Chemistry Reference
In-Depth Information
3. Provide a representative picture of a molecule's shape in Euclidean space
4. Declutter and beautify figures and schemes
5. Elicit creativity and inspire ideas and future research
The fifth point is related to the subject of Sect.
3.5
on howMIMs have influenced
the growth of molecular nanotechnology.
3.5 Technomorphism
In some cartoons, a MIM can look less like a molecule and more like an ordinary
object, such as a toy or LEGO set. Take the MIMs in Fig.
19
for example; these
were drawn intentionally to look as though they were built from pipes, nuts, and
bolts. Though they bear the same topology as the molecules they represent, they
look more like the handiwork of a plumber than that of a synthetic chemist:
chemically meaningless unless placed in the proper context. The objects in the
figure hang in tension between the molecular world and the ordinary world,
belonging ambiguously to both. The way in which these images refer at once to
molecular and ordinary objects has been described by Joachim Schummer as a
“gestalt switch in molecular image perception” [
103
]. Schummer's important thesis
about “an aesthetic phenomenon that symbolically linked the world of molecules
and the world of ordinary objects, and
prompted the creation of a new sign
language” is embodied by images like those in Fig.
19
, for which he coined the
term “technomorphs.” Note that some cartoons in Fig.
18
are also technomorphs.
The technomorph representations of MIMs and supermolecules are truly valu-
able from both a practical and an aesthetic standpoint. Practically speaking, they
played a role in inspiring chemists to think about molecules as objects and push
back the frontiers of molecular nanotechnology. Because of technomorphism,
suddenly a molecule that looks like a car should be driven like a car [
104
], those
that look like cages should trap things inside [
105
], and so on. This mode of
thinking applies immensely to MIMs, where a frenzy of creative research
...
Fig. 19 Technomorph representations of MIMs: (a) [2]catenane, (b) Borromean Rings, (c) [2]
rotaxane, and (d) suit[2]ane
