Wired Chemist

Probably the thing that comes to mind most often when thinking about chemistry is the color change, the evolution of a gas, the liberation of heat, the formation of a recognizably new substance, an explosion, all suggestive of the transformation of one or more substances to other substances. These transformations are exclusively the domain of the chemist and are responsible for the formation of numerous materials that have made our lives longer and more comfortable. In addition to textiles made of nylon, dacron, polyesters, and acrylics, coatings made of teflon and polyethylene, structural materials made of plastics and alloys, and herbicides and pesticides, there are the numerous pharmaceuticals that have played such a tremendous role in increasing our life spans. These materials generally begin their lives in the notebooks and then in the laboratories of university and industrial research chemists who design and implement synthetic routes.