Subject: Re: CCL: CC semantics

From: "Jens Spanget-Larsen" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 4 Jul 1997 13:13:02 +0100

I sent this message a couple of times, but for some reason it did not 
appear on CCL:

Statement by Buyong Ma, 23 Jun 1997:

> We all know that computational chemistry is a young discipline ...

I disagree.  To me, computational chemistry started around 1800 with 
Dalton's law of multiple proportions, Gay-Lussac's law of relative 
volumes of reacting gases, etc.  Indeed, the latter chemist stated 
almost two centuries ago:   

"We are perhaps not far removed from the time when we shall be able to
submit the bulk of chemical phenomena to calculation" 
(J.L. Gay-Lussac, 1808)

And Charles Babbage, the "Father of the Computer":

"All of chemistry, and with it crystallography, would become a branch
of mathematical analysis which, like astronomy, taking its constants 
from observation, would enable us to predict the character of any new 
compound and possibly the source from which its formation might be 
anticipated" 
(Ch. Babbage, 1838)

At the time of these writers computational chemistry was little more 
than a dream, but Babbage's vision is uncannily precise in its 
predictions!  Evidently, the concept of computational chemistry is as 
old as the history of modern chemistry.

Jems >--<

Quotes from T J O'Donnell
http://www.eecs.uic.edu/~tj/quotes.html#computational_chemistry

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JENS SPANGET-LARSEN  
Department of Chemistry      Phone:  +45 46757781 + 2710
Roskilde University (RUC)    Fax:    +45 46757721 
P.O.Box 260                  E-Mail: [email-masked]
DK-4000 Roskilde, Denmark    http://frederik.ruc.dk/dis/chem/psos
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