Abstract
IN the development of chemistry two phases can be distinguished. First there is a subdivision into more or less self-contained sections, inorganic, organic and physical—a subdivision dictated by the increasing complexity of the subject. Corresponding divisions have taken place in the other natural sciences, and the training of scientific workers has become more and more specialized. In the second phase the gulfs between the different sciences and between the branches of a particular science tend to be bridged by theories and new techniques. For example, the foundations of modern chemistry were laid when physicists investigated the passage of electricity through gases and the emission of radiation from heated bodies, studies which eventually led to the modern theory of the structure of the atom. Just as the quantum theory contributed to the development of chemistry as well as physics, so within chemistry itself the techniques of the physicist and the physical chemist are required by the inorganic and organic chemist. Thus although the various branches of chemistry have separately become more complex, they have now much in common as regards theory and technique.
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WELLS, A. Relation of Crystallography to Chemistry. Nature 155, 468–471 (1945). https://doi.org/10.1038/155468a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/155468a0