Chemistry Reference
In-Depth Information
newly devised (1950) xerography, which all thrived from applying dis-
coveries in pure science (Stokes 1997, National Research Council
1998).
8
To sum-up this section: chemists may have cultivated an individual
self-image of entrepreneur and a collective self-image of social benefac-
tors. This ploy preserved the age-long, traditional image of craftsmen
while adapting it to the flow of easy money. Note, in passing, that entre-
preneurship was not a new notion for chemists. There had been quite a
few examples in the past, such as Perkin's, Baekeland's, or Mond's. Fur-
thermore, Justus von Liebig's laboratory at Giessen had pioneered a two-
tiered organization of chemical laboratories, egalitarian among group
leaders and feudal within each research group.
The 1950s, if dominated by university expansion and the attendant
demographic increase among chemists, also portended things to come. I
shall only mention here a few: the interdiction of fishing in Minimata
Bay, which the poisoning by methyl mercury had brought to a stop; the
first rumblings of opposition to the widespread use of pesticides (Anon.
1959); the devising of a ground-breaking solid-state peptide synthesis
(Merrifield 1963); and the discovery of the NMR chemical shift (Dickin-
son 1950, Proctor & Yu 1950), which went a long way towards explain-
ing the major influence of NMR on chemistry that we shall consider
now.
4.
The 1960s: The NMR Revolution
The impact of NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance) was three-fold, intel-
lectual, social, and psychological. As NMR superseded both earlier spec-
troscopic tools (such as IR and UV-visible) and contemporary ones
(MS), it enforced among chemists a new kind of visual literacy. Chem-
ists learned the skill of reading a spectrum, translating its features into
words belonging to the language of chemistry, words such as 'carbonyl',
'phenyl', or 'methyl'. Earlier on, structural analysis had been a field in
itself. Henceforth, the NMR tool gave every chemist such expertise
(Becker 1993).
8
A
lesson
the
pharmaceutical
industry
had
implemented
early
on
(Bohmfalk
1953b).
