The History of Chemistry
Chemistry is everywhere, and involves everything. But how did chemistry get to be what it is? I'm Steve Cohen, a chemist and writer, bringing you The History of Chemistry. This podcast explores the development of chemistry from prehistoric times to the present, including the people and societies who made chemistry what it is today. The History of Chemistry is for you, whether you hated chemistry in high school, or got a PhD in inorganic chemistry. We'll explore how chemistry affected art, music, language, politics and vice-versa. Whether it's ancient Greek philosophers, medieval alchemists, or modern laboratory apparatus, it's all here. Don't forget to support my series at https://www.patreon.com/thehistoryofchemistry !
Episodes
140 episodes since 2022
138: Smells Like Teen Spirit
We finally get to discuss what the term "aromatic compound" means in chemistry, from Michael Faraday's report in 1825 of a new organic compound (we call it benzene), to von Hofmann's first use in 1856 (without defining it) of the term "aromatic...
September 15, 2024
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Episode 138
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27:42
137: Light My Fire
Aerogels, those feather-weight materials, have a century-old history. We begin with Samuel Kistler, the inventor of the first aerogels, and move forward through time with loss of interest in them, then revival of interest in the 1970s. We learn...
September 08, 2024
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Episode 137
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21:04
136: AI, Robot
Artificial intelligence, or AI, can be applied to chemistry, too. Here we discuss a brief history of AI, especially for chemistry, beginning with Djerassi's DENDRAL program. We talk of the current problems in chemistry to which AI is being appl...
September 01, 2024
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Episode 136
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22:23
135: Bond, Chemical Bond
In which we consider what, really, is a chemical bond. Lewis and Langmuir promoted the idea that bonding was sharing of electron pairs. Then we hear about Slater, Hellman, and Ruedenberg's discussion of how covalent bonding works. Kossel and Le...
August 25, 2024
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Episode 135
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22:42
134: Atto-boy!
In which we talk about the fastest spectroscopy yet, attosecond spectroscopy, which can resolve electrons moving around atoms. The topic begins with Christian Spielmann in 1997, working to get shorter and shorter laser pulses, and continues wit...
August 18, 2024
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Episode 134
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19:27
133: A Horse of a Different Color
Instead of molecules that absorb light based on their molecular orbitals, this episode talks of nanostructures and their materials that refract light based on interference of light waves. We start with Robert Hooke who described this process in...
August 11, 2024
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Episode 133
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20:51
132: Name Dropping
This episode concerns the phenomenon in organic chemistry of classifying a set of similar reactions by a single umbrella name. Most named reactions honor a person, but not always. We discuss the early history of named reactions from the 1870s o...
August 04, 2024
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Episode 132
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22:09
131: From Fluor to Ceiling
Polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, seem to be ubiquitous now in the environment and the news. In this episode I delve into why chemists found these compounds so fascinating and useful. Then I discuss some history of how the world finally lear...
July 28, 2024
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Episode 131
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22:23
130: I Have an Axe to Grind
Mechanochemistry, using purely mechanical processes to run a reaction, is much less known in the chemical world, but has been around since the ancient Greek Theophrastus described a mechanochemical process. We describe the history of mechanoche...
July 21, 2024
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Episode 130
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22:05
129: Sheets and Giggles
In which we learn of the history of graphite, its molecular structure, and electrical properties. Then we discuss the isolation of thinner and thinner layers of graphite through the mid-to-late 20th century. The first isolation of a single atom...
July 14, 2024
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Episode 129
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21:17
128: Heavy, Man, Heavy!
With this episode, we complete our history of the discovery of the elements (up through writing this episode). We talk of elements 110 through 118, completing that row of the Periodic Table, and the various experiments that the major heavy-ion ...
July 07, 2024
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Episode 128
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31:19
127: Black is Beautiful
In which we discuss the entry of People of Color into chemistry, mostly in the USA. We start with the first Black to get an Ph.D. in Chemistry in the USA, St. Elmo Brady, and work forward through the 1940s through the 1960s. We discuss various ...
