Chemistry: The Middle Kingdom

Chemistry occupies a unique middle position between physics and mathematics on the one side and biology, ecology, sociology and economics on the other. It is said that chemistry is reducible into physics and finally mathematics. However, in moving from the covalent to the non-covalent world we obtain a new chemistry, one that is a starting point for the emergence of the soft sciences. This article argues that this new chemistry represents a paradigm shift in the way in which chemists think about their subject today. Biology may be considered as emerging out of this new chemistry, which in itself cannot be reduced into physics and mathematics as was the case for chemistry thus far practiced. This dualistic nature of chemistry, reducible and irreducible, is a new development but one that ensures that the subject will remain alive and well in the foreseeable future. Gautam R. Desiraju has made seminal contributions to the development and worldwide growth of the subject of crystal engineering, especially with reference to the properties of novel interaction types such as the weak hydrogen bond. He has been at the University of Hyderabad since 1979. “... so chemistry can be no more than systematic art or experimental teachings, indeed never real science, because its principles ... do not lend themselves to the application of mathematics.” Immanuel Kant