131 years ago this month, George Stoney proposed the "atom of electricity," or "electron," linking it to the production of electromagnetic waves. The paper appeared in Phil. Mag. in Oct 1894. #ChemSky 🧪 (Note his use of "chemical atom".) Read it here: todayinsci.com/S/Stoney_Geo...

151 years ago this month, J Willard Gibbs published part I of his famous thermodynamic treatment of chemistry in the obscure “Trans Conn Acad Arts Sci”. #ChemSky 🧪Read it here: library.si.edu/digital-libr...

101 years ago this month, Edmund Stoner published "The Distribution of Electrons among Atomic Levels" in Phil. Mag., the first decent description of the Bohr model atom with quantum numbers--soon leading to the postulation of electron spin. #ChemSky 🧪 Read it here: www.chemteam.info/Chem-History...

My latest calligraphic work, the Birkat HaZan: gouache on watercolor paper, scheduled for installation in my dining room. #art #calligraphy #Jewish

On this date in 1861, Alexander Butlerov gave a talk “Einiges über die chemische Structur der Körper,” printed in Zeit. Chem. Phys., perhaps the first time “chemical structure” was used. #ChemSky 🧪 Read a translation here: web.lemoyne.edu/giunta/butle...

Given I know a little about science communication, I am happy to share this commentary by my grad-school housemate. pubs.aip.org/physicstoday...

In Sept 1874, Jacobus van 't Hoff published his article on how molecules are 3D. "A suggestion looking to the extension into space of the structural formulas at present used in chemistry..." which you can read here: #ChemSky 🧪 www.chemteam.info/Chem-History...

This month (September) in 1829, Robert Brown published ”Additional Remarks on Active Molecules” in Philosophical Magazine, Series 2, pp 161-6: the discovery of what is now called Brownian Motion. 🧪 #ChemSky www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/gold/pd...

Folx, I have posted the final episode of my podcast, “The History of Chemistry.” Please continue to support it financially on Buzzsprout & Patreon, otherwise it goes away. (Hosting costs money.) 🧪 #ChemSky

Last night was my choir, Sharim v’Sharot’s first rehearsal of the season.

The latest episode of “The History of Chemistry” is up, on chemically detecting life in other star systems.🧪 #Chemsky

Newest episode of "The History of Chemistry" podcast: Finding life chemically in our solar system. 🧪

Folks, I am proud (and floored) to announce that I am the 2026 James T. Grady-James H. Stack Award for Interpreting Chemistry for the Public winner. 🧪

Latest episode of "The History of Chemistry" podcast for all is on the recent history of molecular machines. Hear about the ancestors of our future molecular overlords! 🧪

The latest episode of "The History of Chemistry" podcast discusses how phytofarming has developed. 🧪

Newest post on "The History of Chemistry" podcast is an episode about the history of chemistry 🧪 itself.

Next episode of "The History of Chemistry" is up: listen to a bit about various awards and honors that chemical organizations bestow.🧪

New episode of my podcast "The History of Chemistry" is up, on Greek letters used as symbols in chemistry. 🧪

A couple of weeks ago I was in Stockholm, and I *had* to visit the statue of chemist 🧪 Jöns Jacob Berzelius, who discovered elements, invented modern chemical symbols, and more. Sadly, there is no museum dedicated to him in Stockholm—and there ought to be.

New episode up for "The History of Chemistry" podcast: on photovoltaic cells that operate under indoor illumination. 🧪

I declare independence from tyranny. bsky.app/profile/boro...

From my collection of historical chemistry 🧪 books, here is A Y Rogodin’s “Khemye,” published with other Yiddish scientific works by Farlag Yehude in Warsaw ~1920. Rogodin was an engineer, not chemist. #Yiddish

“Leges Sine Moribus Vanae” is a joke, a sick, sad joke.

From my historical chemistry🧪 books, here is my copy of Englishman Dr Joseph Mellor’s p-chem book, which he apparently liked most of all the books he wrote. Note the quote on the title page! (See p. 13 of the link for a full bio of Mellor.: acshist.scs.illinois.edu/bulletin_ope...)

Newest episode of "The History of Chemistry" podcast is up! Fun and games are integral to chemistry.🧪 I hope for a good reaction.

Latest episode of "The History of Chemistry" podcast is now up, on how chemists viewed water throughout history. Check it out! 🧪

No Faux King Way”, and a cast of a couple thousand in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. I hope you did your civic duty too.

