Chapter ID: CBB491371828

From Physical Chemistry to Chemical Physics, 1913-1941 (2016)

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There has never been one unique name for the intersection of chemistry and physics. Nor has it ever been defined by a single, stable set of methods. Nevertheless, it is possible and arguably rewarding to distinguish changes in the constellation of terms and techniques that have defined the intersection over the years. I will speak today about one such change, the advent and ascendancy of chemical physics in the interwar period. When the young Friedrich Wilhelm Ostwald first began to formulate his campaign for “physical chemistry” in 1877, he used the term almost interchangeably with two others, “general chemistry” and “theoretical chemistry.” According to his vision of what would soon become a new chemical discipline, physical chemistry would investigate and formulate the general principles that underlie all chemical reactions and phenomena. The primary strategy that he and his allies used to generate these principles was to formulate mathematical “laws” or “rules” generalizing the results of numerous experiments, often performed using measuring apparatus borrowed from physics. Their main fields of inquiry were thermochemistry and solution theory, and they avoided and often openly maligned speculations regarding structures or mechanisms that might underlie the macroscopic regularities embodied in their laws

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Book Masanori Kaji; Yasu Furukawa; Hiroaki Tanaka; Yoshiyuki Kikuchi (2016) Transformation of Chemistry from the 1920s to the 1960s. unapi

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Authors & Contributors
Mareike Smolka
Pellegrino, Emilio Marco
Johannes Lyklema
Alexandra Hausstein
Krešimir Molčanov
Noboru Hirota
Concepts
Physical chemistry
Physics
Chemistry
Development of science; change in science
Interdisciplinary approach to knowledge
Philosophy of science
Time Periods
20th century
19th century
21st century
20th century, early
20th century, late
18th century
Places
Japan
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