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Macromolecular chemistry

Limits to growth

Nature volume 395, pages 745–747 (1998)Cite this article

“Chemistry — What For?” The title of this recent conference * reveals something about the discipline. It is less likely that anyone would ask what biology, physics or Earth science is for — they are simply there, begging explanation. Chemistry is different. As Berthelot said, it “creates its own object” — it has the perpetual privilege of inventing itself anew. The conference's subtitle, “A View For the Next Century”, announced an intention to explore what form the third-millennial incarnation will take.

But prediction is a risky business — especially, as Yogi Berra said, when it is about the future — and forecasts were muted. If there was any shared opinion, it was that the future of chemistry is about greater control over matter: not so much in the manner of a dictator's domination of his subjects, but of an artist's facility for determining what appears on the canvas.

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Figure 1: The ion M12O404-, a cluster of MO6octahedra linked via the oxygen atoms at the corners.

Notes

  1. * Chemistry—What For? A View for the Next Century, Bielefeld, Germany, 30 September-2 October 1998.

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    Philip Ball

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Ball, P. Limits to growth. Nature 395, 745–747 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1038/27326

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