Latest episode of "The History of Chemistry" 🧪 podcast now available for all is "Midnight Blue," about George Washington Carver's patented blue, and a 21st-century blue pigment. Try out the podcast!

Latest episode now live for "The History of Chemistry" podcast is how a samarium isotope's half-life is poorly known, even to the point of retracting a paper, which affects other branches of science. 🧪

Continuing the series of historic chemistry🧪 books in my collection, here is a “Laboratory Manual of Organic Chemistry” 2nd ed., by Dr Harry Fisher, an expert in rubber chemistry, published just when polymers were found to be chains of smaller molecules. www.nytimes.com/1961/03/21/a...

My latest podcast episode, on the chemical 🧪 history of wetting and superhydrophobicity (say that five times fast), is now up and running. Listen now!

From my modest collection of historical chemistry🧪 books, a text written by Professor Alexander Smith. Apparently he was highly regarded as an educator (per a column in the Journal of Chemical Education, 1931). pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1...

After a hiatus due to a death in the family, I am back with a new episode of “The History of Chemistry” podcast, this time on how fractals apply to chemistry.🧪

Another work in my historical chemistry🧪 collection is a gas-analysis book by Dr Walther Hempel. The English translation received a positive review in “Science” when published in 1892. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Another book in my historical chemistry 🧪 collection. Englishman Dr. John Cannell Cain died early. Dr Jocelyn Field Thorpe lived until 1939. Both were organic chemists. www.nature.com/articles/106...

New episode of “The History of Chemistry” podcast is out, on how chemists 🧪 view fossils throughout history.

Marginalized chemist 🧪 Jeannette E. Brown was the first Black woman to earn a master’s in organic chem from the Univ of Minnesota. She was a medicinal chemist at CIBA and Merck, and a visiting professor at NJIT. www.thehistorymakers.org/biography/je...

Is there a science- or lab-related “Goods”-type app that rated science-suppliers on their politics?

Dr Julius Berend Cohen (not my cousin) from northern England, earned his PhD at the Univ of Munich, and taught organic chem at Leeds Univ. Here is his textbook in my collection of historical chemistry 🧪 books. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_...

Marginalized Black chemist🧪 Dr Lawrence H Knox earned a PhD in organic chem from Harvard. He spent a while testing organic mechanisms, and showed how Hückel’s rule (4n + 2 π-electrons is aromatic) works. Later he moved to Mexico to work at the famed Syntex. aaregistry.org/story/lawren...

In my collection of early chemistry🧪 books is one by Philadelphian Dr Henry Leffmann, professor of all sorts of things scientific. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_L...

This is just evil.

19th-century chemistry book in my collection. It got a good review in “Nature” back in 1889. www.nature.com/articles/041...

Marginalized Black chemist🧪 Mary Elliott Hill earned an MS from Univ of Penn, perhaps the 1st Black woman to get a master‘s. She did UV spectroscopy of reactive ketenes, studying their solubilities, and aided in starting student ACS chapters at HBUs. www.findagrave.com/memorial/197...

Marginalized Black radiochemist 🧪 James Andrew Harris got his bachelor’s in chemistry from Huston-Tillotson College. He oversaw the Heavy Isotopes Production Group at Berkeley, making targets for the discovery of elements 104 and 105. wacohistory.org/items/show/197

Thanks to Tom Beck for this

New episode of my podcast is out, on the chemical history of refrigerants.🧪 thehistoryofchemistry.buzzsprout.com/1985736/epis...

My co-author and I giving a Jewish genealogy lecture for ~40 people at Adath Israel on the Main Line, near Philadelphia this morning. #Genealogy

Marginalized Black chemist 🧪Alma LeVant Hayden got a masters at Howard U, then became a chemist/spectroscopist at the FDA, ultimately exposing a Yugoslavian imported “medication” Krebiozen as fraud in the early 1960s, setting a standard for analytical chemistry of drugs. www.fda.gov/about-fda/fd...

Marginalized chemist🧪 Dr Walter Lincoln Hawkins earned a PhD in cellulose chemistry from McGill Univ. After a postdoc at Columbia Univ, he was the first Black scientist at the famed Bell Labs, doing research on stability of polymers for telecommunications. lemelson.mit.edu/resources/w-...