Chemistry ideology

At this point, the author would not like to dishearten the readers who are interested in the mechanistic aspect of this book. For them, such a truism can be offered—a chemist s heart is devoted to mechanisms, but public demands for the chemist originated due to the need for new substances and reactions. Necessity is the mother of inventions Therefore, the chapter puts forth the general ideology of pursuits in the area of ion-radical organic chemistry and examines the methodologies that have evolved in the search for solutions to synthetic problems. This chapter details achievements of ion-radical organic syntheses, not only for their scientific and practical merits, but also for the aesthetic appeal of the examples chosen and the effective solutions that have emerged. 

Albeit a number of conclusions can be gained from parity considerations, chemistry is described in terms of real space variables and particle ideology. Reaction coordinate, molecular species, molecular structure and properties are to be related to the present approach. This cannot be made rigorously because quantum mechanics is about quantum states and not objects in real space. This confusion has been fatal to a correct understanding of molecular phenomena in spite of the effort made by Primas [15]. 

Powers underscores such a transfer but develops a context for it in the problematic status of chemistry at Leiden University where Boerhaave taught. Chemistry as a pedagogical subject had entered European medical faculties in the seventeenth century but existed in an uneasy, subordinate position. At least, this seems to be how Boerhaave perceived the situation at Leiden ca. 1700. The prevalent ideology in the Leiden medical faculty was Hippocratic, and Powers argues that Boerhaave s appropriation of a Hippocratic stance for chemistry was motivated by his desire to preserve chemistry and enhance its status as part of medical teaching. Powers... 

The role of Enlightenment ideology in facilitating the transformation of the ontology of eighteenth-century chemistry encompassed a variety of intellectual influences and conceptual levels. On the level of discernible influences , Lavoisier acted in conformity with Locke s criticism of traditional metaphysics... 

Pragmatically, it had immediate and important applications in both industrial and academic laboratories, confirming the centrality of chemistry for other sciences and for society (Hoff, 1903). There were ideological benefits as well. The claim to fundamental status of thermodynamics rested in part on its asserted independence from any hypotheses about the structure of matter. The terms hypothetical and metaphysical were often terms of distaste and disapproval among nineteenth-century chemists (Brock, 1993, pp. 167—172). Thus, the use of thermodynamic arguments not only provided new tools for attacking chemical problems, but also bolstered chemistry s claim to being a proper science and the equal of physics, a subject on the minds of more than a few chemists (Nye, 1992). A similar boon accrued from the (relatively) sophisticated mathematical content of thermodynamics. 

The formal presentation of the problem was an attempt to develop a qualitative quantum-chemical model of the elementary polymerization act - adequately describing the complex of available experimental facts taking into account the above properties of propagation, the theoretical achievements of organic chemistry and the known principles of invariance in the framework of the axiomatic approach on the ideological basis of symmetry concepts. It should be emphasized that we do not mean to achieve in the present work a global interpretation of the entire experimental material accumulated in the literature. The aim of the author is mainly to demonstrate the promising character of this approach as a whole. 

First, these concepts should not be considered as settled. Many of the points are, no doubt, open to discussion and some of them may even be erroneous. However, this is not essential. The main purpose of the author was to apply a new ideology to the already settled and relatively conservative field of chemical science, polymer chemistry. The reader can judge to what an extent this attempt was a success. 

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