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Lawrence Bartell experienced many strange events over the course of his long life, at least partly because he deliberately strayed far from the beaten path in science. While it might not have been the most efficient way to gain a reputation in his field, it was more fun. In his memoir, he presents a collection of entertaining, sometimes bizarre stories collected over a lifetime. Bartell chronicles a wide variety of experiences, such as his predisposition to indulge in childhood pranks, his arrest as a possible Russian spy, his work on the Manhattan Project, his entry into the Guinness Book of Records, his stint in the US Navy during wartime, and his appointment as visiting professor in Moscow during the height of the Cold War. As he recalls the curiousand often bizarretrue stories he acquired over a lifetime, it soon becomes evident that scientists are just as human as anyone else and that beer really can play an important role in preparing one for a PhD thesis. True Stories of Strange Events and Odd People shares details from a scientists one-of-a-kind journey through life as he observes the world around him, tests his theories, and learns valuable life lessons.
In this invaluable book, 36 famous chemists, including 18 Nobel laureates, tell the reader about their lives in science, the beginnings of their careers, their aspirations, and their hardships and triumphs. The reader will learn about their seminal discoveries, and the conversations in the book bring out the humanity of these great scientists. Highlighted in the stories are the discovery of new elements and compounds, the VSEPR model, computational chemistry, organic synthesis, natural products, polysaccharides, supramolecular chemistry, peptide synthesis, combinatorial chemistry, X-ray crystallography, the reaction mechanism and kinetics, electron transfer in small and large systems, non-equilibrium systems, oscillating reactions, atmospheric chemistry, chirality, and the history of chemistry.
The title of our volume refers to what is well described by the following two quota tions:"Godcreated man in his own image"l and "Man creates God in his own image."2 Our approach to symmetry is subjective, and the term "personal" symmetry reflects this approach in our discussion of selected scientific events. We have chosen six icons to symbolize six areas: Kepler for modeling, Fuller for new molecules, Pauling for helical structures, Kitaigorodskii for packing, Bernal for quasicrystals, and Curie for dissymmetry. For the past three decades we have been involved in learning, thinking, speaking, and writing about symmetry. This involvement has augmented our principal activities in molecular structure research. Our interest in symmetry had started with a simple fascination and has evolved into a highly charged personal topic for us. At the start of this volume, we had had several authored and edited symmetry related books behind 3 us. We owe a debt of gratitude to the numerous people whose interviews are quoted 4 in this volume. We very much appreciate the kind and gracious cooperation of Edgar J. Applewhite (Washington, DC), Lawrence S. Bartell (University of Michigan), R.
Recent innovations in experimental techniques such as molecular and cluster beam epitaxy, supersonic jet expansion, matrix isolation and chemical synthesis are increasingly enabling researchers to produce materials by design and with atomic dimension. These materials constrained by sire, shape, and symmetry range from clusters containing as few as two atoms to nanoscale materials consisting of thousands of atoms. They possess unique structuraI, electronic, magnetic and optical properties that depend strongly on their size and geometry. The availability of these materials raises many fundamental questions as weIl as technological possibilities. From the academic viewpoint, the most pertinent ...
Committee Serial No. 18. Reviews U.S. scientific manpower supply. Also considers adequacy of high school educational programs, scientific development in government, and current Soviet scientific and educational programs.