Talk:Chemistry

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Created "Central science"

I have create a page called "central science". I think that some of the recent discussions on this page would be appropriate for this new page. The relationship between chemistry and physics as well as the relationship between chemistry and biology are both included by this term. M stone 23:24, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Some nice material but I think it should be merged into Chemistry as a section. The title is very POV - OK, our POV as chemists, but still POV. We call our subject the central science. I do not see others doing so. --Bduke 00:35, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

I agre with Bduke that this is better as a section of the chemistry article (although we can work on the central science article until some admin decides to deprotect the chemistry article). I must also say that the first two references you used, although they are very interesting and are potentially useful for this discussion, in no way support the sentence to which they are attached ("Chemistry is often called the central science because..."). The use the words "central science" once or twice, but they never explain why; they assume that the reader already knows that chemistry is called this way. If I may say so, I think the two references I added to the Chemistry article are much more relevant to this statement (if you want to check them out and don't have the books, you can view parts of one in google books and the other with amazon.com "look inside" feature [user account probably required...]). Of the two references you give, the first one would be more useful for a discussion of the role of chemistry in American society during the 20th century and possible role in the future, and the second is more relevant to the question of chemistry as a service science that we've been discussing above (called "back-office technical activity" in the title). --Itub 08:15, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

I just wanted to pipe in and express my support for the level-headed responsible editors such as Itub, Bduke et al. Regarding my take on this I would suggest that the fact that some physicists seem to think of chemistry as a subset of physics and that some chemists are afraid that they are becoming biologists or material scientists combined with the fact that these same extreme physicists don't claim biology to be a subset of physics since it is too much of a stretch is precisely the reasons why chemistry is commonly called the central science. I would note to the anon's that central does not mean superior just as they claim (with a little less validity) that being a subset is not inferior. Clearly both chemistry and physics are subsets of science. From a philosophical point of view, yes ideally if science could produce a single equation that could predict everything at every moment for all of eternity we would only need that equation but rather than having one science we would actually have none. It would be the end of science because science is a process of discovery. The tools and subdivisions of science will evolve and the more contributions that physics can make to chemistry the better but at this point it is really fairly limited in any predictive power and prediction and hypothesis testing are the core of all science.--Nick Y. 21:03, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

That article is basically pointless. The term is nothing more than a spin-off of Brown, LeMay, and Bursten’s popular textbook Chemistry – the Central Science, 1977 = 1st Ed, 2005 = 10th Ed.. Moreover, according to Feynman, “the theory behind chemistry is quantum electrodynamics”. Hence, one would be better to argue that QED is the central science. Moreover, once all the fundamental forces get unified, if ever, the new GUT will be the central science. I’m putting merge tags on these articles. --Sadi Carnot 06:59, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

I think you misunderstand the meaning of "central" in this context. It doesn't mean "most fundamental", but something like "in the middle" (the most common example is "between physics and biology"). I suspect that the phrase predates Brown's book by decades, but I haven't found solid proof yet. :) --Itub 08:10, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Agree with Itub. The term is widely used in Australia where Brown et al's textbook is not particularly well known. It means that a whole lot of students have to learn chemistry to pursue their own discipline. It is is in the middle with relevance to many other disciplines. --Bduke 13:05, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Bduke, at Eastern Kentucky University even the firefighters have to take chemistry(the school has a top ranked law enforcement/forensic science/firefighting departments)as do the engineers, medical students, etc. --PedroDaGr8 01:57, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with Sadi Carnot that the term The central science is "basically pointless." References are provided to demonstrate that this term is a commonly used. A view that is supported by this discussion. Also it a term used to describe chemistry, which is not the same as being chemistry. Thus I do not believe The central science should not be merged and have removed merge tags. M stone 05:55, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

I've readded the tags, as there is certainly no consensus that the article should not be merged. There are at least three people here who think the article should be merged. In case it's not clear, I'm one of them. I disagree with Sadi Carnot's view of the term, but I don't think it warrants a separate article. It's just a way of calling chemistry, a nickname if you will, and it can be addressed well enough in a section of the chemistry article. Would you create articles called "the science of life", "the science of the mind", "the only science", etc. just because other sciences are called those ways? --Itub 07:37, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

• What's the harm in having the page? Wikipedia is not running out of space! Obviously it the term has been discuss in writing. If a term is commonly used and discussed in writing then why shouldn't it have its own page? Chemistry is too big to discuss all aspecs in detail. Having its own page does not exclude its discussion here. Plus this term is also relevant to the philosophy of chemistry. M stone 12:01, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

