Designing the Molecular World: Chemistry at the Frontier (Princeton Science Library): 19 - Softcover

Ball, Philip

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0691029008 ISBN 13: 9780691029009

Verlag: Princeton University Press, 1996

Inhaltsangabe

Some of the most exciting scientific developments in recent years have come not from theoretical physicists, astronomers, or molecular biologists but instead from the chemistry lab. Chemists have created superconducting ceramics for brain scanners, designed liquid crystal flat screens for televisions and watch displays, and made fabrics that change color while you wear them. They have fashioned metals from plastics, drugs from crude oil, and have pinpointed the chemical pollutants affecting our atmosphere and are now searching for remedies for the imperiled planet. Philip Ball, an editor for the prestigious magazine Nature, lets the lay reader into the world of modern chemistry. Here, for example, chemists find new uses for the improbable buckminsterfullerene molecules--60-atom carbon soccerballs, dubbed "buckyballs"--which seem to have applications for everything from lubrication to medicine to electronics.


The book is not intended as an introduction to chemistry, but as an accessible survey of recent developments throughout many of the major fields allied with chemistry: from research in traditional areas such as crystallography and spectroscopy to entirely new fields of study such as molecular electronics, artificial enzymes, and "smart" polymer gels. Ball’s grand tour along the leading edge of scientific discovery will appeal to all curious readers, with or without any scientific training, to chemistry students looking for future careers, and to practicing chemical researchers looking for information on other specialties within their discipline.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Philip Ball, Associate Editor for Physical Sciences for Nature, has written on the new chemistry for both technical journals and popular magazines and newspapers.

Von der hinteren Coverseite

What this book aims to do is to present a selection of some of the things that a chemist today may find her or himself engaged in studying. If by doing so it succeeds in demonstrating simply that the new chemistry is no longer a matter of test tubes and bad smells (although both may be encountered along the way), that is fine enough. For this demonstration we will need to take a cursory glance not only at some of the basic principles of chemistry but also at a pot-pourri of ideas from disciplines as diverse as genetics, climatology, electronics and the study of chaos.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Princeton University Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 1996
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0691029008
• ISBN 13: 9780691029009
• Einband: Tapa blanda
• Anzahl der Seiten: 402
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar