> Dear List Members,
>
> In the November 18, 2002 issue of _Chemical and Engineering News_,
> editor Madeleine Jacob requested that readers send in their
> candidates for "the most beautiful experiment in chemistry." She was
> inspired by a recent article in the _New York Times_ (September 24,
> 2002) on "the 10 most beautiful experiments in science," which, as it
> turned out, contained exclusively experiments in physics (This is not
> surprising, because the survey was done for _Physics World_).
>
> Perhaps such designations are not worth the effort, and a single
> "experiment," as we all know, usually cannot be decisive, but it
> would be useful to have suggestions from historians of chemistry to
> add to those suggested by chemists, or some suggestions about
> experiment in chemistry itself. Jacob suggests some of the usual
> suspects--Wöhler's urea synthesis, Pasteur's separation of tartrate
> isomers, and Lavoisier's combustion of sulfur and phosporous. As a
> group we could suggest some that are less famous but equally elegant,
> such as Koerner's synthesis of substituted benzene derivatives,
> Berzelian atomic weight calculations, or Liebig's Kaliapparat.
>
> If you have a good candidate, Jacob is looking for entries by
> December 31 with the following two items:
>
> 1) a brief description of the experiment(s) and who did it.
> 2) What is the connection between the beauty of the experiment and
> its scientific value?
>
> Send your suggestions by email to:
>
> [log in to unmask], with "Beautiful chemistry" in the subject line.
> Feel free to send a copy of your suggestion to the list.
>
> Jacob promises an article sometime in 2003.
>
> Best wishes,
> Peter Ramberg
>
>
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