Image and reality : Kekulé, Kopp, and the scientific imagination / Alan J. Rocke.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Ether/or -- Springtime for chemistry? -- The education of Alexander Williamson -- Interpreting chemical atoms -- Williamson and Graham -- Grasping the ether -- The experimental dissection of organic molecules -- Excursus: isolated radicals? -- The spread of Williamsonian theory -- The architect of molecules -- The education of August Kekulé -- Kekulé in London -- Excursus: the road to Valence -- Molecular dreams -- Building an unseen structure -- The start of a teaching career -- Early work in Heidelberg -- The theory of polyatomic radicals -- The theory of atomicity of the elements -- Molecular epistemology -- A barometer of the science -- Writing a textbook -- Formulas, models, reality -- Excursus: a case in point -- Erlenmeyer and Kekulé -- Constant or variable atomicity? -- The heuristics of molecular representation -- Couper -- Loschmidt -- Butlerov -- Crum Brown -- Excursus: heurism in action -- The fate of the new graphic formulas -- Molecules as metaphors -- Natural types -- Absolute formulas -- Excursus: looking through the stereoscope -- Molecular democracy or autocracy? -- The revenge of Jupiter's children -- Aromatic apparitions -- First approaches to the problem -- Enter the hexagon -- Benzene through the phenakistoscope -- Excursus: ring around the rosie -- Metachemistry? -- Dimensional molecules -- Early stereospatial speculations -- The spiral staircase -- The pyramid -- Imagination in science: point/counterpoint -- Chemists, physicists, and the microworld -- Kopp's world -- The making of a chemist-historian -- In amongst the molecules -- The response -- The thirsty chemists -- Kekulé's dreams -- The festivities in Berlin -- Kekulé's speech -- The aftermath -- The eureka experience and the unconscious mind -- The scientific image-ination -- Mental images and science -- Mental images and history -- Transdictive images in physics and in chemistry.

Print version record.

Nineteenth-century chemists were faced with a particular problem: how to depict the atoms and molecules that are beyond the direct reach of our bodily senses. In visualizing this microworld, these scientists were the first to move beyond high-level philosophical speculations regarding the unseen. In Image and Reality, Alan Rocke focuses on the community of organic chemists in Germany to provide the basis for a fuller understanding of the nature of scientific creativity. Arguing that visual mental images regularly assisted many of these scientists in thinking through old problems and new possib.

eBooks on EBSCOhost EBSCO eBook Subscription Academic Collection - Worldwide