Chemical Education Today
Book & Media Reviews
Chemistry for the 21st Century Edited by Ehud Keinan and Israel Schechter Wiley-VCH: Weinheim, 2001. 292 pp. ISBN 3-527-30235-2. $35.00. reviewed by Joseph E. Earley Sr.
Are we really in the midst of an intellectual revolution that is as far-reaching as the conceptual change that accompanied the rise of science in the late Renaissance? The editors of this volume think so. Keinan and Schechter have collected papers (mainly presented at the May 1998 celebration marking the 50th anniversary of the State of Israel and also the 20th anniversary of the Wolf Prize) written by winners of the Wolf and Nobel prizes, in order to provide “readers, now and in the future, with the taste and flavor of the science [chemistry] at the turn of the millennium.” However, these editors have chosen a title that promises more than the attainment of the fairly modest goal stated. The title of the collection of essays implies that this volume will show what chemistry will become during the 21st century. But if science is, in fact, in the midst of a revolutionary ferment (as the editors suggest), who can say what chemistry will be like near the end of the 21st century, or even whether what we now call chemistry will then exist? Some of the chapters of this book explicitly prognosticate the direction of chemical science. In the opening chapter, Jean Marie Lehn speculates that chemistry is changing into an information science—a “general science of informed matter”. Two trends leading in this direction are seen to be supramolecular chemistry, particularly as dealing with molecular recognition, and the study of nonlinear dynamic systems, including the origin of life. For Lehn, chemistry “does not preexist, but is invented as progress is made. It is not just waiting to be discovered, but is to be created.” Most of the other papers in the collection are not so clearly future-directed as is Lehn’s contribution, but if the reader adopts an imaginative attitude, they all can be read as giving intriguing hints of what the next century may bring. Each paper, in its own way, strengthens the editors’ prediction that the coming hundred years will see developments in chemical science that will change the nature of our world in fundamental ways The volume includes several papers on aspects of chemical syntheses, and others dealing with parts of chemical biology. Self-assembly, combinatorial approaches in materials chemistry, and trends in quantum chemistry are each covered in a number of contributions. From one point of view, every one of these essays may be considered as being deep within some particular special-
edited by
Jeffrey Kovac University of Tennessee Knoxville, TN 37996-1600
ist groove. But from another vantage point, each can be read as pointing to the future flourishing of a chemical science that will be as different from our science as that differs from what Chaim Weizmann (1874–1952), the eminent chemist who was the first President of the State of Israel (1949– 1952), knew. A few examples may suggest the sorts of insights offered. Advances in chemical syntheses have led to new agents that profoundly change specific microstructures (e.g., epithilones stabilize microtubules) and greatly affect biological function, fundamentally changing medical practice. High throughput (combinatorial) methods allow chemists and materials scientists to explore properties of substances in regions of composition space with a speed and efficiency that would have amazed earlier workers. Considerations related to the preconditions for the origins and persistence of homochirality suggest that “a coherent and credible theory of chemical biogenesis” may emerge during the next century. Recent developments (e.g. density functional theory, integral direct methods) permit theoretical chemistry to lead (or at least precede) experiments, pointing to fulfillment of Mullikan’s prediction that theory will tend to replace experiment. A topical index to the volume is provided, but the editors resisted the temptation to provide a summary or overall discussion. Nevertheless, one who is so inclined can discern that the developments foreseen fall into two great categories. Most of the quantum mechanics and much of the chemical biology sections deal with anticipated advances that will facilitate understanding of the properties of larger units in terms of the characteristics of smaller parts (analysis, if you will). In contrast, chapters that deal with materials science, supramolecular chemistry, and dynamic nonlinear complexity emphasize how currently unrealized combinations of parts will produce new sorts of behavior (a synthetic approach). Which of these two alternative trends will predominate in what actually happens in the coming century? I’ll put my bet on the second approach. I gladly wager that clever chemists will keep cooking up and discovering larger and more complex aggregates with important novel properties. In all probability, they will do so much faster than a priori theorists (and other analytically inclined folk) can develop tools to deal adequately with those combinations. On this basis, the “centrality” and relative importance of scientific work done in the venerable “chemical” tradition should increase rather than wane during the next century. Joseph E. Earley Sr. is in the Division of Chemistry, The National Science Foundation, Arlington, VA 22230;
[email protected]. The opinions expressed in this review are those of the author and not those of the NSF or of the Chemistry Division.
JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu • Vol. 79 No. 1 January 2002 • Journal of Chemical Education
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