Abstract
Chemical formulas, those small icons which chemists are wont to scribble in their notebooks and in odd places, such as the back of an envelope, and which to the general public have become emblems of their profession, are an excellent topic for history. These artefacts remain today tools for communication within the community of chemists. They continue serving as didactic instruments in teaching. The establishment of an individual formula for a chemical compound or a substance chronicles the laboratory methods, both routine and specific, which came into play in order for it to be written down and to assume the status of the analog of a word, to be stored within the growing lexicon of chemistry.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Ampère, André Marie. “Lettre de M. Ampère à M. le comte Berthollet, sur la détermination des proportions dans lesquelles les corps se combinent d’après le nombre et les dispositions respectives des molécules dont leurs parties intégrantes sont composées.” Ann. de Chim. et de Phys. 90 (1814): 43–86.
Bamberger, Eugen and Franz Eiger. “Ueber die Reduction des Orthonitroacetophenons–ein Beitrag zur Kenntniss der ersten Indigosynthese.” Berichte der Deutschen Chemischen Gesellschaft 36 (1903): 1611–25.
Barthes, Roland. “Rhétorique de l’image.” In L ‘obvie et l’obtus. Essais critiques III, edited by Roland Barthes, 31–32. Paris: Le Seuil, 1982.
Brock, William H. The Norton History of Chemistry. New York: W. W. Norton, 1992.
Brock, William H. Justus von Liebig: The Chemical Gatekeeper. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Brooke, John Hedley. Thinking about Matter, Studies in the History of Chemical Philosophy. Aldershot, Hampshire: Variorum, 1995.
Brush, Stephen G. The Kind of Motion We Call Heat: A History of the Kinetic Theory of Gases in the 19th Century. Dordrecht: North-Holland, 1976.
Fischer, Emil and Otto Fischer. “Ueber Farbstoffe der Rosanilingruppe.” Berichte der Deutschen Chemischen Gesellschaft 12 (1879): 2344–53.
Hacking, Ian. “Experimentation and Scientific Realism.” In Scientific Realism, edited by Jarrett Leplin, 154–72. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984.
Hoffmann, Roald, and Pierre Laszlo. “Representation in Chemistry.” Angewandte Chemie, Int. Ed. Engl. 30 (1991): 1–16.
Kehrman, F., and Otto Kramer. “Ueber Darstellung und Umwandlungen des Iso-Phenosafranins.” Berichte der Deutschen Chemischen Gesellschaft 33 (1900): 3074–81.
Kozma, Robert, Elaine Chin, Joel Russell, and Nancy Marx. “The Roles of Representations and Tools in the Chemistry Laboratory and Their Implications for Chemistry Learning.” Journal of the Learning Sciences 9, no. 2 (2000): 105–43.
Kroeber, Alfred. Anthropology. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1948.
Laszlo, Pierre. La parole des choses, Collection Savoir: Sciences. Paris: Hermann, 1993.
Liebermann, C., and C. Paal. “Ueber Derivate des Allylamins.” Berichte der Deutschen Chemischen Gesellschaft 16 (1883): 523–34.
Mohr, Ernst. “Die Baeyersche Spannungstheorie und die Struktur des Diamanten.” Journal für Praktische Chemie 98, no. 2 (1918): 315–53.
Mohr, Ernst. “Zur Theorie des cis-trans-Isomerie des Dekahydro-Naphtalins.” Berichte der deuschen chemischen Gesellschaft 55 (1922): 230–31.
Napoli, Donna Jo. Linguistics. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Nye, Mary Jo. Before Big Science: The Pursuit of Modern Chemistry and Physics, 1800–1940. New York and London: Twayne-Prentice Hall, 1996.
Remsen, Ira. Organic Chemistry. 5th rev. ed. Boston: D. C. Heath, 1909.
Rocke, Alan J. Chemical Atomism in the Nineteenth Century: From Dalton to Cannizzaro. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1984.
Rocke, Alan J. The Quiet Revolution: Hermann Kolbe and the Science of Organic Chemistry, California Studies in the History of Science No. 11. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.
Sachse, Hermann. “Ueber die geometrischen Isomieren der Hexamethylenderivate.” Berichte der Deutschen Chemischen Gesellschaft 23 (1890): 1363–70.
Sachse, Hermann. “Über die Konfigurationen der Polymethylenringe.” Zeitschrift für physikalische Chemie 10 (1892): 203–41.
Smith, E. G. The Wiswesser Line-Formula Notation. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968.
Tufte, E. R. The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. Cheshire: Graphics Press, 1983.
Verkade, Pieter E. A History of the Nomenclature of Organic Chemistry. Delft: Delft University Press, 1985.
Wood, Dennis. The Power of Maps. New York: The Guilford Press, 1992.
Wurtz, Charles-Adolphe. La théorie atomique. Paris: G. Baillière, 1879.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2001 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Laszlo, P. (2001). Conventionalities in Formula Writing. In: Klein, U. (eds) Tools and Modes of Representation in the Laboratory Sciences. Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science, vol 222. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9737-1_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9737-1_4
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-481-5859-1
Online ISBN: 978-94-015-9737-1
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive