I did not imagine that Japan possessed such a large number of religious testimonies. In the big cities dozens of temples scattered among the many neighborhoods, open to worship, each with its garden and its small cemetery of tombstones and volcanic stone stems accompany us on walks to discover the life of the city. Elderly ladies clean their temple with great care, helped by the deep respect that the faithful have for the place.
After a visit to the Liebig Museum of Giessen in Germany, I decided to put the images and videos I made on my site, together with the information I found in the Museum’s publications, but above all that I gathered from my expert guide, such as Prof Manfred Kroeger who accompanied us during our long visit. The museum preserves the Institute of Chemistry almost intact, where Liebig carried out his activity as a teacher and scientist from 1825 to 1852. It is a unique structure, which has survived to this day. Passing through the rooms and laboratories where generations of chemists have trained under the guidance of a great teacher, such as Liebig, one feels great emotion. It is a mandatory stop for chemists, especially if they are teachers, and a destination for students to include in their school trips.
The main way to introduce the history and epistemology of chemistry into teaching is to use the memoirs, essays and pages of texts written by the protagonists of chemistry as a fundamental tool. I translated into english from French, I think for the first time, the memoir that Lavoisier read at the Academy of Sciences in 1777 entitled « Experiments on the respiration of animals and on the changes that take place in the atmospheric air that passes through their lungs» , because it constitutes his first organic attempt to question and overcome the theory of phlogiston.
Our trip to the island of Bali in Indonesia was one of the most interesting and intense experiences we had during our tours around the world. The trip took place over forty years ago. The island was considered one of the most exotic destinations, but tourism, which at that time did not include organized and group trips, in those distant lands was made up of a few people. Bali was an island still in the hands of the islanders.
A trip made to Indonesia also took us to the island of Bali. It was 1980, about forty years have passed. Western tourists were rare. The only presences were those of many young Australians who filled the town Kuta to ride the waves. They remained there, attracted only by the motion of the waves. For the rest the island was still in the hands of the Balinese. So, we rented a moped and for a week we crossed the island far and wide. Among the casual encounters we had was a religious ceremony that involved a whole village at the foot of the Batur volcano.
The intense experimental activity of Carl Scheele (1742-1786) embraced the fields of organic and inorganic chemistry, obtaining incredible results in his short life (he died at the age of forty), having the back rooms of the pharmacies where he worked. There are Scheele’s discoveries that have had a great impact, such as the discovery of oxygen on the development of chemistry, his research on phosphorus in the Swedish match industry, or his investigations on the photochemistry of silver salts on the development of photography etc. But there is an experimental result by Scheele, not among the most important in terms of scientific relevance, which however had the most impact on art, fashion and costume in general. It is the invention of the green dye which then took the name green of Scheele, the link between the pigments and Scheele was the unexpected result of research that had a different purpose.
This didactic proposal for the chemistry laboratory is intended for a basic chemistry course. The subject of the research is Prussian blue, the synthesis of Prussian blue is present on many web pages, in various versions. What they have in common is the simplicity of execution. To the synthesis of the dye is added the search for iron in the blood, an analysis linked to the constitution of Prussian blue and the synthesis of a dye other than blue obtained using copper salts. But the novelty of the didactic proposal is the reproduction of some experiences made by Macquer in 1752 which for the first time deal with the composition of Prussian blue. Here are some parts of the memoir written by Macquer, Chemical examination of Prussian blue, from 1752, relating to the description of these experiences. In this way, laboratory activity is experienced as a reconstruction of the history of chemistry which had its fundamental pivot in laboratory activity.
Mount Qiyun literally means ‘Cloud-high mountain’, it is a mountain and national park located in Xiuning County in Anhui Province, China. It is located at the foot of the Huangshan mountain range about 33 kilometers west of the city of Huangshan and is known as one of the Four Sacred Mountains of Taoism. Known for its many inscriptions and tablets, as well as monasteries and temples, the highest point on the mountain rises to 585 meters (1,919 feet). It is a destination that I visited during my trip to China in 2014. Few tourists and mostly belonging to the Taoist cult. Several temples and monasteries (out of 33) that promote the spread of Taoist principles are found here.
Vulcano is an Italian island belonging to the Aeolian archipelago in Sicily. Among the Aeolian islands it is the closest to Sicily, just 12 miles from Capo Milazzo. The other islands are Salina, Lipari, Panarea, Stromboli, Filicudi, Alicudi.
I think there cannot be such a strong emotion for a chemist as that one feels when visiting Mendeleev’s apartment at the University of St. Petersburg. He lived there from 1867 to 1890. The apartment is located on the ground floor of the Faculty of Chemistry and was connected to his laboratory. Since 1911, four years after his death, it has been transformed into a museum. I visited the Museum in 2009 on a trip to St. Petersburg. The paradoxical thing is that I had no idea of the existence of this heritage. On the penultimate day of my stay in St. Petersburg, I realized, consulting the guide for the umpteenth time, that in a corner, in minute letters, the news of the existence of the museum was reported. So in the middle of August, a weekday in Russia, I was able to find the museum with difficulty and visit it. A visit all alone, with Dr. Natalia who was my guide without speaking English, but reading the information written in English from a notebook of her notes. I felt like I was visiting a small country museum without ostentation, all very informal. When you enter the apartment, after walking through a few rooms, you arrive at the study. Here time has stopped, everything has remained as it was when Mendeleev died. On one side of the study there is his desk, his armchair, the chess pieces. And it is precisely here where Mendeleev’s first “Periodic Table” come about
