The Molecule as Meme

Until the mid-1920s, many physicists did not believe in the reality of molecules. Indeed, it was not until after the physics community had accepted Ernest Rutherford’s 1913 solar-system-like model of the atom, and the quantum mechanical model of the coupling of electron spins in atoms, that physicists started to take seriously the necessity of explaining the chemical changes that chemists had been observing, investigating and recording since the days of the alchemists. This volume explores the concept of the molecule as a meme, or idea, that had been accepted in the chemistry community and then diffused outwards into the wider scientific community creating a new field of science, physical chemistry.