International Union of Chemistry

After World War II the International Union of Chemistry became the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (known in the chemical com munity as the lUPAC) Since 1949 the lUPAC has is sued reports on chemical nomenclature on a regular basis The most recent lUPAC rules for organic chem istry were published in 1993 The lUPAC rules often offer several different ways to name a single com pound Thus although it is true that no two com... 

A second international conference was held in 1911, but the intrusion of World War I prevented any substantive revisions of the Geneva rules. The International Union of Chemistry was established in 1930 and undertook the necessary revision leading to publication in 1930 of what came to be known as the Liege rules. 

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the International Committee on Atomic Weights (ICAW) was formed. Although the ICAW did not set internationally approved names, a name with an atomic weight value in their table lent support for the adoption of that name by the chemical community. Twenty years later, the ICAW became a part of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (lUPAC) when it was formed. lUPAC was called the International Union of Chemistry in those early days. In 1949, the responsibility for acceptance of the name of a chemical element was given by lUPAC to its Commission on Nomenclature of Inorganic Chemistry (CNIC). 

The element was discovered in 1801 by British chemist Charles Hatchett during analysis of a black mineral sample from the British Museum, originally sent in 1753 from Connecticut. He named the element columbium, after the country of its origin, Columbia (United States). In 1844, Rose announced the discovery of a new element which he named as niobium, in honor of Niobe, the daughter of Tantalus, the mythological Goddess of Tears. Later, it was established that Hatchett s columbium and Roses niobium were the same element. Both names remained in use for more than one hundred years. In 1949 at the Fifteenth International Union of Chemistry Congress held at Amsterdam, the name niobium was officially adopted as the international name. 

Names of new elements confirmed by International Union of Chemistry, ... 

References to the literature. References to the original data are given in the text, as Washburn.2 The exact citation can then be found in the list of references, which are given in alphabetical (and numerical) order, as Washburn,2 Bur. Standards J. Research 10, 525 (1933), where the numerals indicate, respectively, the volume, page, and year. The abbreviations used for the titles of the periodicals are those adopted as standard by the International Union of Chemistry (See, for example, Chemical Abstracts List of Periodicals Abstracted ). When the citation is that of a book, it is written as Washburn, Introduction to the Principles of Physical Chemistry, McGraw-Hill Book Co., New York (1921), where the title is in quotation marks, and then in order follow the name of the publisher, the place of publication, and, in parentheses, the year of publication. If the book citation includes volume and page numbers, these follow immediately after the title. 

The average value for the atomic weight of arsenic from all the above experiments is 74-908 and, in view of the concordance of the results, the value adopted by the International Union of Chemistry 8 in 1934 was 74 91, this value remaining unchanged 9 in 1938. 

Eighth Report of the Committee on Atomio Weights of the International Union of Chemistry, J. Amer. Chem. Soc., 1938, 60, 744. 

The Revised Atomic Weights for 1938 are adopted in this Table as given by the International Union of Chemistry in their Eighth Report. 

In 1946 he undertook an extensive tour in the United States of America and Canada in the course of which he attended the Starch Round Table at Estes Park, Colorado, and lectured to the American Chemical Society. He particularly enjoyed this tour which enabled him to renew personal contact with C. S. Hudson whom he had first met at the tenth Conference of the International Union of Chemistry at Li ge in 1930, and whose friendship he greatly valued. Two years later, in 1948, he reached the age of sixty-five and, although still at the height of his powers, he retired from the Chair at Birmingham that he had held with such distinction for twenty-three years. The severance from Binning-... 

The symbols are those recommended by the International Union of Chemistry 1947). Some American textbooks still use F for the Gibbs free energy. 

Commission on Reform of Nomenclature of Organic Chemistry, International Union of Chemistry, Ibid., 55, 3905-25 (1933). 

Subsequent to the Karlsruhe and Geneva conferences, the supreme court of nomen-clatural problems in chemistry has been vested in what is currently known as the International Union of Chemistry. A history of the evolution of this organization has recently been published (4). Its next meeting is scheduled (7) to be held in Washington, D. C., in September 1951. 

