A year or two ago, the most famous science graduate of our age - Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher - appeared on British television, explaining some of the chemistry behind everyday cooking. Most established scientists reacted adversely, claiming that the Iron Lady was just trying to curry political favor with ignorant housewives. Not so long after Thatcher's exercise in culinary science, the professor of one of the largest, oldest, and most prestigious chemistry schools in Britain also appear

This ink was compounded with the assistance of organic chemistry. The paper on which it is printed is another expression of that science. So, too, are the trees whence that paper came and the receptors in your eyes by which you see. Lift up your eyes. Except for glass (inorganic chemistry), it is unlikely that you can see anything that is uninfluenced by organic chemistry. Even the metal and concrete you see probably have been painted and waterproofed. Chemistry, especially the organic vari

A couple of years ago two eminent scientists performed an experiment. Nothing unusual in that, you might think. Think again; when did the eminent scientists of your acquaintance last perform an experiment personally? Come to that, when did you? These eccentrics proceeded in an odd way. They do not seem to have debated whether what they were proposing to do was respectable in Popperian terms, or only those of Feyerabend. No—they just did the experiment. They cannot have spent hours

Life in general is not without its hazards, but contemporary opinion is united in the belief that safety in the workplace is of paramount importance. A manager can always ensure absolute safety in any workplace by closing it down. Many managers are now doing just that because some of the physical safety precautions that have been imposed on them make their work slower and more difficult and weaken competitiveness—sometimes for very questionable gains in safety. For example, one of my forme

Not only has the replacement of the bath by the shower aided in the spread of Legionnaire's disease, it may well lead to a decline in inventiveness. The earliest account of scientific discovery that has come down to us is the story of Archimedes, who solved a problem in applied science (a non-destructive assay of a gold crown) while in his bath. Whether or not the legend is true, bathers will know that the solitude and relaxation of lying in a hot bath—or a cold one during a sticky Sicilia