Foundations of Chemistry最新文献

Editorial 83 编辑83

IF 0.9 3区化学

Foundations of Chemistry Pub Date : 2026-09-09 DOI: 10.1007/s10698-026-09582-4

Eric Scerri

引用次数: 0

Modified periodic table representations for the correct placement of hydrogen and f-block elements 修改了元素周期表中氢和f块元素的正确位置

IF 0.9 3区化学

Foundations of Chemistry Pub Date : 2026-07-10 DOI: 10.1007/s10698-026-09574-4

Ramchandra P. Rajmane, Mohan M. Rajmane, Sandip V. Mahamuni

引用次数: 0

What are Complex Systems and how does their investigation impact the foundations of chemistry? 什么是复杂系统？它们的研究如何影响化学的基础？

IF 0.9 3区化学

Foundations of Chemistry Pub Date : 2026-07-06 DOI: 10.1007/s10698-026-09573-5

Pier Luigi Gentili, Giovanni Villani

{"title":"What are Complex Systems and how does their investigation impact the foundations of chemistry?","authors":"Pier Luigi Gentili, Giovanni Villani","doi":"10.1007/s10698-026-09573-5","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10698-026-09573-5","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Humanity in the XXI century is called to confront global challenges rooted in the behavior of Complex Systems. As a result, scientists are increasingly driven to orient both research and education toward the interdisciplinary field of Complexity. Chemists, in particular, are encouraged to contribute to this collective effort, as chemistry stands at the crossroads of human and animal health, the planet’s biological and physical environments, and technological innovation. At the same time, chemists are challenged and enriched in their efforts to comprehend Complex Systems and face global challenges. This work presents the viewpoints of two chemists involved in the study of Complex Systems, articulated through a Questions-and-Answers (Q&A) format. They address seven key questions concerning the nature of Complex Systems and the ways in which their investigation is fostering a revolutionary intellectual event in the marvellous journey of humanity towards the comprehension of natural phenomena. The perspectives that emerge highlight how interdisciplinary research on Complex Systems is reshaping the foundations and expanding the role of chemistry.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":568,"journal":{"name":"Foundations of Chemistry","volume":"28 2","pages":"297 - 316"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2026-07-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10698-026-09573-5.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149078860","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"化学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

The theoretical schism does not exist 理论上的分裂是不存在的

IF 0.9 3区化学

Foundations of Chemistry Pub Date : 2026-07-03 DOI: 10.1007/s10698-026-09571-7

Gareth R. Eaton

引用次数: 0

Groundings in Pragmatism and the Practice of Science: A Review of Hasok Chang's Realism for Realistic People: A New Pragmatist Philosophy of Science 实用主义的基础与科学的实践——兼评张哈素的《现实人的现实主义：一种新的实用主义科学哲学

IF 0.9 3区化学

Foundations of Chemistry Pub Date : 2026-07-03 DOI: 10.1007/s10698-026-09570-8

Clevis Headley

引用次数: 0

“A good man cannot teach zoology”: chemicalization, molecularism, and the transformation of biology’s self-image “好人教不了动物学”：化学化，分子主义，以及生物学自我形象的转变

IF 0.9 3区化学

Foundations of Chemistry Pub Date : 2026-06-11 DOI: 10.1007/s10698-026-09569-1

Apostolos K. Gerontas

{"title":"“A good man cannot teach zoology”: chemicalization, molecularism, and the transformation of biology’s self-image","authors":"Apostolos K. Gerontas","doi":"10.1007/s10698-026-09569-1","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10698-026-09569-1","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This paper traces the transformation of biology’s self-image through the concept of molecularism: the cultural myth that crystallised around the success of molecular biology in the twentieth century. Beginning with Theodosius Dobzhansky’s 1964 observation that “a good man cannot teach zoology” — a symptom of the internal devaluation of an entire epistemic tradition — the paper argues that molecular biology did not merely adopt chemical methods but internalised chemistry’s constitutive agenda: a purposive orientation in which understanding a material system is inseparable from the capacity to transform it. This chemical agenda, rooted historically in the Rockefeller Foundation’s deliberate investment in the molecular approach and philosophically in the productive, synthesis-oriented dimension of chemistry identified by Bensaude-Vincent and Simon, crystallised over the second half of the twentieth century into a cultural myth in Mary Midgley’s sense — a structuring imaginative framework operative in scientific self-understanding, popular culture, policy, and commercial practice. The paper examines how popular culture stabilises and amplifies molecularism, how it re-enters scientific practice through AI-driven biology, synthetic biology, and the eugenic applications of genomics, and how it has reshaped biology’s institutional architecture through the fusion of biology with medicine. The paper argues that biology has developed a cultural unconscious — assumptions about what it is and what it should be doing that operate below the level of explicit methodological reflection. Recognising molecularism as a historically contingent framework rather than scientific necessity is proposed as a precondition for both a revised biological self-image and an ethics of molecular biology adequate to its subject matter.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":568,"journal":{"name":"Foundations of Chemistry","volume":"28 2","pages":"279 - 295"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2026-06-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10698-026-09569-1.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149078865","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"化学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

