was in the process of redesigning its vocational education offerings, and we were trying to provide another alternative to those students not wishing to spend four years in college, but who had some interest in science. Unfortunately, we had difficulty getting the students the program was aimed a t interested and those that started did not finish. The orogram was abandoned after a four-year attempt. I t did, however. leave us with most of the instrumentation described in the article. The cost of the instrumentation is not nearlv as great as one would imagine judging by what is available &day. At the time we were acauiring instrumentation, Varian was manufacturing a s t u d k g r i d e NMR and mass spectrometer of which we ohtained demonstrator models a t greatly reduced cost. We also obtained some demos of other major instrumentation when possible. Most of the s~ecializedand extra elassware needed to run such a program was ohtained free-of-cost from local govemment laboratories. Contact oersons a t these facilities would alert us when something was being discarded that they thought we could use, and I would pick it up. Many of the chemicals needed have also been obtained in this fashion. In order to answer Mr. Lamb comoletelv, I must also mention something about my own backgn&d and priorities. 1 have a research doctorate in chemistry, and, therefore, my interest in providing more laboratory experience for my students is perhaps greater than that of a teacher without my research experience. I, like my students, believe in getting the most out of every school day. Therefore, I have voluntarily given up my lunch period and in most years my planning period to teach this third-year course. By doing this I was oersonallv addressing Mr. Lamb's concern about putting tob much $me and energy into the better science students. This schedule allows me to teach all three levels of chemistry (general, advanred plncement, and introductory oraanic). I must add that this hascreated a kind uf personal "f&m system" as many of these students stay with me for three years. The ultimate student-teacher experience for me, however, is when one of my students and I collaborate on a research project. Government laboratories and even some private concerns often provide assistance on these projects. I hope Mr. Lamb can appreciate an unusual situation and realize that I did not mean to holdup my third-year course as something that everyone should try to model.
-
John Llebermann Thomas Jetterson Hlgh Schw lor Scenca and Technology 6560 Braddock Ra Alexandria. VA 22312
Orlgln of the Term "Quantum"
To the Editor:
In his article, "Old Wine in New Bottles: Quantum Theory in Historital Persoective" ( J . Chem. Educ. 1984, 61. 1078) Henry A. Bent trices the term "quantum" back to the ancient Indo-European word stem "kwo." This derivation prompts me to bring to your readers' attention a seemingly paradoxical situation involving the use of the term. was used hy Max Inasmuch as the word Planck to denote a uery small quantity of radiant energy (Verhandlungen der Deutschen Chemischen Gesellschaft 1900,2,237; Ann. Physik 1901,4,553,564), I have long been ouzzled as to how the term came to be used in common parlance to denote a uery large quantity (as in "quantum lea^" or "ouantum . iumo"). . Since dictionaries give both antithetical definitions, I appealed to Michael ~ i r t n e rEditor , and Publisher of the Des Moines Register and Tribune and Editor of the syndicated feature, "A Word about Words."
Gartner was stumped, and in his column of Novemher 19, 1984, he replied: The short answer is: I don't know. The longer answer is: When quantum leap first left science and entered the language of the lavman, it meant a "sudden and dramatic change." To the nons e k i s t , a sudden and dramatic change must be a big changeonly scientists understand that drama can come in small packages-and that, in all likelihood, is how a quantum leap came to mean a big leap. Unsatisfied with this answer, I pursued the matter further and learned from the ultimate authority in such matters, the "Oxford English Dictionary" (1910, Vol. 7, p 2 0 , that the word "quantum" has been used in English since the early seventeenth century (1619) to denote "a sum or amount." The earliest example given in the OED is by Thomas Purchas: "To set the true quantum, the true poize and price vpon himselfe" ("Microcosmos," XXXII, 302). Planck apparently used this term merely to indicate an amount, which, in his theory, just happens to be very small, hut which, in nonscientific English, can he either large or small. George B. Kauffman California State University, Fresno Fresno. CA 93740
To the Editw:
Historians of scienre have discuised at some length the question: Who introdured the word "ouantum" into auanturn physics and precisely what concept did i t stand for? Kuhn, in aself-styled "historiographic heresy" (Black-Body Theory and the Quantum Discontinuity, 1894-1912, Oxford University: Oxford, 1978), argues that although Planck referred repeatedly to the quantum of electricity (the charge e) and to the quantum of matter (the atom), the idea of restricting resonators' energies in solids to a discrete set of values did not occur to him until Einstein and others forced it upon him during 1906 and the years following. Wellknown is Planck's initial, strenuous rejection of Einstein's quantization of radiation. (The word "photon" for radiation's "energy quantum" was coined by a chemist, G. N. Lewis, but for a different concept from that for which it is now used.) Kuhn credits Einstein for the first published statement of energy atomization, in 1906. Planck, in his derivation of his black-body radiation law in 1900, followed a procedure introduced bv Boltzmann in statistical mechanics. Planck merely divibed the total energy of his oscillators into an inteeral number of eaual finite elements. "If auantization is the subdivision of total energy into finite parts," writes Kuhn, "then Boltzmann is its author." The first person to use the phrase "quantum mechanics" was Born, in 1924. Althoueh a ouantum of enerev -.mav.seem verv small to us. it may seem very large for a molecule, and its genetic consequences may he significant to humans. Typically the OED does not trace uses of the word "quantum" to modern times. Its last reference is dated 1879. Therein lies a characteristic manifestation of C. P. Snow's "two cultures". Language from its inception bas beenatool for dealing with aauantum mechanical world. Chemistry and are its newest suburbs. About a century or so ago, however, humanists stopped following the evolution of that feature of our culture that most makes us human. From the perspective of history, humanists are language's antiquarians, scientists its latter-day humanists. Henry A. Bent North Carolina State University Raleigh. NC 27695
Volume 64
Number 4
Aprll 1987-
383
