Biographical Studies

Biography as a literary genre has regained much of its former popularity in recent years as the private lives of prominent people, both contemporary and historical, have been exposed to public scrutiny. The reassessment of historical figures has gained in popularity and the trend has also extended to the history of science. There 

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Smith, C., and Wise, N. (1889). Energy and Empire A Biographical Study of Lord Kelvin. New York Cambridge University Press. 

Jean Mabillon. In H. Damico and J.B. Za-vadil (eds.), Medieval Scholarship Biographical Studies on the Formation of a Discipline. Vol. 1 History, New York Garland Publishing, Inc., 1995. 

Another chemical giant probably wins the prize for the greatest number of biographical studies in recent years. The founder of Europe s first major chemical research school, at Giessen, was Justus Liebig. A recent book describes how chemistry developed in the German states before 1840 and includes Liebig s provocative... 

Isabelle de Steiger (1836-1927) was acquainted with many of the leading personalities in contemporary esoteric circles. Apart from Mrs Atwood she was particularly close to Dr Anna Bonus Kingsford (who requires a biographical study). Her relationship with Madame Blavatsky and Annie Besant was less cordial. Towards the end of her long life she was an enthusiastic admirer of Rudolf Steiner. See her rambling posthumous Memorabilia (1927), to which A. E. Waite contributed a preface. 

Shermer, M. (2002). In Darwin s Shadow The Life and Science of Alfred Russel Wallace A Biographical Study on the Psychology of History. Oxford Oxford University Press. 

A new, revisionist post-Soviet spirit now suffuses approaches to this subject at all levels, from the production of new editions and new biographical studies to the construction of new interpretive readings. Both mature and... 

On the other hand more general and popular histories, in particular those in western languages, have often claimed that the occult sciences flourished in Muscovite Russia in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The tmth of the matter, as far as alchemy is concerned, lies somewhere between the two, and perhaps the most balanced, if brief and incomplete, survey to date is to be found in a biographical study of Arthur Dee by Figurovski. ... 

Two German physical chemists, W. Sehottky and C. Wagner, founded this branch of materials seience. The story is very clearly set out in a biographical memoir of Carl Wagner (1901 1977) by another pioneer solid-state chemist, Hermann Schmalzried (1991), and also in Wagner s own survey of point defects and their interaction (Wagner 1977) - his last publieation. Sehottky we have already briefly met in connection with the Pohl school s study of colour centres... 

Some of the earliest studies of the aldol reaction were carried out by Aleksander Borodin. Though a physician by training and a chemist by profession, Borodin is remembered as the composer of some familiar works in Russian music. See pp. 326-327 in the April 1987 issue of the Journal of Chemical Education for a biographical sketch of Borodin. 

The importance of Heinrich Ritthausen s fundamental studies, 1862 to 1899, on analytical procedures for the determination of amino acids in proteins has been emphasized in the biographical sketches which have been presented by Osborne (210), Vickery (289), and Chibnall (47). It is of particular interest to note here the prediction made by Ritt-hausen about 1870 that the amino acid composition would prove to be the most adequate basis for the characterization of proteins. Ritthausen and Kreusler (230) were the first, in 1871, to determine amino acids derived from proteins, and some of the values which they found for aspartic and glutamic acids are given in Table III (cited by Chibnall, 47, and Vickery, 286). 

The course of stereospecific olefin polymerization was studied by using the molecular mechanics programs, MM-2 and Biograph, based on the optimized geometries of the ethylene complex and the transition state [13,203]. Interestingly, the steric interaction at the transition state mainly controls the stereochemistry in polymerization, which proceeds specifically isotactic or syndiotactic depending on the kind of catalyst. 

Alfred E. Stock. Former director of the Chemical Institute of the Tech-nische Hochschule of Karlsruhe. Former student of Henri Moissan and author of an excellent biographical sketch of him. Visiting lecturer at Cornell University in 1932. He is an authority on the high-vacuum method for studying volatile substances, the chemistry of boron, the preparation and properties of beryllium, and chronic mercurial poisoning. 

At age 12, Robert was sent (with his brother and an academic tutor) on a European tour that was to have a strong formative influence. His keen interest in mathematical studies was first kindled by travels in France and Switzerland. At age 13, he also experi-led to intense religious conversion and convictions that he maintained throughout life in the words of a biographer,... 

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