Abstract
In the preface to this Introduction to Chemical Physics (1939), the American physicist and co-founder of quantum chemistry John C. Slater wrote the following:
It is probably unfortunate that physics and chemistry ever were separated. Chemistry is the science of atoms and of the way they combine. Physics deals with the interatomic forces and with the large-scale properties of matter resulting from those forces. So long as chemistry was largely empirical and non-mathematical, and physics had not learned how to treat small-scale atomic forces, the two sciences seemed widely separated ... Now that statistical mechanics has led to quantum theory and wave mechanics, with its explanations of atomic interactions, there is really nothing separating them any more .... [However,] for want of a better name, since Physical Chemistry is already preempted, we may call this common field Chemical Physics.1
It is a pleasure to acknowledge research support for this study from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the University of Oklahoma. I am indebted, too, to students and colleagues in my seminar at Harvard University during the spring of 1988; to the Bodleian Library at Oxford University; and to comments on an earlier draft from Robert Nye. The basic problem-set of this essay is one to which I was first introduced by Erwin Hiebert.
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Notes
J. C. Slater, Introduction to Chemical Physics (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1939), pp. v–vi.
On Slater, see S. S. Schweber, ‘The Young John Clarke Slater and the Development of Quantum Chemistry,’ Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences 20 (1990), 339–406.
My emphasis. Max Born, The Constitution of Matter. Modern Atomic and Electron Theories, trans, from 2nd German ed., E. W. Blair and T. S. Wheeler (London: Methuen,1923, 1st ed., 1920), on p. 78.
P. A. M. Dirac, ‘Quantum Mechanics of Many-Electron Systems,’ Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series A 123 (1929), 714–733, on p. 714.
Annual Review of Physical Chemistry 39 (1988), Preface.
See M. J. Nye, From Chemical Philosophy to Theoretical Chemistry: Dynamics of Matter and Dynamics of Disciplines, 1800–1950 (Berkeley: University of California Press, in progress).
My emphasis. Ernest Rutherford to G. E. Hale, 15 November 1918, Rockefeller Archives Center, Rockefeller Foundation, RG1.1, Series 200, Box 37, Folder 417, quoted in Alexi Assmus, ‘The Creation of Postdoctoral Education and the Siting of American Scientific Research,’ ms., p. 14.
See Antoine de Fourcroy, Système des connaissances chimiques, et de leurs applications aux phénomènes de la nature et de l’art, 11 vols. (Paris: Baudoin, 1800), Vol. I., pp. xxx–xxxi.
See Adam Walker, Analysis of a Course of Lectures on Natural and Experimental Philosophy, 1st ed., 1766, 20th ed., 1827, discussed below. Also see John Elliot, Elements of the Branches of Natural Philosophy Connected with Medicine (London: J. Johnson, 1782)
William Nicolson, Introduction to Natural Philosophy, 2 vols, 2nd ed. (London: J. Johnson, 1787); and F. A. C. Gren, Grundriss der Naturlehre in seinem mathematischen und chemischen Theile (Halle, 1793; 1st pubd. 1788).
Adam Walker (ref. 8). For an early nineteenth-century critique of this tradition, see E. G. Fischer, Lehrbuch der mechanischen Naturlehre, 3rd ed., 2 vols. (Berlin, 1826–1827), Vol. I, pp. vii–viii, 4–5, who argued that what belonged to Physik proper were investigations of natural phenomena on the basis of the laws of mechanics, including heat, light, and electricity, but not chemistry. Discussed in Christa Jungnickel and Russell McCormmach, Intellectual Mastery of Nature. Theoretical Physics from Ohm to Einstein. Volume I. The Torch of Mathematics. 1800–1870 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986), p. 31.
Georg Stahl, Philosophical Principles of Universal Chemistry (1723), trans. 1730, quoted in Arnold Thackray, Atoms and Powers. An Essay on Newtonian Matter Theory and the Development of Chemistry (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970), p. 175.
G. F. Venel, ‘Chymie,’ pp. 408–437, in facsimile edition of Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des arts et des métiers, Vol. 3 (Stuttgart: Frederich Frommann, 1966; from 1753 ed.), on p. 409.
Isaac Newton, Opticks, pref. I. B. Cohen (New York: Dover, 1952; from 4th ed., 1730), pp. 401–402.
