Representations of chemical entities in the late 19th century

Time: 12:00pm

Location: Chemical Heritage Foundation

How do you represent that which you cannot be seen? How do general stylistic conventions, limitations of one's media, and technical considerations come into play when depicting objects that escape the eye? Specifically, how did late-19th century chemists depict the objects of their inquiry, and how did their depictions in turn impact upon their work? This talk will introduce my research into the history and philosophy of late-19th century structural chemical diagrams and models. I will review my earlier work on the representations used by Kekule and Crum Brown in the 1860s and introduce my latest research on the diagrams and models employed by early stereochemicsts from the 1870s onwards.

Ari Gross is a PhD candidate at the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology at the University of Toronto. He holds a BSc in Physics (Mt. Allison University) and a MSc in History and Philosophy of Science (Utrecht University). His primary research is on the history and philosophy of diagrams of “invisible” objects, although he also holds a strong interest in anatomical representations. He is also co-curator of the University of Toronto Scientific Instrument Collection (www.utsic.org) and co-editor of the journal Spontaneous Generations: A Journal for the History and Philosophy of Science.