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If Wallace Carothers was the designer, Flory was the architect and builder of the ediflce of polymer science. If Carothers was the composer, Flory was the man who wrote the notes for the music. Carothers and Flory represent the quintessential qualities that are needed to make great science–intuition and rationality, experiment and theory, fiights of imagination and diligent reduction to practice,...
Wallace Hume Carothers holds a place of pride amongst the pantheons of twentieth-century chemists who transformed our way of thinking, and brought an entirely new perspective to a branch of science. Polymer science fiourished in the years after Carothers as never before, and led to the creation of a new industry–vibrant, useful, and exciting. The greatness of Carothers lies in the profound, yet simple...
Richard Feynman once said: “nobody understands quantum mechanics”. Still, those who devised it are perhaps the ones closest to understanding their creation. It suggests that whenever the weirdness of quantum mechanics haunts you, it is better to go back to its creators in terms of their original publications. In the present article, the author has tried to seek help from Heisenberg’s 1925 paper, in...
Gravitation, the universal attractive force, acts upon all matter (and radiation) relentlessly. Stable extended structures can exist only when gravity is held off by other forces of nature. This series of articles explores this interplay, looking at objects that just missed being stars in this particular installment.
The very idea that large polymer molecules can indeed exist was hotly debated during the early part of the 20th century. As highlighted by Sivaram in his articles on Carothers and Flory, Staudinger’s macromolecular hypothesis was fl- nally accepted, and the study of polymers gained momentum because of the remarkable efforts of the these two individuals who laid down the foundations concerning the...
In this section of Resonance, we invite readers to pose questions likely to be raised in a classroom situation. We may suggest strategies for dealing with them, or invite responses, or both. “Classroom” is equally a forum for raising broader issues and sharing personal experiences and viewpoints on matters related to teaching and learning science.
Brahma Kamal and few other related species of the thistle tribe of plants are native to the Himalayas. Their flowers bloom during mid-monsoon months amongst the rocks and grasses of alpine meadows and gorges. These extremely rare plants are not only famous for their beautiful flowers, but also for their significant importance in traditional medicine. In this article, an attempt has been made to document...
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