Talk:Physical chemistry/Archive 2

Expansion and rewrite of this article
I'm adding a note here in case anyone wants to discuss my current expansion and (eventual) rewrite of this article. It is not clear what the best way is to do this, or indeed whether a short "navigational" article is a better approach, but I'm currently adding links and lists that I think are relevant, with the aim of integrating these into expanded prose later. For ideas, I've been looking at other language articles (some include links to the definitions given by various national chemical societies, which is a good idea), and also at the category system, the portal, and the wikiproject. I will be leaving a note at the wikiproject talk page at some point to ask for advice. I also did some searches for articles relevant to this topic, and will be looking for good sources for an overview of the history of this discipline and also the fuzziness of the definition (though the current material is fairly good already). How to handle the overlap with chemical physics, I'm not sure. I see that an earlier attempt to expand with textbook-like material was reverted, so I'm going to avoid that approach (i.e. I agree the reversion was correct), but I liked the section I saw on the German wikipedia on applications in everyday life. Finally, does anyone have any ideas for a lead image? Carcharoth (talk) 02:49, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Adding a note here to say that I'm continuing my notes and thoughts on this article in my userspace, rather than put too much on this talk page. I'll bring stuff into the article as and when it seems ready, and ask for feedback here. Carcharoth (talk) 22:58, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * My eyes are glazing over - incredibly dry topic Carch...but seriously, I'll have a think...Casliber (talk · contribs) 12:33, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Lead image(s)
An idea for lead image(s) would be to have a montage of the founders of modern physical chemistry. I've put them in a gallery below, but it would need someone to combine them for a montage. Possibly a frontispiece or title page to a book or journal, or of a famous experiment, are the only other things I could think of. Well, a montage of image from several disciplines that arose from physical chemistry is another idea. I'll try and find some images that could be brought together in a montage for that. Carcharoth (talk) 15:59, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Other images

 * Image of page of first issue of Zeitschrift für Physikalische Chemie (not yet uploaded, have asked on Commons)
 * Image of title page of On the Equilibrium of Heterogeneous Substances (a collection of papers over two years, so no real cover image)
 * Image of Lomonosov manuscript: File:Lomonosov Chymiae Physicae 1752.jpg (currently in article)

Maybe other images would be better, but those are the ones I found. Carcharoth (talk) 15:59, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

History by country
It seems a series of journal articles exist on the history of physical chemistry by country (or other subtopic). I'm listing some of them here: Not sure how useful these will be (some, maybe most of them, are autobiographical accounts), but leaving the notes here in case they are of use to someone. Carcharoth (talk) 04:52, 13 February 2011 (UTC) Updated: 14:07, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
 * A Brief History of Physical Chemistry in the American Chemical Society, Paul F. Barbara, J. Phys. Chem., 1996, 100 (31), pp 12694–12700
 * The History of Physical Chemistry in Denmark, T. A. Bak, Annual Review of Physical Chemistry, Vol. 25: 1-12 (Volume publication date October 1974)
 * A History of Physical Chemistry in Japan, S. Mizushima, Annual Review of Physical Chemistry, Vol. 23: 1-14 (Volume publication date October 1972)
 * A History of Physical Chemistry in France, J. Gueron, and M. Magat, Annual Review of Physical Chemistry, Vol. 22: 1-25 (Volume publication date October 1971)
 * Physical Chemistry in Cambridge, Massachusetts, E. B. Wilson, and J. Ross, Annual Review of Physical Chemistry, Vol. 24: 1-29 (Volume publication date October 1973)
 * Fifty Years of Soviet Physical Chemistry, A. N. Frumkin, and N. M. Emanuel, Annual Review of Physical Chemistry, Vol. 19: 1-31 (Volume publication date October 1968)
 * Fifty Years of Physical Chemistry in Great Britain, R. G. W. Norrish, Annual Review of Physical Chemistry, Vol. 20: 1-25 (Volume publication date October 1969)
 * Fifty Years of Physical Chemistry in Berkeley, Joel H. Hildebrand, Annual Review of Physical Chemistry, Vol. 14: 1-5 (Volume publication date October 1963)
 * Physical Chemistry in the Netherlands after Van't Hoff, G. J. Hoytink, Annual Review of Physical Chemistry, Vol. 21: 1-17 (Volume publication date October 1970)
 * Fifty Years of Physical Chemistry in the California Institute of Technology, Linus Pauling, Annual Review of Physical Chemistry, Vol. 16: 1-15 (Volume publication date October 1965)
 * FIFTY YEARS IN PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY: Homage to Mentors, Methods, and Molecules, Dudley Herschbach, Annual Review of Physical Chemistry, Vol. 51: 1-39 (Volume publication date October 2000)
 * The First 45 Years of Physical Chemistry in Germany, W. Jost, Annual Review of Physical Chemistry, Vol. 17: 1-15 (Volume publication date October 1966)
 * The Svedberg and Fifty Years of Physical Chemistry in Sweden, Arne Tiselius and Stig Claesson, Annual Review of Physical Chemistry, Vol. 18: 1-9 (Volume publication date October 1967)
 * Almost 50 Years of Physical Chemistry at the University of Texas, N. Hackerman, and A. Campion, Annual Review of Physical Chemistry, Vol. 44: 1-12 (Volume publication date October 1993)

