All Letters articles – Page 12
-
Opinion
Letters: July 2006
From Colin Britton I was most interested in the editorial (Chemistry World, June 2006, p2), ’covering the usual sort of stuff’, and recognising that the topics listed, including air quality, synthetic dyes tomatoes, etc, are just some of the things that chemists get up to. I would like to ...
-
Opinion
Letters: June 2006
From Sir Harry Kroto Fundamental advances in the chemical sciences are today more vital than in any other area for survival of the human race and the sustainability of our modern way of life. The chemical sciences underpin, in the most fundamental ways, the cutting edge areas of ...
-
Opinion
Letters: May 2006
From Michael Archer In response to points raised in the news item entitled Australian chemistry department under threat (Chemistry World online, 23 March 2006; p10), I strenuously deny that any ’budget bungle’ has occurred, as the academic staff union emotively and incorrectly claims. Rather, the restructuring of the school ...
-
Opinion
Letters: April 2006
From Brian Whitefield I sympathise with Ronald Dell over his problem with the names of pharmaceuticals (Chemistry World, March 2006, p32). Some 50 years ago, when National Service temporarily converted me from organic chemist to nurse, the nature of preparations could be easily determined from their Latinate names or, in ...
-
Opinion
Letters: March 2006
From Lee Higham It was interesting to read the article on the changing face of university chemistry (Chemistry World, February 2006, p36). Should closing chemistry departments be resisted if it appears to be part of a natural progression? Is it important to have a departmental status for the subject? This ...
-
Opinion
Letters: February 2006
From Edward Johnson I regret to say that Katie Gibb’s article, Uncorking wine’s characteristics, added little to my understanding of wine chemistry (Chemistry World, December 2005, p39). I have been trying to get to the bottom of some wine issues for years. About eight years ago, I spoke ...
-
Opinion
Letters: December 2005
From Graham Hills How many chemistry departments do we need? How long is a piece of string? If you ask a simplistic question you must expect a simplistic answer. All that your correspondents are able to offer are patched-up versions of the status quo (Chemistry World, October 2005, p11). More ...
-
Opinion
Letters: January 2006
From Barry Knight Richard Biddulph asks whether there is a procedure for neutralising acid inks using zinc diethyl (Chemistry World, November 2005, p32). The Library of Congress, Washington DC, US, did indeed carry out lengthy experiments on deacidifying books with diethyl zinc (DEZ) in the 1980s. However, DEZ reacts violently ...
-
Opinion
Letters: October 2005
From Bill George In his article entitled Claiming Einstein for chemistry (Chemistry World, September 2005, p38) Philip Ball admits to talking ’somewhat with tongue in cheek’. The claimed contribution of special relativity in 1905 to chemistry as practised and generally understood is tenuous. Ball is misleading by crediting Einstein ...
-
Opinion
Your views...
Chemistry research is not an essential component of a science-based university. Discuss.
-
Opinion
Letters: August 2005
From Derrick Stevens There has been a lot of publicity recently concerning the use of hydrogen as a ’clean’ fuel. Three hydrogen-fuelled London buses which cost £1 million each are covered in slogans proclaiming the fact that they emit only water in their exhaust, and no less a ...
-
Opinion
Letters: July 2005
I am in complete agreement with the views expressed by Huw Pritchard in his letter (Chemistry World, June 2005, p31). In my first chemistry lesson in 1961 the master was talking about the action of metals on water. He illustrated his talk by dropping pieces of sodium ...