Premium
Textbooks and tensions that shaped physical organic chemistry in its formative years
Author(s) -
Weininger Stephen J.
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
journal of physical organic chemistry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.325
H-Index - 66
eISSN - 1099-1395
pISSN - 0894-3230
DOI - 10.1002/poc.912
Subject(s) - chemistry , formative assessment , representation (politics) , identity (music) , field (mathematics) , set (abstract data type) , mathematics education , psychology , political science , aesthetics , law , computer science , art , mathematics , politics , pure mathematics , programming language
By the 1930s, physical organic chemistry had become sufficiently established in American and British universities to produce a market for textbooks in the field. Between 1937 and 1949, five textbooks appeared from UK and US authors; these set the framework for their successors for some years after. A close examination of these five reveals dissension about some major issues that often arise when a new subdiscipline is seeking a place in the sun: the nature of the audience; the basic theoretical framework; the standard nomenclature and formats for representation; and the identity of the ‘founding fathers.’ Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.