The lost science

Next time you're in a large bookstore, go to the science section and compare the number of different books offered by subject. You'll see a lot of biology (especially evolution), a lot of physics and astronomy, and a fair amount of mathematics and even earth science. But there will probably be little by way of chemistry. Perhaps several college study guides, and two or three popular books about oxygen, but that's it. For some time I have noticed this and pondered possible explanations. I suppose the large publishers have their reasons, but my suspicion is that chemistry is simply too messy. It is not intrinsically more difficult than any other science, or less difficult for that matter. But it seems to be harder to explain, in an interesting way at least, to a nonprofessional audience. The problems it deals with are not as fundamental as those of physics or mathematics. Nor are they are immediate as those of biology or earth science, where anyone has at least a chance of seeing the objects of study. Chemistry deals with the electronic interactions of atoms, that create infinite opportunities for new molecules from high temperature superconductors to new pharmaceuticals. But no one has ever really seen a molecule (except in indirect ways such as with electronic or atomic force microscopes). It is not easy to explain what a molecule actually is, since no one has directly seen an atom either. What are some objects we can see and hold, like iron bars or gold rings, elements (gold rings actually are not, they contain other metals to harden them, but in principle they could be), whereas others like salt or sugar are molecules? If you take one electron from a dangerously reactive metal (sodium) and give it to a poisonous gas (chlorine) you get table salt which is essential for us to live. To me that is amazing, but once you have said this, what else can be said without going into a lot of technical detail about orbitals and valences. Chemistry has many wonderful stories to tell. I loved Napoleon's Buttons, a book about many interesting chemicals, their discovery or synthesis or use. And I confess that from time to time I browse in Nature's Building Blocks, a book in which each chapter covers a different atomic element in detail. But these are compendia of stories, they do not have any clear flow. The history of chemistry does have such a clear chronological and intellectual flow, which has been recounted in numerous books. But such books tend to cover mostly the same ground repeatedly. Other than presenting new interesting molecules (like the nanocar, shown above on the right from a recent article), there does not seem to be anything new being said in popular literature about chemistry. This is a shame, as I doubt that it is true that there is nothing new worth saying. I call on literary chemists to tell us about their work.