Author: qdsa

Organic spectroscopy, the application of spectroscopic methods to determination of the structure of the molecules organic chemists are interested in, came of age during the Golden Sixties. The twin engines which lifted it to prominence were mass spectrometry (ms), which had been developed extensively in the nineteen-fifties when engineers analyzed the hydrocarbons present in oil; and nuclear magnetic resonance (nmr), which had been discovered in the immediate aftermath of World War II.
Organic spectroscopy arose out of a bleak, almost desertic landscape. In the early nineteen-fifties, available instrumental techniques were indirect only (dipolemetry, ultraviolet electronic spectra interpreted with the Woodward rules, infrared spectroscopy), limited to rather small or highly symmetrical molecules in the gas phase (electron diffraction, microwave spectrometry), or yet excruciatingly labor- and time-intensive (X-ray diffraction).

Newton’s Darkness: Two Dramatic Views. By CARL DJERASSI and DAVID PINNER. Pp. 184. Imperial College Press: London. 2003. £18.00, $24.00 (hbk); £11.00, $15.00 (pbk). ISBN: 1-86094-390-6 (hbk); 1-86094-390-X (pbk).

Newton’s darkness is threefold. In his science, there is an obscure undercurrent of alchemy.In his religion, there is a strand of heretical Arianism. And at the root of his sentiments, there is an area of repressed homosexuality. These darknesses play a role in the plays written by David Pinner and Carl Djerassi on Newton’s fights against Robert Hooke and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz.
Pinner’s dramatic view is called “Newton’s Hooke.” Here, Newton’s darknesses are only hinted at. What kinds of assistant are John Wickins and Nicolas Fatio de Duillier? Arius appears only once, at Trinity College, Cambridge, during the official redefinition of the Lucasian Chair; and Newton’s nocturnal alchemy is symbolised by a crucible covered with a cloth and the Star Regulus of Antimony as a gateway to the true Law of Universal Gravitation. But these alchemical experiments and theories should be left in the dark because, as Newton whispers, “the Art is not to be shouted abroad.”