History
The term optical activity is derived from the interaction of chiral materials with polarized light. A solution of the (−)-form of an optical isomer rotates the plane of polarization of a beam of polarized light in a counterclockwise direction (levorotatory), vice-versa for the (+) (dextrorotatory) optical isomer. The property was first observed by Jean-Baptiste Biot in 1815, and gained considerable importance in the sugar industry, analytical chemistry, and pharmaceuticals. Louis Pasteur deduced in 1848 that this phenomenon has a molecular basis. Artificial composite materials displaying the analog of optical activity but in the microwave region were introduced by J.C. Bose in 1898, and gained considerable attention from the mid-1980s. The term chirality itself was coined by Lord Kelvin in 1873.
Read more about this topic: Chirality (chemistry)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of literature—take the net result of Tiraboshi, Warton, or Schlegel,—is a sum of a very few ideas, and of very few original tales,—all the rest being variation of these.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Let us not underrate the value of a fact; it will one day flower in a truth. It is astonishing how few facts of importance are added in a century to the natural history of any animal. The natural history of man himself is still being gradually written.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“In history an additional result is commonly produced by human actions beyond that which they aim at and obtain—that which they immediately recognize and desire. They gratify their own interest; but something further is thereby accomplished, latent in the actions in question, though not present to their consciousness, and not included in their design.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)