THE EMERGENCE OF DISCIPLINES

This entire book is about the emergence, nature and cultivation of a new discipline, materials science and engineering. To draw together the strings of this story, it helps to be clear about what a scientific discipline actually is that, in turn, becomes clearer if one looks at the emergence of some earlier disciplines which have had more time to reach a condition of maturity. Comparisons can help in definition we can narrow a vague concept by examining what apparently diverse examples have in common. 

One of the defining features of a new discipline is the publication of textbooks setting out its essentials. In Section 2.1.1, devoted to the emergence of physical chemistry, I pointed out that the first textbook of physical chemistry was not published until 1940, more than half a century after the foundation of the field. Materials science has been better served. In what follows, I propose to omit entirely all textbooks devoted to straight physical metallurgy, of which there have been dozens, say little about straight physics texts, and focus on genuine MSE texts. 

So, nearly half a century after the emergence of the concept, we its practitioners have in materials science and engineering a clearly distinct discipline which in practice doubles up as a multidiscipline, with a substantial number of independent academic departments and research institutes spread around the world, with its own multifarious journals and textbooks, and a large number of professionals, also spread around the world, who call themselves materials scientists and engineers and communicate with each other on that basis. We have a profession to be proud of. 

Lemaine, Gerard, et al., eds. Perspectives on the Emergence of Scientific Disciplines. The Hague Mouton, 1976. 

Silliman, Robert H. "Fresnel and the Emergence of Physics as a Discipline." HSPS 4 (1972) 137162. 

One of the developments that has contributed substantially to the improved quality of drug development is the emergence of Pharmaceutical Medicine. Pharmaceutical Medicine is the discipline concerned with the medical aspects of research, development, evaluation, registration, monitoring and marketing of medicines in the interest of patients. In Great Britain a Diploma in Pharmaceutical Medicine was introduced in 1975, and in 1989 the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine was established as part of the Royal College of Physicians. Subsequently, similar developments took place in other countries. 

The emergence of pharmacogenomics will also enhance the interaction of medicinal chemistry as a discipline with other disciplines, including the social sciences, ethics, and economics. Society has a difficult enough time paying for currently available dmg therapies. Who will pay for individualized therapies Will this further widen the chasm between have and have-not populations, between developed and developing nations ... 

Further advances in miniaturisation and reduction of power consumption are envisaged that could lead to more effective handheld instruments that outperform the existing ones and approach the performance of current larger instruments. The wider applications and lower cost of the new devices will be expected to further drive the emergence of new application areas across many disciplines including those covered in this book. 

The development of computational chemistry in Canada is inextricably linked with the emergence of theoretical chemistry as one of Canada s strongest scientific disciplines. For this reason, the present account chronicles the history of both computational and theoretical chemistry in Canada. 

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