Science: Chemists

The Humpty-Dumpty world of matter has had a great fall in the past two decades. But all the king's chemists and physicists become annually more adroit at putting Humpty together again, a bigger and better fellow than ever before. Several hundred chemists convened last week in Philadelphia for the Golden Jubilee of the American Chemical Society (TIME, Sept. 13) and it was upon putting-together (synthesis) that much of their talk ran.

Synthetic Italy. There was Prince Piero Ginori Conti of Italy, who described the taming of waterfalls and hot volcanic springs in the Apennines to produce the power to make the electricity that now supplies Italy with acetic acid without apples (vinegar); wood alcohol from coal instead of trees; camphor, ammonia, formaldehyde, artificial silk for black shirts, from their chemical constituents.

Supermen. In Back to Methuselah Dramatist George Bernard Shaw predicted that in 30,000 years man would be born from an egg, a postadolescent, with a mind capable of reaching the modern mind's highest development in four years, after which he would graduate into being an "Ancient," a Yogi-like creature with no low passions or appetites, not even the vulgar craving for sleep. To Irénée du Pont, vice chairman of the E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., 30,000 years seems a long time to wait for creative evolution to reach this point, and in the course of his remarks on the dyestuff industry he strayed into the future to propose that chemists could and should discover catalytic chemicals that would counteract the muscle poisons which we now have to sleep off. Instead of going to bed for the night, one would have a shot in the arm or a pink pill, change his shirt and bid every one "Good Night" with a cheery morning smile. Other chemicals—not to call them drugs—might be evolved for stimulating mental activity without robbing Peter to pay Paul, as do Cocaine, alcohol, etc. Thus, out of the test tube, a synthetic superman, "a short cut to the millennium."

Berthelot. Early chapters in the synthesis of Humpty-Dumpty were rehearsed by Prof. Paul Sabatier, faculty dean of Toulouse University, who described the personality and performances of Marcellin Berthelot (1827-1907) under whom he had worked at the College de France. Berthelot it was who first prepared "organic" compounds (containing the inevitable constituent of living matter, carbon) from their constituent elements: hydrogen, oxygen, carbon. It seemed then as if Chemist Berthelot had made life from dead matter though nowadays the things he made, benzene, alcohol, etc., are regarded more calmly. (Next year France will observe the centennial of Berthelot's birth in a "house of chemistry" now abuilding in Paris.)

Rubber. An international group of researchers agreed that synthetic rubber is not yet. The report of Dr. Richard Weilfi of Germany was most significant: during the War, Germany needed rubber badly, tried many formulas including one that starts from starch. Potatoes and corn were too scarce for food to permit using this one. Another formula, in coal and lime, was followed to produce 2,350 tons of synthetic rubber. But the product cost five dollars a pound; automobile tires made of it wore out after 1,500 miles; for inner tubes it was useless.