Macrae Roderick M
Marian University, Indianapolis.
Sci Prog. 2017 May 1;100(2):133-186. doi: 10.3184/003685017X14859543105069a.
A century ago, a two-part review by W. C. McC. Lewis entitled "The Structure of Matter" appeared in this journal, surveying the achievements that had been made to date in that field. Topics included the value of Avogadro's constant, the dimensions of a molecule, equations of state for non-ideal gases, then-current theories relating electron configurations to the Periodic Law, the then-new nuclear atom model of Rutherford, and the first findings from X-ray crystallographic studies of matter, a field then in its nascent phase. This article is a sequel to that work. As a vast quantity of research has been addressed to the topic in the intervening period, the view presented here can at best be selective and idiosyncratic. Nonetheless, it attempts to capture some of the important strides in 'matter science', broadly defined, over the past century, highlight some recent areas of interest or novelty, and give a picture of some of the mysteries that remain.
一个世纪前，W. C. McC. 刘易斯撰写的一篇分两部分的综述文章《物质的结构》发表在本期刊上，全面回顾了当时该领域已取得的成就。主题包括阿伏伽德罗常数的值、分子的尺寸、非理想气体的状态方程、当时将电子构型与元素周期律联系起来的理论、当时新出现的卢瑟福核原子模型，以及物质的X射线晶体学研究的首批发现，该领域当时尚处于起步阶段。本文是该作品的续篇。由于在此期间针对该主题进行了大量研究，这里呈现的观点充其量只能是有选择性的且带有个人特色。尽管如此，它试图梳理过去一个世纪广义上的“物质科学”所取得的一些重要进展，突出一些近期令人感兴趣或新颖的领域，并描绘一些仍然存在的谜团。
