Ph.D. Jeremiah James (Munich): The Ultimate Measure of a Molecule?
Chemistry, physics, and 20th-century molecular models.
31.10.2013 um 16:00 Uhr
Molecular models were a staple of twentieth-century physical and biological sciences both as working tools and as prominent symbols. One need only think of the DNA double helix, the “buckyball” and nano-tubes, or the modeling kits ubiquitous amongst chemistry students. Models of molecules as built up from constituent atoms date back at least to John Dalton early in the 19th-century. But widespread acceptance of the precise shape of molecules as scientifically significant is a twentieth-century development, as is the construction of to scale molecular models. Moreover, it is a development that highlights subtler, less antagonistic, but likely more common modes of interaction between physics and chemistry, than hitherto paradigmatic cases, such as quantum chemistry.
when? October 31, 2013. 4-6 p.m.
where? room K026 (Historicum/ LMU)