See Helène Metzger, Newton, Stahl, Boerhaave, et la doctrine chimique (Paris: Albert Blanchard, 1930); and J. B. Gough, ‘Lavoisier and the Fulfillment of the Stahlian Revolution,’ Osiris, 2nd series, 4 (1988), 15–33, esp. 21–29.
Metzger, 409–410.
In Antoine Lavoisier, Opuscules physiques et chimiques, Vol. I, Oeuvres de Lavoisier (Paris: Imprimerie Impériale, 1864), p. 446.
On this point, see Arthur Donovan, ‘Lavoisier and the Origins of Modern Chemistry,’ Osiris, 2nd series, 4 (1988), 214–231, esp. pp. 219–228.
One day, Lavoisier wrote, it would be possible to “know the energy [connaîtrel’energie] of all these forces, to succeed in giving them a numerical value, to calculate them this is the aim which chemistry must have.” Lavoisier, Oeuvres de Lavoisier, Volume II (Paris: Imprimerie Impériale, 1862), p. 525; quoted in Maurice Crosland, The Development of Chemistry in the Eighteenth Century,’ Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century 24 (1963), 369–441, on p. 407.
See Henry Guerlac, ‘Chemistry as a Branch of Physics: Laplace’s Collaboration with Lavoisier,’ Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences 7 (1976), 193–276
Evan Melhado, ‘Chemistry, Physics, and the Chemical Revolution,’ Isis 76 (1985), 195–211.
Frederic Lawrence Holmes, Eighteenth-Century Chemistry as an Investigative Enterprise (Berkeley: Office for History of Science and Technology, University of California at Berkeley, 1989).
Melhado (ref. 18), pp. 209–210.
Maurice Crosland, ‘The Development of Chemistry in the Eighteenth Century,’ Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century 24 (1963), 369–441, on p. 409.
See classification in William Whewell, Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences (1840, new ed., 1847) in Selected Writings, ed. Y. Elkana (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), p. 187.
On “physics,” “experimental physics,” and “mathematical physics” in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Thomas Kuhn, ‘Mathematical vs. Experimental Traditions in the Development of Physical Sciences,’ in The Essential Tension: Selected Studies in Scientific Tradition and Change (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977), pp. 31–65.
Thomas P. Pynchon, Introduction to Chemical Physics, 3rd rev. ed. (1881).
Crosland (ref. 21), p. 387.
Arnold Thackray, (ref. 10); Melhado argues that Lavoisier, even before Dalton, rejected the Newtonian program, although Lavoisier’s colleagues Guyton de Morveau and C. L. Berthollet continued to pursue it (ref. 18).
Crosland (ref. 21), p. 401.
See J. B. Dumas, ‘Mémoire sur la constitution de quelques corps organiques et sur la théorie des substitutions,’ Comptes Rendus Hebdomaires de l’Académie des Sciences, 1839, 609–622;
Mi Gyung Kim, ‘Practice and Representation: Investigative Programs of Chemical Affinity in the Nineteenth Century’ (UCLA Ph.D. Thesis, 1990), p. 75, n. 37.
Henri Sainte-Claire Deville, Leçons sur l’affinìté (Paris, 1867), quoted by Pierre Duhem, The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory trans. Philip P. Wiener (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1954), p. 125.
See Marcellin Berthelot, La synthèse chimique (Paris: Baillière, 1876), p. 275: ‘La chimie crée son objet.’
E. F. Caldin, The Structure of Chemistry in Relation to the Philosophy of Science (London: Sheed and Ward, 1961), pp. 18–19; also see comments by Ida Freund at the turn of the century, in The Study of Chemical Composition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1904), pp. 2–3.
Aristotle, of course, had considered “physics” to be a very different kind of knowledge from “mathematics” and “theology” since physics, in contrast to the other two disciplines, concerned itself with imperfect, changing objects. See Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason (Norton edition), p. 54; and preface to Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, quoted in Frederick Gregory, ‘Romantic Kantianism and the End of the Newtonian Dream in Chemistry,’ Archives Internationales d’Histoire des Sciences 34 (1984), 108–123, on p. 109.
See Keith Nier’s characterization of Maxwell’s attitude: “Maxwell admitted, almost grudgingly, that chemistry is a physical science. But he could find nothing agreeable to say about it. He passed over it with a perfunctory acknowledgment of high rank and an implied slur regarding lack of clarity, organization, and so forth.” In Keith Alfred Nier, ‘The Emergence of Physics in 19th-century Britain as a Socially Organized Category of Knowledge: Preliminary Studies’ (Harvard University Ph.D. thesis, 1975), pp. 102–105. James Clerk Maxwell, ‘Physical Science,’ Encyclopedia Britannica, 9th ed., 1875–1889, Vol. 19, pp. 1–3.
