We finally reach the point in our chemical history that environmental chemistry appears, with Rachel Carson, and her book, Silent Spring. We hear about her research and earlier writings, leading up to the publication of the book, and how many chemical organizations and government officials tried to spread “fake news” about her. The second event at this time was Claire Patterson’s work on environmental effects of lead, and his battle against Dr. Robert Kehoe of the Ethyl Corporation. By the late 1960s, Lake Erie was declared dead and the Cuyahoga River briefly caught fire, and the American public had had enough. Earth Day happened in 1970, the EPA was founded in 1971, and here we are.

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In this episode we hear of Robert and Joseph Switzer, brothers who invented fluorescent paints as college students in the 1930s, and parlayed it into an internationally famous business over the next few decades, till fluorescent paints and pigments became popular in the 1960s. The second half of the episode discusses the discovery of fluorescence and  how itworks, and we learn of the difference between fluorescence and phosphorescence.

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• Support my podcast at https://www.patreon.com/thehistoryofchemistry
• Tell me how your life relates to chemistry! E-mail me at [email protected]
• Get my book, O Mg! How Chemistry Came to Be, from World Scientific Publishing, https://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/12670#t=aboutBook

This episode's topic is World War II and later chemical warfare. Our first stop is with guest Dr. Mara Cohen Ioannides, to discuss Holocaust survivor, chemist, and writer Primo Levi, plus more. Then we learn of Louis Fieser's invention of napalm, which gained notoriety during the Vietnam War. After the Second World War, poisonous nerve compounds were under research in the UK, and we hear about the V-series of nerve agents. During the Vietnam War, Agent Orange was let loose, and we hear why it became a huge problem. Finally, we learn of the Soviet Union's invention of the Novichok nerve agent.

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• Support my podcast at https://www.patreon.com/thehistoryofchemistry
• Tell me how your life relates to chemistry! E-mail me at [email protected]
• Get my book, O Mg! How Chemistry Came to Be, from World Scientific Publishing, https://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/12670#t=aboutBook

We talk about rocketry from ancient times up through the early 1960s, concentrating on the chemistry, that is fuels to power rockets. We talk of the initial Chinese rockets and rocket-based toys and gimmicks created by ancient Greeks and Romans. We jump forward to the early 20th century and Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, who discussed possible rocket fuels for outer-space travel. We hear of the work of Robert Goddard and Hermann Oberth, and rocketry societies. The Nazis advanced rocketry to bring missiles, which sparked much interest in American and Soviet research during and after World War II. At this time, solid fuels began to be cast with polymers. We talk of various solid-fuel formulations, and liquid fuels as well. Finally, I mention a bit about ion-powered rockets.

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• Support my podcast at https://www.patreon.com/thehistoryofchemistry
• Tell me how your life relates to chemistry! E-mail me at [email protected]
• Get my book, O Mg! How Chemistry Came to Be, from World Scientific Publishing, https://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/12670#t=aboutBook

This episode discusses the controversy over the carbocation in organic chemistry in the 1950s, and experiments done to resolve the argument through the early 1960s, using superacids, especially in research by George Olah, William von Eggers Doering, and Lawrence H. Knox. We mention the main proponent, Saul Winstein and the main nay-sayer, Herbert Brown. We also take you through the basics of what a superacid is--and is not--and how dangerous superacids can be in the laboratory. Supporters of the podcast at Patreon can download a supplemental sheet with molecular structures.

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• Support my podcast at https://www.patreon.com/thehistoryofchemistry
• Tell me how your life relates to chemistry! E-mail me at [email protected]
• Get my book, O Mg! How Chemistry Came to Be, from World Scientific Publishing, https://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/12670#t=aboutBook

This episode concerns chemical societies: their history and value. We hear of the first scientific society in Rome, the slow spread of scientific societies, and the controversy over what was the first chemical society: in America, Scotland, or England? We learn of the first permanent chemical society, the Chemical Society of London, and its descendants, which now span the world. We hear of the reasons chemists have banded together to create such societies.