History section
I am trying to work out how best to handle the history section here. It needs to co-ordinate primarily with history of chemistry, but also with the history of chemical physics and maybe the history of physics as well. From looking at the talk page of history of chemistry, I found that history of biology is a featured article, so ideas on structure could come from there. In particular, there are links to the history of subdisciplines such as History of genetics, History of biochemistry, History of molecular biology, History of biotechnology, and History of molecular evolution. There is certainly enough material for a History of physical chemistry article (similar to histories of the other sub-disciplines), but I may start from the section here rather than create it immediately. I also noticed a section on 'Twenty-first century biological sciences', and something similar would probably work well in the history of chemistry articles. Anyway, a note like the above should be left at Talk:History of chemistry. I also found this (some useful images there if they can be obtained under a free license), and Template:History of biology would be a good model for both history of chemistry and history of physics. Carcharoth (talk) 16:08, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Comments of Feb, 2011
Great to see someone bravely tackle this article!

My physical chemistry colleagues would by amused by the list of four main topics. We barely cover any of these topics in our courses on physical-chem, beginning or advanced course. These topics inhabit the back end of our textbooks and we dont get to them. Of course, the article is about an idealized view of a field, not about course work, but it is interesting contrast. The section on awards, like many articles in Wikipedia, is written as if the US were the only player. Only ACS awards are listed. I recommend removing the section because it is impossible to be objective, and the awards are less important than the substantive parts. Possibly only include Nobel prizes to physical chemistry. The section on "Research institutions" should also be removed. Hundreds of universities sees themselves as "research institutions" and within many universities (and national labs), there are sub-institutes. This section invites vanity entries and posturing, IMHO. --Smokefoot (talk) 18:48, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the comments! Will change the sections as you advise. Could you say which of the Chemistry Nobels are 'physical chemistry'? Some obviously are, some obviously aren't, but some are more borderline. Should just the obvious ones be named? Carcharoth (talk) 18:51, 13 February 2011 (UTC) The sections removed, for reference, are here.

Physical chemists
Have been looking through various lists of chemists and the ones that could probably be mentioned in this article (some already are) are, probably in the history section or a timeline of physical chemistry: Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff, Svante Arrhenius, Wilhelm Ostwald, Walther Nernst, Gilbert N. Lewis, Johannes Nicolaus Brønsted, Martin Lowry, Peter Debye, Lars Onsager, Linus Pauling, Erich Hückel, Cyril Norman Hinshelwood, Nikolay Semyonov, Willard Libby, Harold Urey, Paul Flory.

Others that might warrant mention (though less famous) are Richard Abegg, Nikolay Beketov, Johann Josef Loschmidt, Ernst Otto Beckmann, Yuan T. Lee, John Charles Polanyi, Dudley R. Herschbach, Ilya Prigogine, Hendrik Willem Bakhuis Roozeboom, Werner Kuhn, Max Volmer, Max Bodenstein, Boris Nikolsky, Mikhail Shultz, Jaroslav Heyrovský, Gustav Heinrich Johann Apollon Tammann, Herbert A. Hauptman, Jerome Karle, Gerhard Ertl, Frederick G. Donnan, Gerhard Herzberg, Archer John Porter Martin, Hans Kuhn, Ivan Stranski, Richard R. Ernst. Also possibly (though this is more for other achievements): Sir David King, and Peter Atkins.