Hermann von Helmholtz, quoted in Henry Edward Armstrong, ‘Presidential Address of the Chemical Section,’ Reports of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Winnipeg, 1909, 420–454, p. 423.
Quoted in Jeffrey Johnson, ‘Academic Chemistry in Imperial Germany,’ Isis 76 (1985), 500–524, p. 510.
William Thomson [Lord Kelvin], ‘On Vortex Atoms,’ Philosophical Magazine (4), 34 (1867), 15–24.
Ludwig Boltzmann, ‘On the Necessity of Atomic Theories in Physics,’ The Monist 12 (1901), 65–79, pp. 73–74.
See Helge Kragh, ‘Julius Thomsen and Classical Thermochemistry,’ British Journal for the History of Science 17 (1984), 255–272;
Marcellin Berthelot, Essai de mécanique chimique (Paris, 1879), p. 259.
See Kragh, pp. 264–266.
Pierre Duhem, Le potentiel thermodynamique et ses applications à la mécanique chimique et à la théorie des phénomènes électriques (Paris, 1886).
Ibid. Crosbie Smith argues that in physics the concept of energy was substituted for force, beginning around 1850 with the work of William Rankine and William Thomson (Lord Kelvin). See Crosbie Smith, ‘Mechanical Philosophy and the Emergence of Physics in Britain, 1800–1850,’ Annals of Science 33 (1976), 3–29; and ‘A New Chart for British Natural Philosophy: The Development of Energy Physics in the Nineteenth Century,’ History of Science 16 (1978), 231–279.I am grateful to Richard Beyler for pointing me originally to these references.
Gilbert N. Lewis, The Anatomy of Science (Washington D.C.: American Chemical Society, 1926; reprint, Books for Libraries Press, 1971), pp. 99–102.
See John Servos, Physical Chemistry from Ostwald to Pauling. The Making of a Science in America (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990).
Walther Nernst, pref. to the German ed., Theoretical Chemistry. From the Standpoint of Avogadro’s Rule and Thermodynamics, trans. Charles S. Palmer (London: Macmillan, 1895), p. xii.
There was considerable resentment of Ostwald’s criticism of organic and structural chemistry. See Richard Willstätter, Aus meinem Leben; von Arbeit, Musse, und Freunden (Weinheim: Verlag Chemie, 1949; 2nd ed. 1958), pp. 89–90.
Discussed in Charles Brunold, Le problème de l’affinité chimique et l’atomistique. Etude du rapprochement actuel de la physique et de la chimie (Paris: Masson, 1930), p.3.
Thomas Lowry, ‘Is a True Monomolecular Action Possible?’ Transactions of the Faraday Society 17 (1921–1922), 596–597.
Alexander Williamson, ‘On the Constitution of Salts,’ Chemical Gazette 9 (1851), 334–339, on p. 334; quoted in
O. T. Benfey, ‘Concepts of Time in Chemistry,’ Journal of Chemical Education 40 (1963), 547–577, on p. 574.
See Kenneth J. Laidler, ‘Chemical Kinetics and the Origins of Physical Chemistry,’ Archives for History of Exact Sciences 32 (1985), 43–75.
For a detailed study of the radiation and the ionic and electronic theories of chemical activation, see M. J. Nye, ‘Chemical Explanation and Physical Dynamics: Two Research Schools at the First Solvay Chemistry Conferences, 1922–1928,’ Annals of Science 46 (1989), 461–480.
See Yuko Abe, ‘Pauling’s Revolutionary Role in the Development of Quantum Chemistry,’ Historia Scientiarum 20 (1981), 107–124.
Erwin Hiebert, ‘Nernst and Electrochemistry,’ in George Dubpernell and J. H. Westbrook, eds.. Selected Topics in the History of Electrochemistry (Princeton: The Electrochemistry Society, 1978), 180–200, on p. 188.
W. Heitler and F. London, ‘Wechselwirkung neutraler Atome und homopolare Bindung nach der Quantenmechanik,’ Zeitschrift für Physik 44(1927), 455–472.
