New Ideas in Chemistry from Fresh Energy for the Periodic Law

FOREWORD

From his first writings, a respect for the bounteous reality of the chemical universe coupled with the courageous drive to rethink every chemical observable have marked Henry Bent’s work. His Second Law book came out just as I was beginning to teach introductory chemistry — through its simple language and realistic examples, it shocked me out of my conviction that thermodynamics could only be understood if one had control of those partial derivatives. His 1961 Chemical Review article traced more clearly than anyone had done previously the geometrical consequences of hybridization, and how geometry changes in turn affected hybridization. His 1968 Chemical Review article has a breathtakingly clear analysis (for its time) of how secondary interactions in the then just beginning prolific crystal structures could be made sense of as donoracceptor interaction. The same article contains the first Bürgi-Dunitz diagram (for triiodide). Except it’s by Bent.

The periodic table is our icon, and not for nothing, as they say. It remains a vital research instrument, for glassmaker and catalyst designer, for everyone who wants to ring the changes on the elements. It is also an intellectual tour-de-force, making sense of the atomic world. The robust utility of Mendeleyev’s Table was already attested to by the 70 years that passed before this construction could be said to be deeply understood.

Henry Bent takes a fresh look at the innards of the table, and at its representations. The language is even and clear — Bent style. And his approach is obsessive — he returns again and again to the same points. But with not a touch of malice toward the prevalent illogic around our icon. That is also Bent. Even if one disagrees with him (as I do) on the problems that the ambiguity in the representations of the table pose for the community, one cannot but be impressed by the intellectual honesty, the feeling for the learner who is the reader, and for the understanding that permeate this truly original book.

                                                                                                                                                         Roald Hoffmann, Frank H. T. Rhodes Professor of Humane Letters, Professor of Chemistry, Cornell University, Nobel Laureate 1981