JOURNAL OF CHEMICALEDUCATION
ON THE SCARCITY OF INORGANIC CHEMISTS EUGENE G . ROCHOW General Electric Company, Sehenectady, New York
WHILE representatives of
industrial and government laboratories scour the country for the few chemists who are capable of conducting individual research on prohlems in inorganic chemistry, most graduate students continue to elect the fields of organic and physical chemistry. Why? Are they receiving outmoded advice from our university professors? Or are they receiving no guidance a t all and see no connection between recent developments and the supply-and-demand situation for chemists? The last ten years have seen- the emergence of the silicone polymers, fluorine, horon,fluoride, hydrogen fluoride, the fluorocarbon polymers, and the horofluorides to commercial importance. Substances like the silicate esters and the organometallic compounds have a greatly expanded usefulness, and every year more of the "rare" elements find a place in our economy. Overshadowing all of these is the controlled use of nuclear energy, which has made its importance felt a t once and promises to alter our lives far more than any other development of our time; in chemical terms such use of nuclear energy involves the manw facture and the separation of half the elements in the Periodic Table.' All of these rapidly expanding fields of chemical endeavor put a premium on research people with inorganic training, and even that formerly "useless" study, rare-earth chemistry, has suddenly achieved great importance. Yet what do we find? A glance a t the Predoctoral Fellowship Awards of the American Chemical Society2
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See J. Am. Chem. Sm., 68,2437 (1946) Chem. Eng. N m s , 24, 1485 (1946).
shows that out of these 60 promising young chemists only one has given inorganic as his preferred field. Twenty-seven elected organic and 16 elected physical chemistry. A tour through many of our accredited graduate schools gives a similar ,impression. Who is going to do this research in inorganic chemistry that will so alter our times by the safe and peaceful application of atomic power? This is not to say that those who major in physical and organic chemistry will find it hard to get jobs, for the demand for such training continues to increase with the continued development of conventional chemistry. Neither does it mean that these students will find themselves totally unsuited for work in nucleonics, for example, because a large part of what is called physical chemistry in one school is known as inorganic in another, and vice versa. The principal point to he made is that there seems to be a lack of definite detailed instruction in the newer fields and a lack of direction or "pointing" of the conventional material toward the newer prohlems. Presumably if the 69 other recipients of A. C. S. fellowships wanted to get into nucleonics, they would have to he content to apply their special skills to isolated problems or else remodel their training. It may he that students do not yet realize the implications of the large industrial and governmental lahoratories devoted to nucleonics. Perhaps they do not even connect what they read about silicones and fluorocarbons with their training. If so, it is up to the educators in our high schools, our colleges, and our graduate schools to point out the significance of the newer developments.
