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Ball, P. Behind the periodic table. Nature 466, 442 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/466442a
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/466442a
Mauricio Esguerra
Although I will probably agree with the review of this book which I have yet to read, two phrases written with respect to the broader topic of the judgment of the periodic table by scientists, specially by chemists, struck my attention.
The reviewer writes:
"but it is perverse that we regard the table both as an object of beauty and as an intellectual framework of chemistry"
I wouldn't qualify as "perverse" a judgment on beauty of the periodic table, qualifying beauty is intrinsically a subjective matter. I agree that it's aesthetic value is not big, though. But, what I find most contradictory to the opinion of chemists (not physicists), is that in fact the periodic table of the elements is an "intellectual framework of chemistry", I only have a layman knowledge on the subject, but enough to follow Eric Scerri and the chemical community interested in the philosophy of chemistry at http://www.hyle.org. It would have been interesting if the author had followed up his comment on the periodic table by say contrasting it with the collection of proceedings from the 2003 conference in Canada "The Periodic Table: Into the 21st Century" edited by Rouvray and King.
The other phrase that called my attention was:
"and Linus Pauling's inside-out triple-helix model of DNA was worse than a poor guess, ignoring the implausibility of the closely packed anionic phosphate groups"
I just find it interesting that it has been shown by molecular dynamics simulations that in fact the Pauling model of DNA is possible (PNAS 2006, vol. 103, 16200-16205) , and also the arguments of Pauling for his inside-out structure of DNA were made on consideration of the solubility of DNA in a polar solvent, so, writing, "worse than a poor guess", I think is quite the hard judgment on Pauling and Corey's (PNAS 1953, vol. 39, 84?97) reasoning about DNA structure, which has been redeemed by Wereszczynski and Andricioaei.