Chemistry subdisciplines

Over the last decade our view of chemistry has evolved substantially. Whereas individual researchers previously focused on specific areas of chemistry, such as inorganic, organic, etc. we now take a more holistic approach. Effective and efficient research projects now incorporate whatever aspects of the chemistry subdisciplines that are needed to complete the intended work. 

By the late 20th century, continued calls for the revision of the physical chemistry curriculum were being heard (2-8). These calls were for a significant modernization of both the lecture and laboratory curriculum involving an inclusion of modem research topics into the lecture and the laboratory, the deletion or movement of selected material into other courses, and a reduction in the writing requirements for the laboratory. More specifically, the need for experiments and discussion relating to the incorporation of laser and computer technology has intensified with the spread of these devices into all the chemistry subdisciplines. The ACS published a selection of modernized experiments in an earlier volume (5). 

We assume that our readers have a background in science attainable by completing a university level course in introductory chemistry. We also expect our readers to be involved in one of the disciplines integral to the study of biogeochemical cycles. This includes appropriate subdisciplines of chemistry, biology, and geology, and the sciences that deal with soils, atmospheres, and oceans. 

The impetus for this volume came from the symposium, and many of the presentations from that symposium are represented here as chapters or parts of chapters. To broaden the scope of this volume, other individuals were invited to contribute chapters relating to their own topic of interest. Our chief objective is to provide, for chemists, materials scien-tists/technologists, and the science and engineering community in general, an overview of this emerging new subdiscipline of chemistry. 

This volume of Topics in Current Chemistry aims to highlight major developments in the field and it shows the efforts of chemists from various subdisciplines of chemistry to design new dendritic molecules focusing on novel properties, functions, and potential applications. Hyperbranched/dendritic molecules containing silicon, phosphorus, and other elements are reported apart from hydrocarbon, carbohydrate and nucleic acid cascade molecules. 

Carbenes form stable complexes with many metals in the periodic table of the elements, and gold is no exception. In fact, the chemistry of this class of organogold compounds for some time has been one of the fastest growing subdisciplines. While the corresponding chapters were still short in previous accounts,1 2 the inventory for this review is now particularly rich and diverse.230 As for other classes of carbene complexes, this upsurge is based on expectations for potential applications in various fields such as NLO materials, liquid crystalline phases, and catalysis. Where applicable, this is indicated for each of the entries in this chapter. 

Ensure that the traditional division of chemistry and chemical engineering into subdisciplines does not impede scientific and technological progress. 

The history of the Alchemical Society and the movement of occultists from the secret reaches of the Golden Dawn to the public arena of the Society can be understood as a case of boundary-work. But to what end, and for whose benefit The participation of established scientists with successful careers— including the Honorary President, John Ferguson, the Regius Chair of Chemistry at the University of Glasgow, who remapped the chemistry department to include more modem subdisciplines—would seem to preclude the common scenario that Gieryn explores, in which scientists must demarcate science from nonscience to protect scientific turf. ... 

The field of stereochemistry serves as a unifying theme for the expanded definition and diversification of chemistry. The consequences of molecular and macromolecular shape and topology are central to issues of chemical reactivity, physical properties, and biological function. With that view, the importance of stereochemistry had never been greater, and it is hoped that this series will provide a forum for documentation of significant advances in all of these subdisciplines of chemistry. 

Not coincidentally, the 1830s was the period when organic chemistry became a subfield or subdiscipline within chemical sciencebut a clearly dominant one, dealing with the material substances of biology and physiology,... 

Third, the electron theory of valence, cultivated mainly by Anglo-American physicists and physical chemists in the first two decades of the twentieth century, offered mechanical models for chemical affinity on the molecular level. These models combined data from structural chemistry with insights about physical mechanisms involving ions and electrons from the rapidly developing work of radiation physicists and spectroscopists. The further application of this third approach is the subject of chapters 6, 7, and 8, as it was developed by specific research schools in different national traditions and became part of the fundamental framework of the new subdiscipline of physical organic chemistry. 

As might have been expected in a relatively established subdiscipline of chemistry of this kind, there has been a gradual but remorseless accumulation of further information in new systems of increasing complexity. However, most of this additional analytical knowledge in essence amounts to an extension and development of established ideas to cover larger or more functionalized molecules and ions. Under these circumstances, the... 

The computer, with its enormous power in data processing and its possibilities in automation and control, has added a new dimension both to the instrumental analytical method and the application of mathematics and statistics in analytical chemistry. The introduction of the computer was one of the main factors initiating a new analytical subdiscipline, chemometries, which has a strong mathematical character. 

By the end of the seventi, Shoenfeld and DeVoe provided the editor of ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY with the new title Chemometrics for the bi-annual review Statistical and Mathematical Methods in Analytical Chemistry . This was a formal recognition that a new subdiscipline in Analytical Chemistry was born, which was emphasized by the special attention on Chemometrics at a symposium on the occasion of the celebration of ANALYTICAL Chemistry s 50-th anniversary... 

The various subdisciplines of chemistry will necessarily incorporate new paradigms. Environmental chemistry tends to minimize the barriers between conventional chemistry courses because it cuts across all subdivisions of chemistry to include organic and physical chemistry, biochemistry, geochemistry, photochemistry, and chemical analysis (Aram and Manahan, 1995). 

Another modern trend is the development of laboratory courses based on multi-week projects, involving not just one subdiscipline of chemistry but two or more. Such laboratory courses have been labeled Integrated Laboratories . They are motivated in part by the belief that this type of integrated approach more closely models the way real chemical research is done and will provide stronger motivation for students than the more traditional one-subject laboratory courses. 

Physical chemistry, as a separate subdiscipline of chemistry, grew out of the application of the methods of physics to chemical problems. Historically, it distinguished itself from the other subdisciplines of chemistry by its use of mathematics, by the precision with which measurements are performed, and by the emphasis on atomic and molecular processes under examination (/). At the same time as the discipline was developing, a reform of the teaching of chemistry was needed as a discussion of the systematic behavior of reactions was desired to prepare students to deal with the new ways in which material was being discussed. 

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