TIL all about When Chemistry Ate the World. Classic paper, Synthesis, by R. B. Woodward, 1956
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Whatever led you to read that?
Bhopal and Love Canal took the shine off. We are waiting for the third great age, perhaps in nano?
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18th and 19th century was about botany; British empire exploited plants from all over the world. Early 20th century was physics - electricity, flight, radio, phone, cars. Then chemistry - nukes, nylon, plastics
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I think AI and faster computers will enable chemistry, particularly materials science to move forward significantly. Much chemistry was guided trial and error - we will be able to do that on a much larger scale. Imagine if we found a room temperature superconductor...




