Chemistry Reference
In-Depth Information
on the other, was to become a feature of the science of the later nine-
teenth century, and lead to the 'dilution' model of getting chemistry
across.
Faraday, Davy's disciple and successor at the Royal Institution, lec-
tured brilliantly to children, notably on 'The Chemical History of a Can-
dle', in a tradition that still continues and is now more democratically
available, on television. He did not feel that it was in any way beneath
him to popularize, but the next generation did often think that way, and
their successors often do. Serious science, to be noted in university pro-
motion committees, does not include popular writing or lecturing.
We can ask what did interest people who went to hear Faraday or his
contemporaries, and it was clearly not only ideas but also facts. Lectures
at the Royal Institution included much on explosives and weapons - the
'military-industrial complex' of Eisenhower's famous speech went back
a hundred years or so. Poisons, like explosions, have also always drawn
audiences, who might not have gone to hear August Hofmann talk about
molecular structures, even though he had croquet balls and rods as his
visual aids. In the mid twentieth century, young Oliver Sacks delighted
in chemistry, practical and factual, which helped him focus his life in
wartime London (Sacks 2001). He, and people like me a little later,
learned chemistry not so very different from that of the late nineteenth
century, and often in laboratories of that date; definitely hands-on.
In the professionalizing Victorian age, popularizers also began to be
professionals, people with a foot in both camps, of science and of jour-
nalism and other writing; and like other Grub Street hacks, made a living
out of it (Fyfe 2005). But they were tolerated rather than much admired
by the scientific community; and indeed popularizing science (and its
history) is still problematic - we see it as simplifying, dumbing-down,
sensationalizing, and often simply misreporting (Laszlo 2005), and all
too often that is what it is. We must have all groaned over amateurish
histories which ignore recent scholarship.
7.
The Unpopularity of Chemistry
This applied to all the sciences, and yet chemistry now writhes beneath
popular dislike to a greater degree than other sciences. This is partly
