TEACHING
SS 2025
Physical Organic Chemistry: Mechanistic Investigation Methods
Wahlpflichtveranstaltung des Studiengangs
Master of Science Chemie
Vertiefungsrichtung, Bioaktive Verbindungen
und synthetische Methoden (SYN)
und/oder Katalyse (CAT).
(RWTHmoodle und Zoom, auf Englisch)
Termine: Mittwoch, 8h30-10h.
Sprache: English
“In the study and practice of Sciences, the false judgement that we make does not alter our existence, nor our well-being. No physical benefit obliges us to correct ourselves. Imagination however, constantly pushing us beyond the truth, as well as high self-esteem and confidence, which inspire us so well, incite us to deduce conjectures not directly connected to the facts, such that we tend to indulge in self convincing. It is therefore not surprising that in the Physical Sciences, one has often conjectured instead of concluding, that conjectures transmitted from century to century have become increasingly imposing through the weight of authority that they acquired, such that they are adopted and regarded as fundamental truths, even by the most brilliant minds.
The only way to prevent such errors, requires suppressing, or at least simplifying as much as possible our reasoning, which is intrinsically ours and can thus alone misguide us, to put it repeatedly through the test of experiment, to only retain the facts, which represents data from Nature and thus which cannot deceive us, to only seek truth in the natural succession of experiments and observations, the same way Mathematicians get to the solution of a problem by simply assembling the data, by keeping their reasoning so simple and short that they never lose the evidence from sight, which guides them.”
(Lavoisier, 1789)
