How Big is Big?

Abstract

One would expect that such strange phenomena as the stickiness and the vulcanization of natural rubber, the high strength of fibers, or the conversion of cotton into gun cotton would inspire the natural scientists of the nineteenth century to search for their molecular causes. The time was not ripe, however, since such important concepts like “chemical compound”, “atom”, “molecule”, or “chemical bond” were either not created or meant something totally different then today.

... That I might see what secret force Hides in the world and rules its course.

J. W. von Goethe, Faust I