The Construcción principle: the improved Aufbau principle with 2 special filling rules Construcción原理：改进的Aufbau原理，有2条特殊的填充规则

IF 0.9 3区化学

Foundations of Chemistry Pub Date : 2026-06-05 DOI: 10.1007/s10698-026-09567-3

Mario Rodríguez Peña

{"title":"The Construcción principle: the improved Aufbau principle with 2 special filling rules","authors":"Mario Rodríguez Peña","doi":"10.1007/s10698-026-09567-3","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10698-026-09567-3","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The <i>Aufbau</i> principle is used to predict electron configurations and to rationalise the block structure of the periodic table/spiral, yet it suffers from 2 main limitations, the inability to predict 20 “anomalous” configurations and reflect the true order of subshell energies, especially in the “d” and “f” block elements. This work introduces the <i>Construcción</i> principle, a unified framework that simultaneously accounts for both the ordering of differentiating electrons between successive elements and the energy of subshells, thereby predicting the observed electron configurations throughout the periodic table/spiral. This principle also incorporates relativistic stabilisation of s subshells in heavy elements. Moreover, 2 special filling rules are proposed to explain deviations from standard filling: (1) preferential occupation of larger and diffuse subshells by intraorbital repulsion at “d” and “f” block onsets, and (2) stabilisation of half-filled subshells through electron exchange. Prior to formulating these rules, the composition of Group 3 is critically examined using chemical and electronic evidence supporting the inclusion of lutetium and lawrencium in this group, thereby avoiding an artificial interruption of the “d” block against the filling rules. Accordingly, lanthanum and actinium should be regarded as the “anomalous” beginning of the “f” block, filling a d subshell instead of an f one in the formulation of Rule 1. Application of the <i>Construcción</i> principle, including its 2 special filling rules, reduces the number of “anomalous” configurations to only 2, palladium and thorium, yielding correct predictions of electron configurations and consequently, a clear periodic classification.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":568,"journal":{"name":"Foundations of Chemistry","volume":"28 2","pages":"263 - 277"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2026-06-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10698-026-09567-3.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149078861","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"化学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Concerning the question: does quantum mechanics predict molecular structure? An examination of the energetics 关于量子力学能否预测分子结构的问题？对能量学的检验

IF 0.9 3区化学

Foundations of Chemistry Pub Date : 2026-06-02 DOI: 10.1007/s10698-026-09566-4

Mark R. Leach

引用次数: 0

Metaphysics of protein dynamics: dispositional teleology and dynamic identity 蛋白质动力学的形而上学：气质目的论与动态同一性

IF 0.9 3区化学

Foundations of Chemistry Pub Date : 2026-06-01 DOI: 10.1007/s10698-026-09568-2

Ross L. Stein

{"title":"Metaphysics of protein dynamics: dispositional teleology and dynamic identity","authors":"Ross L. Stein","doi":"10.1007/s10698-026-09568-2","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10698-026-09568-2","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Proteins owe their diverse roles to their dynamic character. Two aspects of protein behavior that depend on dynamism are protein folding and conformational isomerization. While the former describes the process by which an unstructured polypeptide chain spontaneously folds into a protein with a specific three dimensional structure, the latter describes the reversible interconversion of distinct structural states of the protein. Apart from their scientific interest, protein folding and conformational isomerization raise important metaphysical questions concerning causation and identity. In this paper, I argue that protein folding is a dispositional teleological process in which the inherent potentiality of the unstructured polypeptide chain to fold into a specific three-dimensional form is manifested. Here, teleology is seen not as the end dictating the present, but the outworking of an entity’s potential. The conformational isomerization of a protein, and the existence of a protein not as a single structure but as an ensemble of conformational isomers, raises questions concerning identity – how should we conceive identity in the face of continuous change? To understand this, I propose a qualified meaning for ‘identity’ – dynamic identity, according to which change is recognized as an existential element of every actuality. All actualities are characterized by ceaseless activity, where this activity involves both an actuality’s internal, constitutive interactions as well as relationships with actualities in its environment. Combined, these internal and external relations act to maintain the actuality in a quasi-stable state while at the same time propelling the actuality into a future of transformation into other, successive quasi-stable states. An actuality’s activities not only sustain it in the present moment in a quasi-stable state, but also establish the conditions for progression into its future. This paper concludes by examining how the dynamic nature of proteins reveals fundamental metaphysical principles.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":568,"journal":{"name":"Foundations of Chemistry","volume":"28 2","pages":"201 - 224"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2026-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149078862","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"化学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Editorial 82 编辑82

IF 1.4 3区化学

Foundations of Chemistry Pub Date : 2026-03-12 DOI: 10.1007/s10698-026-09565-5

Eric R. Scerri

引用次数: 0