History
Because of its direct relevance to products of commerce, solid state inorganic chemistry has been strongly driven by technology. Progress in the field has often been fueled by the demands of industry, well ahead of purely academic curiosity. Applications discovered in the 20th century include zeolite and platinum-based catalysts for petroleum processing in the 1950s, high-purity silicon as a core component of microelectronic devices in the 1960s, and “high temperature” superconductivity in the 1980s. The invention of X-ray crystallography in the early 1900s by William Lawrence Bragg enabled further innovation. Our understanding of how reactions proceed at the atomic level in the solid state was advanced considerably by Carl Wagner's work on oxidation rate theory, counter diffusion of ions, and defect chemistry. Because of this, he has sometimes been referred to as the father of solid state chemistry.
Read more about this topic: Solid-state Chemistry
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of the past is but one long struggle upward to equality.”
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)
“All history and art are against us, but we still expect happiness in love.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon than the Word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind.”
—Thomas Paine (1737–1809)