2 M. Fontecave, E. Mulliez and D. Logan (2002), “Deoxyribonucleotide Synthesis in Anaerobic Microorga (.).Chemistry is also the second largest industry in France after the automobile industry, with a turnover close to 100 billion Euros for over a thousand companies and 250,000 employees, ranking us second at European level and fifth worldwide. Our future will unfold around molecules and materials invented in chemistry laboratories, and there is an infinite number of resulting possible worlds, so great is the potential for the chemical transformation of matter and the transformation of societies by chemistry – fundamentally just like that of art, as Berthelot told us –, and so great is the potential practical utility underlying the fundamental questions raised by chemistry, the ultimate positive science. This creative faculty, similar to that of art itself, distinguishes it essentially from the natural and historical sciences.ĥ It is therefore chemistry that shapes the concrete world in which we live (medicines, cosmetics, polymers, plastics, glass, to cite but a few chemical components of our world). Chemistry: molecules and languageĤ Chemistry has been so much in demand because it is first and foremost the science of the creation of molecules and materials on which everything else depends. I will therefore use this opportunity to recall that while the science of the 20th century and early 21st century has seen disciplines becoming largely interdependent, chemistry has probably been the one that has most often and most profoundly multiplied its involvement in the others – the life and health sciences, the physical and material sciences, the engineering sciences, the earth and environmental sciences – all of which constantly draw on it.
1 F. Jacob (1998), Of Flies, Mice, and Men, Harvard University Press.Ģ In his book Of Flies, Mice, and Men 1, the great French biologist François Jacob recalls that one day during a council of ministers General de Gaulle retorted to one of the members of the government: “There are three things in France that must not be touched: the Collège de France, the Pasteur Institute and the Eiffel Tower.” I am particularly glad, as I am sure you are, at least for the Collège de France, that the General’s recommendations have been respected, and it is with deep emotion and much pride that I would like to thank you, Mr Administrator and distinguished Professors, for welcoming me into this prestigious institution as the Chair of Chemistry of Biological Processes.ģ Beyond these personal feelings, I would like to say just how much I perceive my presence here as an important sign of recognition for this great discipline, chemistry, all too often and unfairly discredited by public opinion and the media, and systematically placed behind its two big sisters, biology and physics, especially in our country.
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