F. Hund, ‘Zur Deutung der Molekelspektren,’ especially Part V. “Die angeregten Elektronenterme von Molekeln mit zwei gleichen Kernen (H2, He2, Li2, N2+, N2 ...),” Zeitschrift für Physik 63 (1930), 719–7512 (1934), 20–30; and review article by
J. H. Van Vleck, ‘On the Theory of the Structure of CH4 and Related Molecules,’ Journal of Chemical Physics 1 (1933), 177–182, 219–238
J. H. Van Vleck and Albert Sherman, ‘The Quantum Theory of Valence,’ in Reviews in Modem Physics 7 (1935), 167–228.
C. A. Coulson, ‘After-Dinner Speech,’ 16 August 1971, at Fourth Canadian Symposium on Theoretical Chemistry in British Columbia, Coulson Papers, #40, Bodleian Library (Duke Humfrey’s Library), Oxford University.
C. A. Coulson, Papers, ‘Recent Developments in Valence Theory,’ paper delivered at Australian symposium ‘Fifty Years of Valence Theory,’ page proofs, p. 2; Coulson Papers, #41.10, Oxford University.
This no longer is thought to be explained by quantum mechanics. See Stephen J. Weininger, ‘The Molecular Structure Conundrum: Can Classical Chemistry be Reduced to Quantum Chemistry?’ Journal of Chemical Education 62 (1984), 939–944.
On this point, see Coulson’s ‘Inaugural Lecture’ for the chair of theoretical physics at King’s College, London, 1948, typescript, Coulson Papers, #21, Oxford University.
Alberte Pullman, Introduction, in Raymond Daudel and Alberte Pullman, eds.. Aspects de la chimie quantique contemporaine, Colloques Internationaux de CNRS, #195 (Editions du CNRS, 1971), p. 10.
Coulson, ‘Recent Developments’ (ref. 55), p. 3.
Coulson, ‘Inaugural Lecture,’ 1948 (ref. 57).
Ibid.
Pullman (ref. 59), p. 13.
See Yuko Abe (ref. 50), 109–110. Also, see Anthony Serafini, Linus Pauling. A Man and His Science (New York: Paragon House, 1989).
R. S. Mulliken, ‘Spectroscopy, Quantum Chemistry, and Molecular Physics,’ Physics Today 21 (1968), 52–57, on p. 54. Mulliken here advised against the trend in introductory chemistry and physics courses to treat theory before “a generous confrontation with facts” (p. 55).
Quoted in S. S. Schweber, ‘The Young Slater’ (ref. 1), pp. 403–404.
Roald Hoffmann, The Grail,’ in Vivian Torrence and Roald Hoffmann, Chemistry Imagined. An Art/Science/Literature Collaboration, and exhibit, book ms., to appear in 1992.
See M. J. Nye, ‘Explanation and Convention in Nineteenth-Century Chemistry,’ pp. 171–186 in R. Visser et al., eds.. New Trends in the History of Science (Amsterdam: Rodolpi, 1989).
See the discussion in Weininger (ref. 56), citing Hans Primas, ‘Foundations of Theoretical Chemistry,’ pp. 39–113 in R. G. Woolley, ed., Quantum Dynamics of Molecules: The New Experimental Challenge to Theorists (New York: Plenum Press, 1980); quotation on p. 105; and Primas, Chemistry, Quantum Mechanics, and Reductionism (New York: Springer Verlag, 1981).
R. G. Woolley, ‘Must a Molecule Have a Shape?’ Journal of the Chemical Society (London) 100 (1978), 1073–1078; and ‘Further Remarks on Molecular Structure in Quantum Theory,’ Chemical Physics Letters 55 (1978), 443–446.
Roald Hoffmann, ‘Under the Surface of the Chemical Article,’ Angewandte Chemie. International Edition in English 27 (December 1988), 1593–1602, on p. 1597.
Robert Lespieau, ‘Poids moléculaires et formules développés,’ 8-page extract from the Journal de Physique, June 1901, pp. 6–8.
See D. W. Theobald, Chemical Society Reviews 5 (1976), 203, regarding chemists and this view.
See David B. Kitts, The Structure of Geology (Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1977);
Rachel Laudan, From Mineralogy to Geology. The Foundations of a Science, 1650–1830 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987).
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Nye, M.J. (1992). Physics and Chemistry: Commensurate or Incommensurate Sciences?. In: Nye, M.J., Richards, J.L., Stuewer, R.H. (eds) The Invention of Physical Science. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol 139. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-2488-1_9
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