Insights and Criticisms

Obviously, construction of a mathematical model of this process, with our present limited knowledge about some of the critical details of the process, requires good insight and many qualitative judgments to pose a solvable mathematical problem with some claim to realism. For example what dictates the point of phase separation does equilibrium or rate of diffusion govern the monomer partitioning between phase if it is the former what are the partition coefficients for each monomer which polymeric species go to each phase and so on. 

Over the past years, some symposia and colloquia groups have provided especially valuable insights at critical times, and I would like to thank colleagues at the New Trends in the History of Science conference in Utrecht in August 1986, the Beckman Center symposium, Chemical Sciences in the Modern World, in May 1990, the International Summer School in History of Science in Uppsala in June 1990, and the conference on research schools in New Haven in December 1990. 

Incorporation of computational methods will be a critical feature of the undergraduate education of future chemistry students. Computational methods have become ubiquitous in large part because they enhance the dynamic understanding of molecular systems. Scientists are able to develop a level of insight and intuition not easily obtained from experiments or equations alone. It is vitally important that students understand the fundamental methods, learn to think critically about specific approximations and methods employed, and develop the ability and incentive to evaluate carefiilly the results obtained from... 

This book is dedicated to the students who use it, who occasionally smile when they read it, who gain new insight, and who feel satisfaction after straggling to solve a problem. I have been successful if this book helps you develop critical, independent reasoning that you can apply to new problems. I truly relish your comments, criticisms, suggestions, and corrections. Please address correspondence to me at the Chemistry Division (Mail Stop 6303), Research Department, Michelson Laboratory, China Lake, CA 93555. 

Kinetics Third The dynamic nature of chemistry becomes fully evident through kinetics. Our approach shows how insight and model building are critical to the indentification of reaction mechanisms. The full chapter on kinetics follows coverage of equilibrium however, qualitative kinetic arguments are used early to develop an understanding of equilibrium, and the full treatment can be used anywhere in the sequence. 

The authors express gratitude to Frances Arnold who has provided wonderful insight and guidance throughout the preparation of this manuscript. The authors also thank Steven Mayo and Gillian Pierce for critical readings and useful discussions. CAV is supported under a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship. 

Our challenge today is to develop insight and illumination into our profession—to eng age in intellectual debate about the changes that have occurred and what we have accomplished, the impact and utility of our science, and what else we should do and how. Let us be critical about our successes as well as our failures. The art historian Erwin Panofsky described three stages of development in the intellectual mind. In stage one, you sit at the foot of the masters you learn the traditions, the crafts, the techniques and you solve problems that the masters posed, using tools that the masters developed. In stage two, you re the master yourself, you develop your own... 

The new structural insights have also posed new problems. One of these concerns the first and critical deprotonation/protonation event that involves the Schiff base and Asp-85. What is the direction of the Schiff base N-H bond in L, i.e., after the light-induced isomerization of the retinal but before its deprotonation and the protonation of Asp-85 Does its orientation allow direct proton transfer from the Schiff base to Asp-85, or does it now point toward the cytoplasmic direction as expected from... 

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