Chemistry benefits everyone in the world because everything is a chemical. Desks, bricks, glass.the list is infinite. Humans are made of atoms, which are chemicals. These chemicals will react, as those of us who have dipped their hand in a puddle of acid are all too familiar with.
Harvard University is debating a proposal for the restructuring of its science department that threatens the very viability of chemistry as an independent scientific field. The proposed revision would split the science department into life sciences (biological science) and physical sciences (physics and engineering)-thus failing to make a provision for the field of chemistry. However, the proposal fails to embrace the diversity of science within the field of chemistry and threatens to tear it apart.
But maybe chemistry is destined to be overshadowed since chemicals are ubiquitous. Chemicals make both physics and biology work. When pondering chemicals, most people think of steaming cauldrons of noxious acids, brilliantly colored liquids in unusually shaped flasks and beakers in labyrinths of glassware set up in unrealistic poses. However, this is not the true framework of chemistry. Chemistry is the lime that builds up on showerheads or the polymers that make plastics. Even "CSI: Miami" portrays a more accurate picture of chemistry than do brochures for colleges. Chemistry improves life for everyone in the world daily in some form or another.
Students have long struggled with the requirements between physical and biological chemistry. Seldom is there overlap between the two divisions satisfying the desire of students to focus their attentions on the two polar opposite sides of chemistry-most programs force students to take an equal amount of both types of classes.
In fact, the University of Sussex has integrated its chemistry department into its school of Life Sciences so Sussex's mission statement is adequately fulfilled. How clumping a distinctive discipline into one "Life Science" division will fulfill a mission statement is not clear. Be that as it may, scientists have always considered chemistry as the central science: a science from which other sciences may advance. Why is this harmful division necessary now, when twenty years ago the viability of chemistry as an independent science was never questioned?
Perhaps the problem with modern chemistry lies in the industry's focus on the business aspect rather than pure science. Money is not being allocated to research and development as readily as it is to the divisions that increase production. Chemistry has become a discipline of greedy businessmen looking to crank out the next erectile dysfunction pill as unique discoveries have tapered off over recent years as a result of this change. Perhaps chemistry is losing its viability because in the shift of industry to business instead of science. Few radical advances in chemistry have occurred as of late, and the most incredible advances have not been by "true" chemists, but by biologists and physicists working as chemists.
For example, Nobel Laureate Paul C. Lauterbur, a professor of chemistry at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, headed the development of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) machines. He holds appointments in the bioengineering program, the Center for Biophysics and Computational Biology and the department of medical information sciences in the medical school-thus Dr. Lauterbur is no ordinary chemist. Additionally MRIs have no direct applications to chemistry, though their chemistry counterpart, the Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectrometer, is an essential component of any organic chemistry lab.
This sounds like a big boost for chemistry, until further inspection. Lauterbur's discovery of the application of NMR spectroscopy to medicine happened more than 25 years ago though he just received his Nobel Prize in 2003. In medicine and physiology no less-thereby invalidating what looks like a recent major advancement in chemical applications due to the nature and tardiness of the award.
The lack of significant advances in chemistry is not necessarily chemistry's deathblow. Before Einstein began his amazing work, classical physics was declared dead. It was considered that everything there was to be discovered had been discovered. Only through the ingenious thinking of a few insightful physicists did modern physics rise from the ashes of Newton like a phoenix. Physics is now constantly enjoying success. Modern magazines like Scientific American and Discover are filled with the discoveries and theories of particle and theoretical physicists.
Chemistry is developing into a purely empirical endeavor. Though this does not disqualify chemistry as a science, it may disqualify it as a unique science, for the studies performed now are just extensions of the amazing breakthroughs of the early 20th century. Until a radical discovery on the level of E=mc 2 happens for chemistry, the disciplines will stick with these definitions and chemistry could stall, becoming a static science. Possibly applications alone will bloom from chemical investigations, and no real incredible breakthroughs will occur.
Maybe a forward-thinking physical chemist will one day learn to manipulate and react quarks and leptons to make other unique subatomic particles, thereby saving chemistry, simultaneously making physics and biology a whole lot more interesting.
Chemistry needs scientists like Albert Einstein, Werner Heisenberg or Nils Bohr to survive as a unique division of science before the threat from physics and biology is realized. The hunt for chemical knowledge proliferates universities all over the world, but eventually, chemists could turn to physics and biology until chemistry as we know it disappears completely.
Cheryl Heitman is a Hillsdale College senior majoring in chemistry.