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Category: Philosophy of Chemistry

L’analyse chimique comme dématérialisation

L’analyse chimique est prise comme exemple, dans l’activité réelle d’un laboratoire d’aujourd’hui. La matière y est tenue à distance, mise entre parenthèses. Elle est certes indispensable, mais à titre de matière première pour la prduction d’information. L’analyse chimique traduit des messages instrumentalisés en des modules informationnels. Nous sommes redevables de cette révolution conceptuelle aux grands chimistes, Justus von Liebig, Auguste Laurent, Jean-Baptiste Dumas et autres qui, au milieu du XIXe siècle, ont bâti l’audacieuse théorie des radicaux. Depuis lors, la chimie moléculaire est devenue combinatoire de ces modules idéaux, groupes d’atomes n’ayant d’existence que fictive, qui sont pour la chimie ce que les phonèmes sont pour la parole.

Circulation of concepts

Abstract

A major obstacle to chemistry being a deductive science is that its core concepts very often are defined in circular manner: it is impossible to explain what an acid is without reference to the complementary concept of a base. There are many such dual pairs among the core concepts of chemistry. Such circulation of concepts, rather than an infirmity chemistry is beset with, is seen as a source of vitality and dynamism.

Playing with molecular models

Abstract

Any serious study of molecular models has to mention play as a component essential to their use. A research chemist will use them not unlike a young child playing with a toy: exploring their features, trying out their resilience, probing their innards, tinkering, day-dreaming, and finding out in those ways new avenues for adventures of the mind and in the laboratory. Reasons for such assimilation of a molecular model to a toy are given and assessed critically.