Compound Words, Synthetic World: Chemists, Computing & the Environment, Evan Hepler Smith
Department: History
Date and Time: April 22, 2019 | 3:00 PM-4:30 PMEvent Location: HIB 135
Event Details
Compound Words, Synthetic World: Chemists, Computing & the Environment
w/ Evan Hepler Smith (History, Boston College)
Monday, April 22, 3:00p.m.4:30p.m. HIB 135
A Public Talk Sponsored by the UCI History Department
We live in a synthetic world, and we live in a digital world. Synthesis—molecule-making—is the basis of the diverse chemical sciences, the $5 trillion-a-year worldwide chemical industry, and the long-lived chemical wastes and byproducts that threaten global environmental health. Computing and information technologies have reshaped communications, communities, and ways in which nature and society can be known. Distinct as they seem, the synthetic world and the digital world share an intertwining genealogy. This talk traces this twinned history of molecules and computers back to the origins of the synthetic chemicals industry in the late 19th century. It shows that the material and institutional order of global chemistry in the 20th century came into being through chemists’ ongoing efforts to compile and exploit chemical information. Institutions and methods developed to order the synthetic world in print became the basis for computer-based systems for managing molecules. Taken up by European and American policymakers for the purposes of toxic chemicals regulation, such chemical databases channeled environmental protection in a molecule-by-molecule direction, an approach at the heart of both the achievements and the shortcomings of global environmental governance since the mid-20th century.
Evan Hepler-Smith is Core Fellow and Visiting Assistant Professor of History at Boston College. His research addresses the interconnected development of global chemical industries, information technologies, and environmental toxicity since the mid-19th century. Evan’s work has appeared in such journals as Environmental History and Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences; he has also written for The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and TIME.com. His book in progress is entitled Compound Words: Chemists, Information, and the Synthetic World.
w/ Evan Hepler Smith (History, Boston College)
Monday, April 22, 3:00p.m.4:30p.m. HIB 135
A Public Talk Sponsored by the UCI History Department
We live in a synthetic world, and we live in a digital world. Synthesis—molecule-making—is the basis of the diverse chemical sciences, the $5 trillion-a-year worldwide chemical industry, and the long-lived chemical wastes and byproducts that threaten global environmental health. Computing and information technologies have reshaped communications, communities, and ways in which nature and society can be known. Distinct as they seem, the synthetic world and the digital world share an intertwining genealogy. This talk traces this twinned history of molecules and computers back to the origins of the synthetic chemicals industry in the late 19th century. It shows that the material and institutional order of global chemistry in the 20th century came into being through chemists’ ongoing efforts to compile and exploit chemical information. Institutions and methods developed to order the synthetic world in print became the basis for computer-based systems for managing molecules. Taken up by European and American policymakers for the purposes of toxic chemicals regulation, such chemical databases channeled environmental protection in a molecule-by-molecule direction, an approach at the heart of both the achievements and the shortcomings of global environmental governance since the mid-20th century.
Evan Hepler-Smith is Core Fellow and Visiting Assistant Professor of History at Boston College. His research addresses the interconnected development of global chemical industries, information technologies, and environmental toxicity since the mid-19th century. Evan’s work has appeared in such journals as Environmental History and Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences; he has also written for The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and TIME.com. His book in progress is entitled Compound Words: Chemists, Information, and the Synthetic World.