Making molecularism II. Selected papers II. Abstracts

Sixteen years ago Henk Kubbinga’s book L’Histoire du concept de « molécule » was published by Springer-Verlag France (Paris). There followed Dutch and US-English editions in which the emphasis shifted from Antiquity-Middle Ages-Renaissance to more recent times; a German edition is well underway. The message was—and still is—clear: we are witnessing last decades the breakthrough of a new, thoroughly molecular ‘picture of the world’. Molecularism calls the tune. The series Making molecularism will highlight a collection of papers difficultly accessible that paved the way for its coming of age, with due attention for all mathematics at issue.

This second volume privileges philosophy, chemistry, and the life sciences. Robert Boyle serves as a bridge between ‘philosophy’ and ‘chemistry’. Key-concepts like valence, mole, nomenclature, and structure are followed in their historical development. ‘Chemical calculations’, then, are addressed here for the first time as a topic in their own right. Surprisingly, the biomedical notion of the cell derives straightforwardly from the molecular tradition (Buffon, Dutrochet, Schleiden, Schwann). Physiology and pathology lived, each, a cellular turn (Virchow; Pasteur, Koch, Beijerinck), while intracellular details came to be interpreted in truly molecular terms, that is, in the physico-chemical way. ‘Molecular biology’ (1933-) brought new vistas. This volume also highlights the details of the calculations which led Max Planck to his constant. The new perspective calls for a reconsideration of modern physics’ fundamental tenets.