Kostas Gavroglu and Ana Simões
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- August 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780262016186
- eISBN:
- 9780262298759
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262016186.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
Quantum chemistry—a discipline that is not quite physics, not quite chemistry, and not quite applied mathematics—emerged as a field of study in the 1920s. It was referred to by such terms as ...
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Quantum chemistry—a discipline that is not quite physics, not quite chemistry, and not quite applied mathematics—emerged as a field of study in the 1920s. It was referred to by such terms as mathematical chemistry, subatomic theoretical chemistry, molecular quantum mechanics, and chemical physics until the community agreed on the designation of quantum chemistry. This book examines the evolution of quantum chemistry into an autonomous discipline, tracing its development from the publication of early papers in the 1920s to the dramatic changes brought about by the use of computers in the 1970s. The book focuses on the culture that emerged from the creative synthesis of the various traditions of chemistry, physics, and mathematics. It examines the concepts, practices, languages, and institutions of this new culture as well as the people who established it, from such pioneers as Walter Heitler and Fritz London, Linus Pauling, and Robert Sanderson Mulliken, to later figures including Charles Alfred Coulson, Raymond Daudel, and Per-Olov Löwdin. Throughout, the book emphasizes six themes: epistemic aspects and the dilemmas caused by multiple approaches; social issues, including academic politics, the impact of textbooks, and the forging of alliances; the contingencies that arose at every stage of the developments in quantum chemistry; the changes in the field when computers were available to perform the extraordinarily cumbersome calculations required; issues in the philosophy of science; and different styles of reasoning.Less
Quantum chemistry—a discipline that is not quite physics, not quite chemistry, and not quite applied mathematics—emerged as a field of study in the 1920s. It was referred to by such terms as mathematical chemistry, subatomic theoretical chemistry, molecular quantum mechanics, and chemical physics until the community agreed on the designation of quantum chemistry. This book examines the evolution of quantum chemistry into an autonomous discipline, tracing its development from the publication of early papers in the 1920s to the dramatic changes brought about by the use of computers in the 1970s. The book focuses on the culture that emerged from the creative synthesis of the various traditions of chemistry, physics, and mathematics. It examines the concepts, practices, languages, and institutions of this new culture as well as the people who established it, from such pioneers as Walter Heitler and Fritz London, Linus Pauling, and Robert Sanderson Mulliken, to later figures including Charles Alfred Coulson, Raymond Daudel, and Per-Olov Löwdin. Throughout, the book emphasizes six themes: epistemic aspects and the dilemmas caused by multiple approaches; social issues, including academic politics, the impact of textbooks, and the forging of alliances; the contingencies that arose at every stage of the developments in quantum chemistry; the changes in the field when computers were available to perform the extraordinarily cumbersome calculations required; issues in the philosophy of science; and different styles of reasoning.
Howard Hotson
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198208280
- eISBN:
- 9780191677960
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198208280.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, European Early Modern History
In the years after his return to Herborn, Johann Heinrich Alsted's commitment to Ramon Lull and the art of memory sustained a series of assaults from near and far. Five years and ten publications ...
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In the years after his return to Herborn, Johann Heinrich Alsted's commitment to Ramon Lull and the art of memory sustained a series of assaults from near and far. Five years and ten publications later, his commitment seems if anything to have grown and to be extending itself from logic and mnemonics into cosmology and physics, from the ‘alchemical logic’ of Lull to alchemy itself. Of the four systems of physics which the work proposes to harmonize, chemical physics is declared to be ‘by far the most ancient of all except the Mosaic’. The origins of the Rosicrucian uproar have long been shrouded in mystery. The authorship of the first of the Rosicrucian manifestos, the Fama fraternitatis, was attributed to Tobias Hess. The publication of the Rosicrucian manifestos was not an isolated event. No other centre in the Reformed world seems to have matched either the intense preoccupation with occultism or the immediate participation in the clamour surrounding the Rosicrucians.Less
In the years after his return to Herborn, Johann Heinrich Alsted's commitment to Ramon Lull and the art of memory sustained a series of assaults from near and far. Five years and ten publications later, his commitment seems if anything to have grown and to be extending itself from logic and mnemonics into cosmology and physics, from the ‘alchemical logic’ of Lull to alchemy itself. Of the four systems of physics which the work proposes to harmonize, chemical physics is declared to be ‘by far the most ancient of all except the Mosaic’. The origins of the Rosicrucian uproar have long been shrouded in mystery. The authorship of the first of the Rosicrucian manifestos, the Fama fraternitatis, was attributed to Tobias Hess. The publication of the Rosicrucian manifestos was not an isolated event. No other centre in the Reformed world seems to have matched either the intense preoccupation with occultism or the immediate participation in the clamour surrounding the Rosicrucians.
