quantophrenic
A term used for an obsession with and exaggerated reliance upon mathematical methods or results. (Source Oxford English Dictionary). For a long time, chemists considered quantum theorists (of which I am one) to be quantophrenics. The following quote summed it up well: "Every attempt to employ mathematical methods in the study of chemical questions must be considered profoundly irrational and contrary to the spirit of chemistry. If mathematical analysis should ever hold a prominent place in chemistry - an aberration which is happily almost impossible - it would occasion a rapid and widespread degeneration of that science." Auguste Comte, Cours de Philosophie Positive, 1830. Fortunately, quantum chemists persisted, and the methods they developed to treat chemical systems have become powerful tools for chemists in many areas.
- Home
- Angry by Choice
- Catalogue of Organisms
- Chinleana
- Doc Madhattan
- Games with Words
- Genomics, Medicine, and Pseudoscience
- History of Geology
- Moss Plants and More
- Pleiotropy
- Plektix
- RRResearch
- Skeptic Wonder
- The Culture of Chemistry
- The Curious Wavefunction
- The Phytophactor
- The View from a Microbiologist
- Variety of Life

Field of Science
-
-
Chandra and Johnny come close to discovering black holes1 day ago in The Curious Wavefunction
-
Friday Fabulous Flower2 days ago in The Phytophactor
-
-
Europe's pause on the AstraZeneca COVID vaccine plays right into anti-vaxxers' hands3 weeks ago in Genomics, Medicine, and Pseudoscience
-
-
Does mathematics carry human biases?6 months ago in PLEKTIX
-
-
-
Daily routine1 year ago in Angry by Choice
-
-
-
A New Placodont from the Late Triassic of China2 years ago in Chinleana
-
Posted: July 22, 2018 at 03:03PM2 years ago in Field Notes
-
Bryophyte Herbarium Survey3 years ago in Moss Plants and More
-
Harnessing innate immunity to cure HIV4 years ago in Rule of 6ix
-
WE MOVED!4 years ago in Games with Words
-
-
-
-
post doc job opportunity on ribosome biochemistry!6 years ago in Protein Evolution and Other Musings
-
Growing the kidney: re-blogged from Science Bitez6 years ago in The View from a Microbiologist
-
Blogging Microbes- Communicating Microbiology to Netizens6 years ago in Memoirs of a Defective Brain
-
-
-
The Lure of the Obscure? Guest Post by Frank Stahl8 years ago in Sex, Genes & Evolution
-
-
Lab Rat Moving House9 years ago in Life of a Lab Rat
-
Goodbye FoS, thanks for all the laughs9 years ago in Disease Prone
-
-
Slideshow of NASA's Stardust-NExT Mission Comet Tempel 1 Flyby10 years ago in The Large Picture Blog
-
in The Biology Files

The Who, What, When, Where and Why of Chemistry
Chemistry is not a world unto itself. It is woven firmly into the fabric of the rest of the world, and various fields, from literature to archeology, thread their way through the chemist's text.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Markup Key:
- <b>bold</b> = bold
- <i>italic</i> = italic
- <a href="http://www.fieldofscience.com/">FoS</a> = FoS