theoretical physicist, the experimental physicists think of you as an airy-fairy bigshot who thinks he's too good to get his hands dirty.
Re:bitterness... (Score:1)
What a bunch of elitist crap. I'm a theoretical chemist, formerly synthetic. My god someone doesn't know all the nitty gritty behind an NMR, end of the world! Do you know exactly in engineering detail how every device you use works? Most people don't, and they shouldn't have to, because it's a waste of time. Organic chemists have specialized knowledge on how to make molecules, not how to run FFT's. But I suppose you've done many total syntheses all by yourself, right?
That said, sometimes it's pretty frustrating because while they don't seem to have as good a fundamental knowledge of the physics or math, they get a damn lot more money in grants etc. I guess practical things, like medicines, are important in that sense.
Practical things are important...there's an understatement. Pharma companies support much of the research with big money because drugs make big money, and quarks don't. This is not to say that fundamental physics is not important, but that is the reason why organic chemists are well funded.
You're bitter that the organic chemists have all the toys, and you have to scrounge to just get one machine from a grant. Tough shit dude. That's the scientific climate today, for better or worse.
The most important thing is what kind of a scientist someone is: open minded but skeptical, creative, inquisitive. Don't begrudge others success at what you percieve is your expense, it just shows you as being jealous and small minded.
Good stuff (Score:5, Interesting)
9th post (Score:1)
Hope its better than the "New Economy" (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Hope its better than the "New Math" (Score:2)
Lisa: Finally, a chance to use my linear algebra.
Ralph: Ms. Hoover, I'm scared of the ocean.
P.S. For those of you who weren't around back in the day, there was a movement called the "New Math" where elementary school kids would be taught set & number theory, and other mostly theoretical stuff, before being taught algebra. Please note that I covered my ass and said mostly theoretical.
P.P.S. I haven't read the book myself, but I've heard nothing but excellent things from my chemist friends (I am a comp. biologist) so I ordered it.
So, um, is it good? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:So, um, is it good? (Score:1)
Re:So, um, is it good? (Score:1)
Re:So, um, is it good? (Score:2)
Re:So, um, is it good? (Score:3, Interesting)
But some of my reviews are definitely more substantial than others, 'tis true. You might like to check out what I think is the shortest [dannyreviews.com]. The average review length is only 400 words, though that's been climbing slowly.
Danny.
About Poor Danny Yee... (Score:1)
"Over 600 book reviews, covering all kinds of books - fiction and non-fiction, with a broad range of genre and subject."
You know what this means? This man must have no television if he has read and reviewed over 600 books!
Does anyone have a spare tv for Yee?
Re:About Poor Danny Yee... (Score:1)
Re:About Poor Danny Yee... (Score:2)
Frankly I'd rather go out to see movies, while televison news and most documentaries are just woeful compared to print resources (at least for what I'm interested in).
Danny.
New Elements (Score:4, Funny)
Firstpostium: Always attempts to appear at the top of the Periodic Chart, usually for no fathomable reason, frequently target of moderatium reactions.
Taconium: Bonds readily with Kathleenium.
Kathleenium: Bonds approx. 15 minutes later with Taconium.
Athlonium and Pentium: Elements which increase energy levels frequently, highly exothermic, although less so as they are refined, in constant competition for best performance.
Trollium: Densest element known to man, will react even with itself but prefers to bond to any other element.
Moderatium: Appears in cyberspace, sometimes where least needed or bonds inappropraitely, sometimes replaced by Metamoderatium.
Katzium: Occasionally emits photons of insight in cyberspace, frequent target of trollium reactions.
Slashdottium: Highly radioactive, half-life ~20 minutes, when bonded to a link often replaces it with blackhole.
Redmondium: Pervasive, claims to be more stable than linuxium, but is frequently reduced by hax0rium, replaces atomic structure every ~2 years, but still looks almost exactly the same.
Hax0rium: Great affinity for almost any of the Techthanide or Codeinide series of elements, will often reduce or produce warzeides.
CowboyNealium: Only exists in the margins of cyberspace, always appears last in Periodic Chart, regardless of the number of elements represented.
You left out Technetium... (Score:2)
...beat...
OK, it was really named after the Greek word for "artificial." I wonder if TechNet.com knows its name means something like "fake."
AHHHHHHHHH (Score:1)
Somorjai (Score:1)
Re:New? (Score:2, Informative)