Physical Methods and the
Transformation of Modern Chemistry
Carsten Reinhardt
...”Reinhardt is an especially skilled narrator, and his recounting of the twists and turns of early NMR and mass spectrometry as applied to organic chemistry is captivating. He is also very good at describing the industry-university nexus, pointing out, for example, that instrument makers such as Varian Associates initiated training for users at universities...” —American Scientist, March-April 2007
“… based on many years of study, including interviews and archival research. This meticulously documented work is a most important contribution to the history of how physical methods have changed the modern chemical sciences. It is more than a book on the history of chemistry, though, for it also adds significantly to the history of scientific instruments and our understanding of the intimate connection between science and industry in the period from about 1950 to 1970…” Isis, June 2007
“...Das Buch is ein ausgezeichnetes und bedeutendes Werk der Wissenschaftsgeschichte. Carsten Reinhardt ist zu dieser detaillierten Darstellung einiger der wichtigsten historischen Entwicklungen in der Chemie zu beglückwünschen—eine faszinierende Lektüre!” —Angew. Chem. 2007, 4902-4903
“Chemistry is not the evolving, smooth science it is perceived as today: in the second half of the 20th century it actually went through a large transformation in which the solid chemical substance idea changed to an abstract structure, with the chemical reaction supplemented by physical methods and the chemist replaced by technical measurement devices. Physical methods were the heart of this change – and (this book) documents this process, contributing an excellent college-level survey essential for any in-depth science collection.”—California Bookwatch
“Ein sehr schönes informatives Buch. Es gibt einen akkuraten und spannenden Einblick in einen Teil der Wissenschaftsgeschichte der letzten 50 Jahre”. — Richard R. Ernst. Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1991
“To some, the twentieth century was the century of physics. To others, it was the chemical century. To those on both sides of this divide and to anyone with an abiding interest in the history of science, Carsten Reinhardt’s book, Shifting and Rearranging, is required reading…Scientists and historians will find much of value in the book. It is sophisticated in its approach to history and lucid in its handling of technical information. The book is a major milestone in the history of twentieth-century science and technology.” —Leo B. Slater
In the second half of the twentieth century, chemistry underwent a profound transformation. Its object of examination, the chemical substance, was transmuted into abstract structure; its most important method, the chemical reaction, was supplemented by physical methods; and its practitioner, the chemist, was partially displaced by technical instruments. At the center of this transformation were physical methods. As much as shifts of data in nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy and molecular rearrangements in mass spectrometry were used to interpret the results obtained by these techniques, so their adoption in chemistry was bound to shifts and fundamental rearrangements of the discipline—from the Preface
2006, 438 pp., illust., clothbound and jacketed, ISBN 0-88135-354-X, $49.95
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