Mathematical Chemistry, a New Discipline

THE AIM OF THIS chapter is to ponder and discuss the relationship between chemistry and mathematics, taking into account some early research we have performed on the subject (Restrepo and Schummer 2014; Restrepo and Villaveces 2012, 2013; Restrepo 2013). In those works we have discussed some criticism and some support throughout history regarding the relationship. We analyzed the opinions of scholars ranging from Venel and Denis Diderot (eighteenth century) to Pierre Laszlo (twentieth century), all of whom are critical of mathematical chemistry. We also analyzed opinions by Brown and Paul Dirac (nineteenth and twentieth centuries, respectively), who sought a fruitful relationship between mathematics and chemistry. We discussed Kant and his double opinion regarding such a relationship as well. (In summary, Kant initially did not consider chemistry to be a science because of its apparent lack of mathematization, an idea Kant supported in the apparent a priori background of mathematics and in the a posteriori one of chemistry. Kant’s revised opinion about the relationship between mathematics and chemistry is totally different, Kant now thinks chemistry contains elements of mathematics.) We have also analyzed Comte’s opinions on the necessity of mathematics for chemistry and for the advancement of the latter (Restrepo 2013). Our work on the philosophy and history of the relationship between mathematics and chemistry is driven by the attention research on the field has gained between the 1960s and the present. A wealth of knowledge in the border between the two sciences has been generated but little attention has been paid to the philosophy and history of the subject (Restrepo and Schummer 2012). Thus in recent years scholars (Balaban 2005, 2013; Basak 2013; Deltete 2012; Gavroglu and Simões 2012; Restrepo and Villaveces 2012, 2013; Restrepo 2013; Schummer 2012; Hosoya 2013; Klein 2013), including the author of the present chapter, have decided to study such a relationship from both a historical and a philosophical viewpoint. One example of the increased interest are the special issues of Hyle, which were dedicated to mathematical chemistry.