Subject: Dirac Citation, reductionism and an advertisement

From: "Alexandre Hocquet" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2001 16:53:30 -0000

Dear Jens,

>Knowledge of the
>"underlying physical laws" does not, in general, allow us to anticipate 
> >all aspects of 'reduced' sciences.

It is certainly wise to consider that there exist aspects of chemistry that 
are not reduced to physics. Among the philosophers of science interested in 
those questions, i dont think many would dare to say the contrary.

>Hence, Dirac only stated that "the underlying physical laws ... for the 
> >whole of chemistry are complete known".  He did NOT claim that all 
> >aspects of chemistry could be derived from these fundamental laws.

To say that Dirac did NOT claim this, is certainly correct stricto sensu. To 
imply that Dirac did not believe in a reductionist approach of chemistry is 
another matter. Among the historians of science that interested themselves 
to the subject, i cannot think of someone not seeing Dirac as a strong 
reductionnist.

Now, what WE (the community of computational chemists) think about 
reductionism and Dirac is still another matter, and is also the oportunity 
for me to advertise for ECCC7 poster number ten "the epistemological status 
of computational chemistry". Please come on in and comment on the subject.

Last, the cited paper by Werner Kutzelnigg certainly led to consider new 
aspects in how Dirac and his quotation are seen in our community.

Yours,

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Alexandre HOCQUET
Laboratoire de Physicochimie Biomoléculaire et Cellulaire
ESA CNRS 7033
[email-masked]
Fax: 33 1 44277560
LPBC, case courrier 138
4 Place Jussieu, 75252 PARIS Cedex 05 France
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