Those are just ballpark suggestions, though. Obviously others will need to be mentioned as well and some of these not mentioned, and sources consulted to work out the right balance to strike here. Actually, having looked through the above list, it isn't really that helpful, but it is something to keep in mind. One question to ask would be how to decide what/who to put in and what to leave out. The sources used [mainly The World of Physical Chemistry (Laidler, 1993) and Physical Chemistry from Ostwald to Pauling (Servos, 1996)] will help decide that, but there will need to be some editorial judgment as well. Probably better to err on the side of caution in a top-level article like this, and leave detail to more specific articles. Carcharoth (talk) 22:00, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I think that listing people is a terrible idea! Jeesh, what are you thinking? The goal of the article is to describe the field, not people. Once you start to make lists of people, then you get into the ego-game, and with every good student nominating their favorite researcher and arguing endlessly for their inclusion on some list. That kind of personality game detracts energy from the mission of the editors - describe the field.  Wiki-chemistry is successful in part because it has steered away from personalities and focused on the science and technology, and this article should do the same. We dont want to start looking for the Britney Spears in chemistry, we want the chemistry. More pressingly, as I intimated above, the current article is a description of physical chemistry in 1940's.--Smokefoot (talk) 22:22, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
 * PS Check out Inorganic Chemistry, a model for this article. Notice: no fluff: no awards, few people mentioned, no glory for one country or one institution. --Smokefoot (talk) 22:24, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
 * It was just an idea, as I said above, which is why I brought it here first, rather than put it in the article. From what you've said, it is a good idea I did bring it here first! My angle on things is slanted more towards the history of science and the writing of biographies, so that is why I have been focusing more on that rather than the field itself. You point to inorganic chemistry, an article that has nothing on the history of the science. There are no years mentioned anywhere in the inorganic chemistry article, and the word "history" is not mentioned at all. If you look at biology and chemistry and physics, they all have a 'history' section (as does this article), though in the physics article it is pushed a long way down the article. And, interestingly, biology has a lot of 'history' articles (see Template:History of biology), but physics and chemistry don't have an equivalent grouping of articles - does that point up a difference in approach by the editing community in those area? Or maybe the more specialised a topic is the less orientated towards a historical account it should be? But to go back to the idea that this article should be a more 'navigational'-type article (which is what I see the inorganic chemistry article as being), and have a look at the earlier rewrite done by Logger9. That is (IMO) too far the other way, but is that what you want to see? Short paragraphs summarising subtopics with links out to the main articles? Or something inbetween? Maybe a start would be to identify the 'branches' and what order to put them in? Or is there a logical way to group them? How would you describe modern physical chemistry after the 1940s? Carcharoth (talk) 23:33, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The problem with history is that it burns huge editorial energy and produces a product of little interest to non-editors (IMHO). History is usually not the product sought by readers, who are looking for information/explanations on a topic.  History writing requires relatively little technical insight (that would be me in p-chem), ignites lively debates about who did what first and who was overlooked etc.  That kind of fun content is the basis for a hefty fraction of Wikipedia, but we in Wiki-chem have managed to avoid that quagmire so far, in part because of the emphasis on technical content.  You have to ask yourself - how much of a p-chem class is spent on discussing history vs explaining concepts.  Or put another way, check out the enrollments in history-of-chemistry vs chemistry.  About 1:1000 is my rough guess.  IMO, Wikipedia's content should reflect that ratio.  Instead, our greater problem in Wiki-chem is understandability of the articles.  BTW, it would be great to have an article on the History of Physical Chemistry.  I am opinionated, I realize.