June 30, 2024
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Episode 127
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22:04
126: Run of the Mill
In which we talk of a huge problem currently plaguing chemistry (and science in general), the "paper mill," in which researchers pay to get their name attached to others' publications, or they write fraudulent publications and pay to get them i...
June 23, 2024
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Episode 126
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22:27
125: Das Model
Here we discuss all sorts of kits chemists use to build models of different molecules. We start with the pre-molecule set built for John Dalton, and then we hear of August von Hofmann's set for lecture demonstrations. We talk of John Dewar's br...
June 16, 2024
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Episode 125
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23:29
124: Lumen Large
Our history of LEDs continues with the entry of LEDs into commercial lighting. We talk of different ways to get white light out of LEDs, and materials for white-light LEDs. We briefly discuss color temperature because there are different kinds ...
June 09, 2024
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Episode 124
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20:39
123: Setting the Ground Rules
This episode gives a basic review of geochemistry, starting with pioneers such as Christian Friedrich Schönbein, Frank Wigglesworth Clarke, and thence into the 20th century, especially Victor Goldschmidt. We hear about the development of geoche...
June 02, 2024
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Episode 123
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21:51
122: Catch the 'Wave
Even though the potential for using microwaves to do chemistry was there since 1946, it wasn't until the late 1970s that the first use of microwaves in the chemistry laboratory appeared. This episode covers the development of microwave chemistr...
May 26, 2024
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Episode 122
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20:15
121: Let the Sun Shine in
We talk about perovskite minerals and compounds, their discovery, and general crystal structure. Then we learn about how researchers gradually learned about their interesting electrical and optical properties. We hear of Tsutomu Miyasaka’s pape...
May 19, 2024
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Episode 121
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21:42
120: Snap Judgement
Click Chemistry came about as several researchers came to similar conclusions in parallel, but from different angles: Barry Sharpless, Morten Meldahl, and Carolyn Bertozzi. We hear about their research goals in the 1990s and early 2000s: to sna...
May 12, 2024
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Episode 120
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20:39
119: Tiny but Mighty
We reach the point in our chemical history when microplastics were first recognized as a pervasive environmental pollutant. Visible plastic bits were first found by Edward Carpenter and K.L. Smith in the ocean back in 1972, and such detritus wa...
May 05, 2024
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Episode 119
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21:40
118: Hold Tight, Stick Tight
This episode deals with glues and adhesives, from prehistoric times to the present. We talk of prehistoric glue from tree saps, petroleum tar, animal glues, casein glues, albumin glues, and starch glues, all known in ancient times. Medieval kno...
April 28, 2024
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Episode 118
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24:28
117: The Set Table
The Periodic Table we've all seen in chemistry books and classes is not always the way it was, nor the way it must always be. In this episode we explore all kinds of periodic representations of the properties of elements, from Mendeleev's first...
April 21, 2024
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Episode 117
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23:38
116: Open Frame of Mind
We introduce the first chemical construction set in chemistry (besides natural proteins, starches, sugars, etc.), the metal-organic framework. A DuPont employee, E.A. Tomic, invented this type of molecule in the 1960s, but it took until Omar Ya...
April 14, 2024
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Episode 116
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19:17
115: Reach for the Stars
In this episode we talk about astrochemistry, which began in the 20th century. The first detection of molecules outside our solar system began with Theodore Dunham, which was finally recognized as a molecule in 1940. We talk of Gerhard Herzberg...
April 07, 2024
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Episode 115
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22:04
114: We Can Work It Out
Here we talk of the first real molecular machines of the 1990s, and the chemistry advances required to invent them. We define what such a machine is, and reach back into organic chemistry of the 1940s and 1950s for "conformational analysis." We...
March 31, 2024
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Episode 114
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22:40