One question arises immediately Is there not at least one standard hst of abbreviations of journal titles In 1922, the abbreviations used in the List of Periodicals Abstracted by Chemical Abstracts (8) were adopted as a standard by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry. Crane and Patterson (12) commented in 1927 that these abbreviations have not been accepted universally, but their use is increasing, and Soule (4 ) added in 1938 that the adoption of the List of Periodicals Abstracted by Chemical Abstracts by the International Union of Chemistry gives the list a definite status and increases the probability of its wider adoption in the near future."... 

The Symbols Committee of the Royal Society of London has recently compiled a list of recommended symbols, signs and abbreviations which supersedes an earlier report compiled jointly by the Chemical Society, the Faraday Society and the Physical Society in 1937. General agreement appears also to have been reached among the American Scientific Societies but there are still certain discrepancies between the two systems which are likely to remain, despite the efforts of both the International Unions of Chemistry and Physics to obtain complete agreement. 

The pattern of chemical combination represented by coordination compounds is one of common occurrence. The adoption of a basic plan of nomenclature for this fundamental pattern of chemical combination is desirable. The basic philosophy underlying the various schemes for the naming of coordination compounds is reviewed briefly. The causes of apparent contradictions are discussed. The practices for the nomenclature of coordination compounds suggested by the Commission on the Reform of Inorganic Chemical Nomenclature of the International Union of Chemistry (1940) previously were formulated into a set of rules (1948). These rules are now modified in the light of criticism and further study and are extended to cover situations not previously included. Examples are given to show how the practices prescribed by the rules may be extended. 

The Geneva conference of 1892 initiated chemical nomenclature work on an international scale, and this was later continued under the auspices of the International Union of Chemistry but was interrupted and severely hampered by two world wars and their depressing influence on international cooperation and confidence. Nevertheless the International Union of Chemistry succeeded in accomplishing nomenclature work which has already exercised a far-reaching influence on chemical literature. 

It would be very important if the International Union of Chemistry would state as a principle that new chemical names should always be formed from Greek or Latin roots. When introducing new names, due consideration should be given to their applicability in other languages. 

Accordingly, the failure of the Stock system is that it uses the national names of the elements and, in spoken language, the national numerals. In written language, the numerals will be designated by Roman figures, but even then the Stock nomenclature is much more national than the one hitherto used. The joint Scandinavian (Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, and Swedish) nomenclature committee wrote on this matter to the International Union of Chemistry ... 

Rules for Naming Inorganic Compounds. Report of the Committee of the International Union of Chemistry for the Reform of Inorganic Chemical Nomenclature, 1940. The committee has provided an American version of the rules. 10 cents. 

International Union of Chemistry, Comptes Rendus de la 13e Conference, Rome, 1938, p. 36. 

The International Union of Chemistry, founded in 1919, had as one of its first achievements the instituting of an International Commission on the Nomenclature of Biological Chemistry. At the second conference of the Union, held in Brussels in June 1921, R. Marquis, professor at the Sorbonne, presented a report justifying the establishment of this new organization to study nomenclature. 

To simplify this exchange of documents, the president and the secretary of the nomenclature commission later undertook this work of coordination and distribution. They also maintained contact with the board of the International Union of Chemistry through its permanent secretarial body. 

Table I shows that since 1936 fewer members have been present at sessions of the commission. This implies no lack of interest, but is a result of changed methods of work. The commission has become a centralizing body, a group of from 5 to 10 biochemists representing as many different nations and languages as possible. Commission members are usually recognized specialists with regard to questions under consideration. At the Amsterdam conference in 1949, when it was decided to start upon the nomenclature of vitamins and steroids, the commission requested the Council of the International Union of Chemistry to affiliate new members specializing in these problems. As with other commissions of the Union, the new members put forward after voting by the commission are then nominated by the Council and the executive committee of the Union.

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