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• Support my podcast at https://www.patreon.com/thehistoryofchemistry
• Tell me how your life relates to chemistry! E-mail me at [email protected]
• Get my book, O Mg! How Chemistry Came to Be, from World Scientific Publishing, https://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/12670#t=aboutBook

In this episode, we talk about the mostly-forgotten OTHER nucleic acid, RNA, and the history of its discovery. Along the way we encounter Jean Brachet, who discovered the first physiological difference from DNA: it was in the cell cytoplasm. Soon thereafter, Nazi-funded Joachim Hämmerling found that the cell nucleus had genetic information, which ruled out RNA. We take a curve into the new information theory and computers, and maybe how genetic information was coded into DNA. We end up with Kenneth McQuillen and the role of ribosomes in the late 1950s. Only then was RNA finally understood in its biochemical role. 

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• Support my podcast at https://www.patreon.com/thehistoryofchemistry
• Tell me how your life relates to chemistry! E-mail me at [email protected]
• Get my book, O Mg! How Chemistry Came to Be, from World Scientific Publishing, https://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/12670#t=aboutBook

This episode brings us up to almost the creation of environmental chemistry. The first part tells of the 1947 explosion of the S.S. Grandcamp in Texas City, USA, and the contributory factors, plus the horrendous damage to the entire bay and nearby cities. The second is how Arie Haagen-Smit discovered the cause of Los Angeles smog in the early 1950s, and what efforts were made before and after his work to mitigate the smog. The third part talks of the 1958 Food Additives Amendment from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, including the Delaney Clause, which led to the cranberry sauce scare of 1959.

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• Support my podcast at https://www.patreon.com/thehistoryofchemistry
• Tell me how your life relates to chemistry! E-mail me at [email protected]
• Get my book, O Mg! How Chemistry Came to Be, from World Scientific Publishing, https://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/12670#t=aboutBook

This episode is devoted to plastics invented or commercialized in the 1950s. Our first stop is carbon fibers, which started with Joseph Swan in the 19th century, but came of age in the late 1950s with Roger Bacon. Polyurethanes were finally commercialized in the early 1950s by B.F. Goodrich and Baeyer. Polyimides, though invented in 1908, weren't sold as products till the DuPont version, Kapton, in the 1950s. Poly(vinyl)alcohols came of age in 1950s as well, first by Japanese firm Kuraray in 1950, and now are ubiquitous in our society. Acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene, or ABS, and similar copolymers, are also well-known from the 1950s onward--including the famous LEGO block. Spandex, or elastane, from DuPont in the 1950s, is popular in clothing as an improvement to latex rubber. Polycarbonate, first created in 1898, re-emerged in the 1950s jointly by General Electric and Baeyer. Polyacetals, from DuPont in the 1950s, are now found in kitchenware, car parts, and medical devices. Fluoroelastomers, elastic molecules with fluorine atoms, also date from the 1950s.

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• Support my podcast at https://www.patreon.com/thehistoryofchemistry
• Tell me how your life relates to chemistry! E-mail me at [email protected]
• Get my book, O Mg! How Chemistry Came to Be, from World Scientific Publishing, https://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/12670#t=aboutBook

We hear about the age of discovery of hormones and antibiotics, from the 1930s to the 1950s. Russell Marker left Penn State to find a plant from which to synthesize progesterone, so we learn about the trials and tribulations of the Mexican firm Syntex. Carl Djerassi joined Syntex and invented norethindrone. We learn of more fungal- and bacterial-based antibiotics, from streptomycin to tetracyclines, vancomycin, and methicillin--and what MRSA is.

Support the show

• Support my podcast at https://www.patreon.com/thehistoryofchemistry
• Tell me how your life relates to chemistry! E-mail me at [email protected]
• Get my book, O Mg! How Chemistry Came to Be, from World Scientific Publishing, https://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/12670#t=aboutBook