Technikatörténeti szemle 19. (1992)

KÖNYVISMERTETÉS - Papers of the First „MINERALKONTOR” International Conference on the History of Chemistry and Chemical Industry (Veszprém, 12-16 August, 1991)

OTTO THEODOR BENFEY* — JAMES J. BOHNING* — ARNOLD THACKRAY* ARNOLD BECKMAN AND HIS INSTRUMENTS: GATEKEEPERS TO THE MYSTERIOUS WORLD OF MOLECULES Chemical analysis and with it all of chemistry underwent a major revolution with the development of electronic and subsequently recording spectrophotometric instruments. One of the towering figures making possible that revolution was Arnold O. Beckman (Figure 1): And his instrument, the ..Beckman DU," celebrated its 50th anniversary in April 1991. On the far side of that transformation is William Henry Perkin who in 1856 attempted to make quinine simply by putting molecules together with the requisite number of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen atoms. What he actually produced was mauve, and he thereby initiated the world's synthetic dye industry. On this side of the instrumental revolution is the work of Robert B. Woodward of Harvard University and of Ciba-Geigy's Woodward Institute in Basel and his associates and disciples, beginning with the actual laboratory synthesis of quinine followed by cholesterol, cortisone, reserpine, strychnine and vitamin B12. R. B. Woodward gave the impression of being more at home in the micro world of molecules than in the macro world, our world of human beings. This familiarity with the molecular world was in large part made possible by the signals derived from spectral investigation. The visualization of molecule — describing what they looked like and how they behave — goes back at least to the structural theory of organic chemistry of August Kekule, Alexander Mikhailovich Butlerov, and Archibald Scott Couper and the latter's introduction of bond lines connecting atoms. Kekule described how he saw the atoms ..gambolling" before his eyes — forming chains and rings — during his speech at the Berlin Benzolfest in 1890. In 1874 J. H. van't Hoff proposed the tetrahedral carbon atom only to be castigated by Hermann Kolbe for riding on the mythical flying horse Pegasus in order to see what molecules looked like in space. Kekule saw the atoms in daydreams, and Alfred Werner woke from sleep to see the octahedral arrangement of iron, cobalt and chromium coordination compounds. In spite of Kolbe's strong objections to going beyond the laboratory data to visualization, the process moved even beyond structures. Chemists attempted to •Beckman Center for the History of Chemistry, 3041 Walnut Street, Philadelphia PA 19104-6228