Softening chemistry
It was Anton Chekhov who wrote in 1887: “A writer must be as objective
as a chemist: he must abandon the subjective line.” Nevertheless,
it is not always that a chemist sticks strictly to objectivity.
In Chemistry in Britain for September, Philip Ball, a consultant editor
for Nature, has drawn attention to a few instances where chemists of solid
reputation have engaged in sentimental and subjective statements regarding
their profession. On the whole, asserts the author, chemistry seems to
have had more than its fair share of romance, and certain stories “repeated
endlessly and uncritically” have entered its mythology. Many of them
are based on flimsy evidence, and some may be outright fabrications arising
from wishful thinking, inflated recollection, wilful attempts at
self-aggrandisement or distorted history. Popularisers of the sciences
are still allured by romanticism and prepared to stretch the facts to
suit the presentation.
We have all heard of Friedrich Kekulé daydreaming on the Clapham
bus of chains of carbon atoms in 1854. And in that same year Hermann Kolbe
in his chemistry textbook retailed the story of how Friedrich Wöhler
in 1828 synthesised urea from ammonium cyanate and was acclaimed as having
united the organic and the inorganic, the living and the dead.
Then at the end of the 18th century we find Humphry Davy combining the
roles of chemist and poet and persuading Wordsworth and Coleridge to listen
to the magical voice of chemistry. When Davy lectured at the Royal Institution,
fashionable ladies flocked to hear him and sent him anonymous sonnets
in admiration. So popular were his Friday evening discourses that Albemarle
Street was made the first one-way street in London.
Davy, though a first-rate chemist, was still an incurable romantic. Faraday,
on the contrary, did not allow physics to distract him into romanticising
his science, although his progress from bookbinder’s assistant to
physicist was in itself a subject for romance.
It is difficult to understand why chemistry was considered so romantic
by layman and chemist alike while physics was rarely seen in a similar
light. The one is surely no more mysterious than the other. However, at
the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th centuries chemistry
was closely linked to electricity, and thus overlapped with physics and
was seen to be concerned with the forces of nature rather than the nature
of matter.
For people of romantic tendency chemistry became the science of choice.
It inspired the philosopher Hegel, the painter Runge and the poet Goethe.
At one time during their close association with Davy, Wordsworth and Coleridge
proposed to set up a chemical laboratory, which never materialised. Yet
it shows that the romantic urge was close to the scientific one especially
the urge to perform chemical reactions. No doubt it drew on ancient alchemy
for its mystical roots.
Back to Top
|
