Space sciences beginnings

The architecture of macromolecules is another important synthetic variable. New materials with controlled branching sequences or stereoregularity provide tremendous opportunity for development. New polymerization catalysts and initiators for controlled free-radical polymerization are driving many new materials design, synthesis, and production capabilities. Combined with state-of-the-art characterization by probe microscopy, radiation scattering, and spectroscopy, the field of polymer science is poised for explosive development of novel and important materials. New classes of nonlinear structured polymeric materials have been invented, such as dendrimers. These structures have regularly spaced branch points beginning from a central point—like branches from a tree trunk. New struc-... 

The restricted space of this introductory article does not allow us to give further attention to Ya.B. s papers on the physical chemistry of combustion and detonation.4 In Ya.B. s own words, the science of combustion and detonation is dear to him because it provided him, at the beginning of his life and career, with a wide-open field of activity both as a theorist and as a bold experimenter. Important problems of a fundamental nature were being solved, problems which were related to important technological applications. The tremendous contribution which Ya.B. made to this science is the pride and showpiece of the Soviet school of combustion. Ya.B. s work on the theory of detonation and combustion was recognized by awarding him the State Prize of the USSR in 1943. 

Prof. Buchel studied chemistry at the Chemical Institute of the University of Bonn from 1952 to 1958 at which date he received his Doctorate of Science, and he continued there as an assistant to Prof. F. Korte from 1958 to 1961. Incidentally, it is a pleasure to welcome Prof. Korte to this gathering today to celebrate the remarkable success of his former student. From Bonn, Prof. Buchel moved to the Research Institute of Shell International at Birlinghoven for 5 years as a department head before beginning his career with Bayer AG. In the short space of the 10 years that followed, he rose from being a member of the Central Research Laboratory at Leverkusen to the position of Director of Central Research for Bayer and the Speaker for Research on Bayer s Board of Management. 

Carbon is the basis of all life on earth, and without a doubt, one of the most versatile elements known to man. More than ten million carbon compounds are known today, many times more than that of any other element. Carbon itself exists in several allotropes. Its flexible electron configuration allows carbon to form three hybridization states which lead to different types of covalent bonding. The most representative macroscopic forms of carbon are graphite and diamond. In 1985, Kroto et al. discovered a third carbon allotrope, the fullerenes. While their experiments aimed at understanding the mechanisms by which long chained carbon molecules are formed in interstellar space, their results opened a new era in science - the beginning of nanotechnology. 

---