(unindenting) Not doing any harm is not a reason for keeping an article. The main problem is that the article as it exists doesn't really add anything that is not already in the Chemistry article, and is therefore redundant. If it were so much more detailed that it couldn't fit as a section of the chemistry article, and if it had proper references (see the comment I made above on May 7), I might be more inclined to keep it as a separate article. --Itub 12:30, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

You raise a valid point that at this point The central science page is not adding much additional information. However, I think that you should you also consider that the article is 2 weeks old! Also I would add refs but I do not have access to those texts. It would be good if you could. I propose removing the merge tags and reevaluating the article in 6 months. If it has not grow into something more distinct then lets merge. M stone 20:57, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

That's OK with me, I'm not in a hurry. :) But let's wait a few days to see if there are any other opinions. --Itub 08:21, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

The central science

I have been away from this page for a few days, I may have been hard with my comments, but my point still stands. I don’t think that "The central science" should be an article. It reflects poorly on other articles, in that a reader doesn't really gain anything by it, and weakens our combined work here at Wikipedia as such. In other words, its like writing up an article on the most used adjective of any given article. If we use green chemistry as an example, according to Mstone’s logic, we could then find a reference for the The green science and then write up a stub for why chemistry is The green science. Then we could do this for the other branches of chemistry, e.g. The bio science to discuss biochemistry, etc. Then we could start up a Category:Most common adjectives used to describe the science of chemistry, or something similar. I hope this clarifies my point. Again, what is the point of this article. Is a student actually going to reference this article for a term paper? Note also that Mstone cares so much for this article that he doesn't even take the time to spell check a basic redlink: themodynamics? --Sadi Carnot 15:14, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

I think the case with "the central science" is special. The term is very widely used, and this issue of "centrality" has been a matter of serious discussion among chemists and philosophers, as some of the references provided have shown. If Balaban and Klein (ref. below) decided to write a scientific article about it, it does not seem to me at all implausible that a student might want to write a term paper about it too. The topic is notable enough, and it is possible to write an article about it, although it requires quite a bit of research. My only objection was the length redundancy of the actual incarnation of the article, but I'm willing to give it time. --Itub 15:39, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Interesting article about chemistry as the central science

I just found a very interesting article on this topic (but it requires subscription). Alexandru T. Balaban and Douglas J. Klein. Is chemistry 'The Central Science'? How are different sciences related? Co-citations, reductionism, emergence, and posets. Scientometrics 2006, 69, 615-637. doi:10.1007/s11192-006-0173-2 --Itub 14:23, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Fathers of chemistry

Note that the intro currently reads:

Geber (d. 815), Robert Boyle (1661), Antoine Lavoisier (1787) and John Dalton (1808) can be considered the fathers of modern chemistry.

Beyond this, I have seen others referred to also as the “father of chemistry”. Possibly we could do an article on this to clarify who the actual father is? Anybody have ideas or like this proposal? Personally, I would likely argue that Lavoisier is the father, and that other’s are subsidiary, but near-to-equal in importance. --Sadi Carnot 15:22, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Who the father is is a mater of opinion, of course. However, I think it is true that Lavoisier is the one most commonly named as the father of modern chemistry, although Boyle and Dalton are also often named. However, it makes absolutely no sense to list Geber as a father of modern chemistry, so I have reverted the introduction to an earlier version where he is listed as the father of chemistry (not modern chemistry). I like the idea of an article about the father(s) of chemistry. --Itub 15:29, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, as the intro to the chemistry article that could go, but in a stand alone piece, if we use published views of what chemistry historians think about the matter, Geber would merit inclusion. Also, there is some Arabic chemist (in Wikipedia somewhere) that I’ve read referred to as the “father of chemistry”. Also, to give a loose idea, Google search results for father of chemistry lists Boyle, Geber, Dalton, and Lavoisier, in that order. There’s also this talk-page/question-answer link: Who is known as the "Father of Chemistry"?, where a user says “it seems there are many fathers of chemistry. Things like this might justify the need for a short article on this topic. Just some loose ideas. --Sadi Carnot 15:47, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, Geber merits inclusion, but he is not the father of modern chemistry any more than Archimedes is the father of modern mathematics, Aristotle the father of modern physics, or Hippocrates the father of modern medicine. :) --Itub 15:54, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Chemical energetics external link

The link to the article through the External links is non functional, most likely bacause of the / after the url. I tried to repair it but cannot because it is protected. Can someone who has the rights do it?202.141.141.7 13:22, 21 June 2007 (UTC)