Witness to Revolution

In summary, the second half of the 20th century has witnessed a revolution in the development of important therapeutic agents for many different diseases, especially those afflicting the nervous system. The escalating rate of scientific advance portends far more effective drugs, many of which will likely revolutionize treatment and perhaps lead to cures of the major scourges of the human species. 

What follows is a brief account of Professor Vigier s life and career as related to one of us (S. Jeffers) in a series of conversations held in Paris during the summer of 1999. A more complete version of these conversations will appear in a book being compiled by Apeiron Press and the Royal Swedish Academy to mark the 80th birthday of Professor Vigier. A comprehensive biography of this remarkable man, whose life has witnessed major revolutions both in physics and in politics (his twin passions), remains to be written. 

This chapter has introduced the conventional approaches as well as the most recent approaches taken to prepare samples for the determinative techniques that are to follow in Chapter 4. Sample prep was once considered the bottleneck with respect to trace organics analysis. This is no longer the case, as has been discussed. The past 15 years have witnessed a revolution in sample prep and this bodes well for significant increases in lab productivity in the future. 

We are witnessing a revolution in the making as scientists from all different disciplines discover that complexity has a strict architecture. We have come to grasp the importance of networks."... 

We should therefore conclude that refining will witness a very important evolution, without revolution, but which will affect both the processes and procedures utilized, the objective being to produce clean products in a clean , energy-efficient manner. 

Finding close agreement between the result of a calculation and an established body of empirical data is a delightful experience. To those of us who have witnessed the evolution of the computational tools during their own lifetime, the process has at times appeared like a revolution and a mutation of chemistry (Schafer 1983G, 1991G). The reference section given at the end of this chapter demonstrates that ab initio calculations of amino acids and peptides are at the base of a very active field and have become a powerful source of information on these important molecules. 

During six days, from 2 to 10 June, the Gordon Riots had inflicted more damage on London than Paris would witness in a decade of revolution. When the historian Edward Gibbon saw the blazing prisons, looted houses, and black-coated marchers, he thought he d been whisked back to the... 

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