Search

MPI für Mathematik in den Naturwissenschaften Leipzig
Live Stream
conference
22/03/2021 23/03/2021

Computational approaches to the history of chemistry

The increasing amount of data and of computational power are turning computational approaches an integral part of the historians’ tools. In addition to providing new ways to solve historical questions, computational history allows for asking and solving novel questions related to large scale patterns. Chemistry, being the science with the largest output of publications associated to its exponential growth of new substances, is therefore not short of data, which began to be systematically recorded in the 19th century. This data on the material system of chemistry is today available in electronic form and constitutes an opportunity to carry out computational studies on the history of chemistry.

But as for all sciences, chemistry and its knowledge is much more than its material system. Social and semiotic aspects of the history of chemistry need to be included to attain a more complete panorama of the history of chemistry. In contrast to the material system, the social and semiotic systems of chemistry are still not systematically recorded, let alone digitised, and in any case, the formats vary widely. Thus, while vast amounts of data are available in non-digital form, they require standards and protocols for their digitisation. We need discussions which data should be gathered and in which formats they should be stored to become available for computational tools. At the same time, we need to develop new formal and computational tools to handle and analyse chemical historical information and to make these tools available to historians of chemistry.

Creating a database, developing the computational tools and applying them to the history of chemistry require an interdisciplinary approach, where historians, chemists, mathematicians and computer scientists contribute. It is our aim with this meeting to kick off this discussion and our main aims are:

  • Discussing the most suitable data and data structures for building up databases for computational studies on the history of chemistry.
  • Integrating data from the material, the semiotic and the social system of chemistry for a comprehensive approach to the history of chemistry, and comparing this with the situation in other sciences.
  • Presenting case studies of computational history of chemistry.
  • Discussing further ideas and possible collaborations.
  • Analysing further challenges and opportunities for computational history of chemistry.

Speakers

Gerd Blanke

StructurePendium Technologies GmbH, Germany

Jonathan Goodman

University of Cambridge, United Kingdom

Gerd Graßhoff

Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany

Evan Hepler-Smith

Duke University, USA

Jeffrey Johnson

Villanova University, USA

Jürgen Jost

Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences, Germany

Carsten Reinhardt

Bielefeld University, Germany

Guillermo Restrepo

Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences, Germany

Peter Stadler

Leipzig University, Germany

Program

Participants

ANNA MARIA ALMERICO

UNIVERSITY OF PALERMO

Gustavo Avitabile

Univ. Federico II of Naples, Italy

Marisol Bermúdez

ICN-UNAM

Andrés Bernal

Universidad de Bogotá Jorge Tadeo Lozano

Gerd Blanke

StructurePendium Technologies GmbH, Germany

Robert Bud

The Science Museum

Manuel Burghardt

Computational Humanities Group, Leipzig University

Patrick Charbonneau

Duke University

Helen Cooke

Nantwich Museum

Carmen Coppola

University of Siena

Alessio d'Ettorre

University of Siena

Wintergrün Dirk

MPIWG

Francesca Fasulo

University of Naples Federico II

Jonathan Goodman

University of Cambridge, United Kingdom

Gerd Graßhoff

Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany

Ulf Hashagen

Forschungsinstitut für Technik- und Wissenschaftsgeschichte / Deutsches Museum

Evan Hepler-Smith

Duke University, USA

Alexandre Hocquet

Université de Lorraine

Ernst Homburg

Maastricht University

Parvaneh Joharinad

Max-Plank institute for Mathematics in the sciences

Jeffrey Johnson

Villanova University, USA

Jürgen Jost

Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences (Leipzig), Germany

Roberto Lalli

Max Planck Institute for the History of Science

Farzad Mahootian

New York University

Andres Camilo Marulanda-Bran

Universidad de Antioquia

Leah McEwen

Cornell University

Methu Nath

Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology

Kärin Nickelsen

LMU Munich

Carsten Reinhardt

Bielefeld University, Germany

Antonio Rescifina

University of Catania

Guillermo Restrepo

Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences (Leipzig), Germany

Giada righetti

Università degli studi di Genova

Alessandro Rondina

CNR-Istituto di Tecnologie Biomediche

Areejit Samal

The Institute of Mathematical Sciences (IMSc), Chennai, India

Jeffrey Seeman

University of Richmond

Peter Stadler

Leipzig University, Germany

Marco Taddia

University of Bologna - Retired Professor of Analytical Chemistry

Brigitte Van Tiggelen

Science History Institute

Lei Yu

Tongji University

Scientific Organizers

Jürgen Jost

Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences

Guillermo Restrepo

Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences

Administrative Contact

Antje Vandenberg

Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences Contact via Mail