a life of magic chemistry autobiographical reflections of a nobel prize winner

[...]... supernatural They believed that the transmutation of base metals into gold could be achieved by their ‘‘art’’ in the laboratory But even among the late Arabian alchemists, it was doubted whether the resources of the art were adequate to the task In the West, Vincent of Beauvais already remarked that success had not been achieved in making artificial metals identical with the natural ones Roger Bacon,... in the East laid the foundation of this quest for a better understanding into the nature of the material world It was in the great school of Alexandria that these separate paths came together and eventually led to the alchemy and iatrochemistry of future generations and, eventually, the chemistry of modern science In all the early natural philosophies, there is the underlying idea that there was some... less valuable mercury It is, however, also possible that he was looking for an understanding of the elemental matter and possible transformation of elements Newton also failed in his quest, and it was only in our nuclear age that transmutation of the elements was achieved In fact, in 1980 a bismuth sample was transmuted into a tiny amount of gold in the Lawrence–Berkeley Laboratory, although at a very... chemistry deals with the structure of compounds and materials as well as the energetics and dynamics of chemical changes and reactions It also includes related theoretical studies (theoretical chemistry) Analytical chemistry encompasses the identification and characterization of chemical substances as well as their separation (isolation) from mixtures There is an ever-increasing number of further subdivisions,... a rudimentary education in science Literacy should not only mean being able to read and write (or use a computer) but also having at least a minimal ‘‘science literacy.’’ At all levels of science education, the clarity of presenting facts and concepts is of great importance but should not be at the expense of accuracy This is not easy, because science should also be presented as a fascinating, dynamic,... celestial bodies Is it possible for some remnants of bacterial life, enclosed in a protective coat of rock dust, to have traveled enormous distances, staying dormant at the extremely low temperature of space and even surviving deadly radiation? The spore may be neither alive nor completely dead, and even after billions of years it could have an infinitesimal chance to reach a planet where liquid water... certainly cannot be taken verbatim Of course the Bible’s six days of creation may not represent the equivalent of today’s earth days but, more probably, periods of possibly very long duration, even billions of years In any case, evolution cannot, and never attempted to, answer the question of how life originally started Darwin himself was not an atheist Monod’s view that it was only chance that brought about... supernaturals as proclaimed by many organized religions and their dogmas and regulations Monotheism is accepted in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, but there are also other religions such as Buddhism, Confucianism, Hinduism, and Taoism, among others The Scriptures of the Bible, as well as the Talmud, and the Book of Mormon, are all valuable teachings and worthy historical documents, but much in them can... these particles has an antiparticle identical in mass but of opposite charge The antiparticle of the electron is the positron (with identical mass but with a charge of ϩ1 instead of Ϫ1) Matter and antimatter, when in contact, substantially (but not necessarily completely) annihilate each other This is the reason why there is extremely little antimatter around and it is so difficult to find Besides particles,... still claimed that with a certain amount of the ‘‘philosopher’s stone’’ he could transmute a million times as much base metal into gold In the earlier part of the sixteenth century Paracelsus gave a new direction to alchemy by declaring that its true object was not the making of gold but the preparation of medicines This union of chemistry with medicine was one characteristic goal of iatrochemists, of whom .