Changing Names and Naming Change: Transformations in the “International Machinery” of Chemical Information (2016)
“It all began, we are told” mused Austin Patterson, meaning the business of attaching names to things, “when Adam named the animals; his descendants have extended the practice to everything, including chemicals.” In this sense, chemical names were no different from any others. However, in his 1951 column in the newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society, Patterson wanted to discuss what was distinctive about chemical names – especially the systematic chemical names that many of his colleagues found so vexing. As Patterson put it, “Why trouble about rules for naming?”1 Chemical science and industry have long depended on their information technologies. Chemistry – particularly organic chemistry – was and is a science of the archive, in which an exhaustive search through the discipline’s accumulated achievements is often prerequisite to making new knowledge, and new knowledge duly joins the mass from which it came.2 This process involves chemical names (or, more generally, identifiers), the technological systems in which chemical information is ordered and made accessible by means of these names, and the institutions that build and maintain these information systems. Only by examining the interconnections among systems of chemical nomenclature, chemical reference media, and chemical institutions can we historicize Patterson’s question and begin to assemble an historical answer.
...MoreBook Masanori Kaji; Yasu Furukawa; Hiroaki Tanaka; Yoshiyuki Kikuchi (2016) Transformation of Chemistry from the 1920s to the 1960s.
Similar Citations
Article
Adams, Martin R.;
(2017)
The Birth of Modern Industrial Microbiology: The Acetone–Butanol Fermentation
(/isis/citation/CBB803744469/)
Article
Rein U. Kirss;
(2013)
Fifty Years of Vaska's Compound
(/isis/citation/CBB143722339/)
Article
Carlos Ramírez;
(2022)
Lipids, Chloroform, and Their Intertwined Histories
(/isis/citation/CBB384618008/)
Chapter
Bernardette Bensaude-Vincent;
(2020)
From Simple Substance to Chemical Element
(/isis/citation/CBB327497668/)
Chapter
Eric R. Scerri;
(2020)
The Many Questions Raised by the Dual Concept of “Element”
(/isis/citation/CBB802086327/)
Article
Seth C. Rasmussen;
(2018)
Revisiting the Early History of Synthetic Polymers: Critiques and New Insights
(/isis/citation/CBB726766203/)
Article
John Emsley;
(2019)
The Development of the Periodic Table and its Consequences
(/isis/citation/CBB224151752/)
Article
Zhang, Hao;
(2003)
The Unification of Chinese Chemical Nomenclature, 1912--1945
(/isis/citation/CBB000500520/)
Article
Keith Simeon Kostecka;
(2020)
Astatine - The Elusive One
(/isis/citation/CBB987877131/)
Chapter
Elena Ghibaudi;
Alberto Regis;
Ezio Roletto;
(2020)
The Dual Conception of the Chemical Element: Epistemic Aspects and Implications for Chemical Education
(/isis/citation/CBB012361300/)
Chapter
Farzad Mahootian;
(2020)
Kant, Cassirer, and the Idea of Chemical Element
(/isis/citation/CBB657452257/)
Article
Chang, Hao;
(2011)
The Development of Chinese Terms for Ammonia, Ammonium and Amines
(/isis/citation/CBB001221352/)
Chapter
Joseph E. Earley;
(2020)
Origins of the Ambiguity of the Current Definition of Chemical Element
(/isis/citation/CBB476358998/)
Article
Ann E. Robinson;
(2019)
Order From Confusion: International Chemical Standardization and the Elements, 1947-1990
(/isis/citation/CBB340408815/)
Chapter
Robin Findlay Hendry;
(2020)
The Existence of Elements, and the Elements of Existence
(/isis/citation/CBB387242449/)
Article
Weininger, Stephen J.;
(2000)
“What's in a Name?” From Designation To Denunciation: The Nonclassical Cation Controversy
(/isis/citation/CBB000740571/)
Article
Rayner-Canham, Geoff;
Zheng, Zheng;
(2008)
Naming Elements after Scientists: An Account of a Controversy
(/isis/citation/CBB000930615/)
Article
Nenad Raos;
Tomislav Portada;
Vladimir Stilinović;
(2013)
Anionic Names of Acids — an Experiment in Chemical Nomenclature
(/isis/citation/CBB700092258/)
Chapter
Joachim Schummer;
(2020)
The Operational Definition of the Elements: A Philosophical Reappraisal
(/isis/citation/CBB928776970/)
Chapter
Sarah N. Hijmans;
(2020)
Chemical Elements and Chemical Substances: Rethinking Paneth’s Distinction
(/isis/citation/CBB430448947/)
Bulletin for the History of Chemistry
Zhongguo Keji Shiliao (China Historical Materials of Science and Technology)
International Journal for the History of Engineering and Technology
Foundations of Chemistry
Chinese Journal for the History of Science and Technology
Be the first to comment!