CHASING THE MOLECULE: DISCOVERING THE BUILDING BLOCKS OF LIFE

Book ID/图书代码： 12606005B00609

English Summary/英文概要： In the Fifties, a tremendous conceptual breakthrough was about to take place in science, revolutionising the way we think about the molecules of life. The story ranged across laboratories throughout Europe in which the protagonists built molecular models that promised to unlock the natural world’s secrets. When the breakthrough finally occurred, some of the participants became widely honoured, while others were unjustly neglected and died in obscurity. This all happened in the 1850s, not the 1950s. By the mid-nineteenth century, chemists had established that many natural products were made of just three elements - carbon, oxygen and hydrogen. How could this be true? How could such extraordinarily complicated substances, even man himself, be made of nothing but charcoal and air? The molecules were the fundamental substances of organic chemistry, the building blocks not only of the DNA unravelled a century later, but of the mass of natural products and synthetic substances that were to dominate the modern world.

Chinese Summary/中文概要： 十九世纪中叶的时候，发生了一场震惊了整个维多利亚社会的科学革命。科学家之前就意识到所有的有机化合物都有一个共同的特点：既都拥有碳元素。后来，他们又证实，自然物质主要有三种元素组成-----既碳元素、氧元素和元素，而这样的发现在当时那样一个认为生命体是由“生命力”创造的社会里犹如惊天霹雳般惊人，简直令人难以置信。 JOHN BUCKINGHAM博士追述了发现分子结构的整个过程，也掀开了科学界的恶性竞争是如何阻挠新发现的步伐的-----互相竞争的化学家以及背道而驰的理论，害得科学停止了它前进的脚步。当Friedrich Wohler成功地从无机化合物里合成出有机化合物时，可以说是这是对于“生命力”这一理论的第一次挑战。但是由于渲染着民族主义色彩的个人纠纷的出现，他的那些科学成果在后来的四十年之内几乎没人问津。直到十九世纪六十年代，才有了转机。August Kekule这位德国学术界的中流砥柱声称他是在梦里得到了答案，另一位是Sicilian Stanislao Cannizzaro，他披露了Avogadro的长久以来一直被忽视了的重要成果。恰恰就是这两位奇才做出了重大的发现，科学家才得以再次有机会寻觅生命的真谛。 John Buckingham道出了发现生命之本----分子的全部内幕，也揭示了这样的重大科学成果是如何为下一世纪大型化工产业的蓬勃发展铺平道路的。《追击分子》文字生动、有趣、栩栩如生，大凡对科学史和科学研究感兴趣的人，都会爱上这本书。

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