Algebraic Aspects of Formal Chemical Kinetics

Abstract

It is striking how slight has been the impact of essentially mathematical ideas upon chemistry. Save in those reaches of the subject that are virtually identical with physics (e.g. quantum mechanics) the torch of foundations research has seldom been lit and the chemist has been far less aware than the physicist of the illumination that might be had from the concepts of rationality and structure that are the “euristic vision of mathematical trance” [1]. Such notions as the necessity and sufficiency of conditions, of similarity classes or of invariants wake but few echoes in the canyons of chemistry and attempts to explore the axiomatic strata that may be present in the chemical landscape have been rare. By comparison with physics, it has received scant attention from the philosophers of science, and, though such attentions are regarded by some as a mixed blessing, this has kept chemistry a little apart from the main intellectual current of natural philosophy. Thus, for example, there is no virtually no tract of it that rejoices in the clarity and coherence of the various physical theories that Bunge has axiomatized and considered in his “ Foundations of Physics” [2].

“Acknowledgment is made to the donors of the petroleum Research Fund, administered by the American Chemical Society, for partial support of this research.”