Scientific century

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you may well be headed for a career in science. But which branch of science There are literally dozens, if not hundreds. Indeed, our twenty-first century can be called a scientific century, one in which the contributions of scientific findings will change, and hopefully improve, our lives forever. 

Watson s vivid and outspoken account of how he and Crick discovered the structure of DNA (and won themselves a Nobel Prize) - one of the greatest scientific achievements of the century. 

Zewail A H 1994 Femtochemistry. Uitrafast Dynamics of the chemicai Bond (Worid Scientific Series in 20th Century Chemistry, voi 3) (Singapore World Scientific)... 

M.M. Slaughter, Universal Languages and Scientific Taxonomy in the Seventeenth Century, Cambri< e University Press, Cambridge, UK, 1982. 

Most of the problems in this book are simple. Many of the methods used have been known for decades or for centuries. At the machine level, individual steps in the procedures are at the grade school level of sophistication, like adding two numbers or comparing two numbers to see which is larger. What makes them hard is that there are very many steps, perhaps many millions. The computer, even the once lowly microcomputer, provides an entry into a new scientific world because of its incredible speed. We are now in the enviable position of being able to arrive at practical solutions to problems that we could once only imagine. 

The scientific method, as mentioned, involves observation and experimentation (research) to discover or establish facts. These are followed by deduction or hypothesis, establishing theories or principles. This sequence, however, may be reversed. The noted twentieth-century philosopher Karl Popper, who also dealt with science, expressed the view that the scientist s work starts not with collection of data (observation) but with selection of a suitable problem (theory). In fact, both of these paths can be involved. vSignificant and sometimes accidental observations can be made without any preconceived idea of a problem or theory and vice versa. The scientist, however, must have a well-prepared, open mind to be able to recognize the significance of such observations and must be able to follow them through. Science always demands rigorous standards of procedure, reproducibility, and open discussion that set reason over irrational belief. 

Physical facilities help, but do not per se make a research institute. It is the people who work there and their contributions and devoted hard work that is most important. We are nearing a quarter of a century since the Hydrocarbon Research Institute was started at USC. At the beginning in 1977, Sid Benson and I shared the scientific directorship of the Institute and Jerry Segal carried out the administrative responsibilities as executive director. When we moved into our own building in 1979, Bill Stephenson, a physical-organic chemist and a former colleague of mine in Cleveland who subsequently joined us at... 

In the late fifteenth century AD mercury was successfully used as a treatment for syphilis. In the late sixteenth century the development of the Patio process for the recovery of silver by amalgamation (see Silverand silveralloys) greatiy increased the consumption of mercury. Usage of mercury increased in 1643 when Torricelli invented the barometer, and again in 1720 when Fahrenheit invented the mercury thermometer. Other scientific and medical appHcations foUowed. Industrial usage after 1900, particularly in electrical appHcations, expanded rapidly, offsetting the sharp decline in its use in amalgamation. 

Citation Searching. In the scholarly Hterature, authors cite earHer pubHcations that relate to the work being reported, thus a subject relationship exists between the citing and cited Hterature. This relationship has formed the basis for the Science Citation Index and related products, developed by the Institute for Scientific Information. Known as Scisearch in its on-line version, the Science Citation Index has become an important information retrieval tool in the second half of the twentieth century. It has been used for straightforward subject searching, in which mode it complements traditional indexed databases and indexes. It has also become a popular tool for hihliometric studies of various sorts, such as attempts to measure the relative impact of research carried out by different individuals or organizations, or the relative impact of pubHcations in different journals. 

At the start of the nineteenth century, platinum was refined in a scientific manner by William Hyde WoUaston, resulting in the successful production of malleable platinum on a commercial scale. During the course of the analytical work, WoUaston discovered paUadium, rhodium, indium, and osmium. Ruthenium was not discovered until 1844, when work was conducted on the composition of platinum ores from the Ural Mountains. 

In the past century, the brewing industry has been using scientific research in order to carry out brewing with increased proficiency and confidence. Louis Pasteur of Erance (4) and Emil Chr. Hansen of Denmark did much to elucidate the mysteries of fermentation. 

Prior to the nineteenth century, coal was classified according to appearance, eg, bright coal, black coal, or brown coal. A number of classification systems have since been developed. These may be divided into two types, which are complementary scientific and commercial. Both are used in research, whereas the commercial classification is essential industrially. In the scientific category, the Seyler chart has considerable value. 

Activated alumina and phosphoric acid on a suitable support have become the choices for an iadustrial process. Ziac oxide with alumina has also been claimed to be a good catalyst. The actual mechanism of dehydration is not known. In iadustrial production, the ethylene yield is 94 to 99% of the theoretical value depending on the processiag scheme. Traces of aldehyde, acids, higher hydrocarbons, and carbon oxides, as well as water, have to be removed. Fixed-bed processes developed at the beginning of this century have been commercialized in many countries, and small-scale industries are still in operation in Brazil and India. New fluid-bed processes have been developed to reduce the plant investment and operating costs (102,103). Commercially available processes include the Lummus processes (fixed and fluidized-bed processes), Halcon/Scientific Design process, NIKK/JGC process, and the Petrobras process. In all these processes, typical ethylene yield is between 94 and 99%. 

The processes of cathodic protection can be scientifically explained far more concisely than many other protective systems. Corrosion of metals in aqueous solutions or in the soil is principally an electrolytic process controlled by an electric tension, i.e., the potential of a metal in an electrolytic solution. According to the laws of electrochemistry, the reaction tendency and the rate of reaction will decrease with reducing potential. Although these relationships have been known for more than a century and although cathodic protection has been practiced in isolated cases for a long time, it required an extended period for its technical application on a wider scale. This may have been because cathodic protection used to appear curious and strange, and the electrical engineering requirements hindered its practical application. The practice of cathodic protection is indeed more complex than its theoretical base. 

Nine years later, the Zeitschrift fur physikalische Chemie was followed by the Journal of Physical Chemistry, founded in the USA by Wilder Bancroft (1867-1953), one of Ostwald s American students. The chequered career of this journal is instructively analysed by both Laidler (1993) and Servos (1990). Bancroft (who spent more than half a century at Cornell University) seems to have been a difficult man, with an eccentric sense of humour thus at a Ph.D. oral examination he asked the candidate What in water puts out fires , and after rejecting some of the answers the student gave with increasing desperation, Bancroft revealed that the right answer was a fireboat . Any scientific author will recognize that this is not the ideal way for a journal editor to behave, let alone an examiner. There is no space here to go into the vagaries of Bancroft s personality (Laidler can be consulted about this), but... 

Of course, freezing of a liquid - or its inverse - are themselves phase transformations, but the scientific study of freezing and melting was not developed until well into the 20th century (Section 9.1.1). Polymorphism also links with metastability thus aragonite, one polymorphic form of calcium carbonate, is under most circumstances metastable to the more familiar form, calcite. 

Early in the 17th century, there was still vigorous disagreement as to the feasibility of empty space Descartes denied the possibility of a vacuum. The matter was put to the test for the first time by Otto von Guericke (1602-1686), a German politician who devoted his brief leisure to scientific experimentation (Krafft 1970-1980). He designed a crude suction pump using a cylinder and piston and two flap valves, and... 

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