A Philatelic Ramble through Chemistry

I. THE BEGINNINGSGreek ChemistryChinese Chemistry and AlchemyII: ALCHEMY, THE CHEMISTRY OF THE MIDDLE AGESOverviewA Brief History of AlchemyOur Alchemical InheritanceAlchemists in Literature and ArtNamed Alchemists on StampsIII. INORGANIC CHEMISTRYThe Development of Inorganic ChemistryThe Discovery and Naming of the ElementsIV: ORGANIC CHEMISTRYIntroductory RemarksThe Emergence of 'Organic Chemistry'Benzene and the Aromatic CompoundsChiralityOrganic Chemistry After 1880PolymersBiochemistryV: PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY AND CHEMICAL PHYSICSIntroductory RemarksThermochemistry: Temperature and Heat CapacitiesChemical Equilibria and Chemical KineticsThermodynamicsProperties of GasesElectrochemistryTheoretical Chemistry, a CommentVI: SPECTROSCOPYThe Experimental TechniquesUnderstanding the Electromagnetic Spectrum and its Interaction with MatterVII: X-RAY STRUCTURE ANALYSISCrystalsX-Rays and their Diffraction by CrystalsX-Ray Structure AnalysisExamples of X-Ray Structure DeterminationVIII: TECHNICAL CHEMISTRYSome Preliminary CommentsBeerSugarCosmetics and PharmaceuticalsPolymersPaperMineralsPetroleumMetalsGlassPhotographyIX: MISCELLANEOUS TOPICSChemical EducationThe Anonymous ChemistTools of the ChemistChemical FormulaeChemical Societies and MeetingsChomical Errors on Chomical Stamps

EDGAR HEILBRONNER was born in Munich, Bavaria in 1921, and moved to Geneva, Switzerland, in 1935. After studying chemistry at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, he held a Rockefeller research fellowship at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. He returned to the ETH, where he became Professor of Theoretical Organic Chemistry in 1964. In 1968 he moved to Basel, to assume the directorship on the Institute of Physical Chemistry of the University of Basel, a post he held until his retirement in 1988. He has been a Visiting Professor at several universities and is the author of nearly 350 scientific papers, in addition to the book The HMO Model and Its Application (together with Hans Bock). He was awarded the Marcel Benoist Prize by the Swiss Confederation, the August Wilhelm von Hoffman Medal by the German Chemical Society, and the Heyrovsky Medal by the Czechoslovak Academy of Science. He has held several endowed lectureships, such as the Baker Lecture Series at the Ben Gurion University. He is member of several learned societies, including the Gottingen Academy of Science and The American Academy of Arts and Sciences. FOIL ALLAN MILLER was born in Aurora, Illinois, but was raised in Pepin, Wisconsin, a small village on the banks of the Mississippi River. His undergraduate work was done at Hamline University in St. Paul and his Ph.D. is from John's Hopkins University. After a National Research Council Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the University of Minnesota, he taught for four years at the University of Illinois. He went to Pittsburgh in 1948 to join the staff of Mellon Institute as Head of its Spectroscopy Division and later became Senior Fellow in Independent Research there. In 1967, he moved to the University of Pittsburgh as University Professor in Chemistry and Head of the Spectroscopy Laboratory, where he remained until his retirement in 1981. His research, primarily in infrared and Raman spectroscopy, has been described in

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