 * In terms of advice on an article on physical chemistry, some local experts are User:DMacks and User:Materialscientist--Smokefoot (talk) 23:55, 13 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the advice. I'm going to a library tomorrow that has copies of the three books I want to look at and take notes from (The World of Physical Chemistry, Physical Chemistry from Ostwald to Pauling, and 100 Years of Physical Chemistry), so hopefully that will help me get things clearer in my mind and help give some idea of how to do the layout for this article (or possible the history one instead). My background in this topic is very mediocre (undergraduate level), and was 12 years ago now. My copy of Atkins is boxed up somewhere and there may have been a new edition since, so I'm hoping more of the local experts come along to help out, especially with the more recent material! I'm really just aiming to kick-start things and see where we end up. In the long run, any rewrite I do will just be an initial attempt, something I can't emphasise enough. The most difficult bit will probably be the lead section. I see the lead for inorganic chemistry is very short - maybe something like that would be good here? It's been eye-opening looking back through earlier versions of the article, though - look at this! Carcharoth (talk) 01:36, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Proposed layout
Based on the advice given earlier on this talk page to look at inorganic chemistry, and also based on the sections in The World of Physical Chemistry (1993, notes here), I'm proposing to redo the layout of this article as follows:
 * Short lead section (like the one at inorganic chemistry)
 * Key concepts (could be tricky)
 * Six major sections (standard summaries headed by a link to the main articles)
 * Chemical thermodynamics
 * (Chemical) Spectroscopy
 * Electrochemistry
 * Chemical kinetics
 * Surface chemistry
 * Quantum chemistry
 * Recent years
 * This section would cover emerging areas and would have several sections as needed
 * Standard appendices
 * See also
 * References
 * External links

Under the proposed layout above, everything else would have to be a subsection of one of the above sections (see the subsections in inorganic chemistry), or handled differently. I'm uncertain what to do about the history section and if there is one, where it should go. I'm also still uncertain where and how to mention chemical physics. The proposed section title "Recent years" is not ideal, but "21st century physical chemistry" will also look dated eventually.

Also, if the above proposed structure is compared to the links currently in the article and in the 'branches and related topics' section, then the following would need to be subsumed into the main sections or made into subsections (unless some should be on the same level as the six above): intermolecular force, colloid, nuclear chemistry, astrochemistry, group contribution method, thermochemistry, photochemistry, solid-state chemistry, biophysical chemistry, materials science, physical organic chemistry, and micromeritics. Possibly some of these are more recent sub-disciplines that have emerged in recent years, possibly some can be dropped entirely.

My questions are:
 * (1) Is the above layout a good start, or does it look outdated (it is based on the 1993 book layout)?
 * (2) What is missing and what levels or sublevels can be added from the other links above?
 * (3) How should any history section be handled? Where should it appear in the article?
 * (4) Should there be a section on the vagueness of the definitions of physical chemistry, how it is often multidisciplinary, and on the relationship with chemical physics? From what I've read, it would actually be possible to write something fairly substantial on this.
 * (5) There is currently a section on journals. How can that be integrated into the proposed layout?
 * (6) Should there be a section on applications of physical chemistry (including in everyday life)?

OK, that's what I've come up with so far. Anyone have any thoughts on this or answers to the questions I've posed? Carcharoth (talk) 01:54, 16 February 2011 (UTC)


 * How about this for a synoptic view : physical chemistry is about applying the laws of physics, which apply to all substances, to explain similarities and differences in the properties of chemical substances? The distiction between physical chemistry and chemical physics is arbitrary and pretty much meaningless. I suggest you look at modern textbooks on physical chemistry like those written by Atkins and others (e.g. ) to see what how the subject is being taught today. Petergans (talk) 10:47, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

The methods for predicting physiochemical properties may be precise, but they are not accurate. And many would consider this sort of thing to be chemical engineering rather than physical chemistry. But the boundary line between these two, if it exists at all, is always changing. Perhaps some discussion of this distinction would be helpful.63.226.222.247 (talk) 05:37, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Key concepts
Smokefoot, I've reverted the last edit. Though I thought it made some good stylistic changes, it corrupted the sense of the original text. I've tried to incorporate some of the stylistic changes you introduced, but I think it's more important to be factually accurate rather than stylistically accurate for now. ChE Fundamentalist (talk) 22:18, 21 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the note. --Smokefoot (talk) 22:23, 21 August 2011 (UTC)