Affiliation:
1. University of Bremen Institute for Philosophy Enrique-Schmidt-Straße 7 D-28359 Bremen Germany
2. ETH Zurich Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences Vladimir-Prelog-Weg CH-8093 Zurich Switzerland
3. University of Bremen Institute for Physical and Theoretical Chemistry Leobener Straße 6 D-28359 Bremen Germany
4. Bremen Center for Computational Materials Science Am Fallturm 1 D-28359 Bremen Germany
5. MAPEX Center for Materials and Processes Bibliothekstraße 1 D-28359 Bremen Germany
Abstract
AbstractCertain properties of an object only emerge when a sufficient number of those objects are present in a definite arrangement. For example, one or two water molecules cannot said to be in a liquid state, but a drop of water can be. This concept of emergence has been studied extensively, but only occasionally discussed explicitly in the context of chemistry. In this paper, we aim to show the fruitfulness of the concept of emergence for chemical inquiry by considering four case studies of emergent chemical properties, i. e., the liquidity and freezing of water, structural properties of crystals, thermodynamical phase transitions and quantum mechanical phenomena. We show that some of these properties emerge gradually, some at discrete points, and some should be taken to emerge only when the number of constituents tends to infinity. We argue that studying the way in which chemical properties emerge presents a useful avenue for research that promises greater insight into the nature of those properties.