Old Wine New Flasks: Reflections on Science and Jewish Tradition

by Roald Hoffmann, Shira Leibowitz Schmidt

Exploring the fundamental harmony along the continuum between scientific inquiry and religion, the authors of this text examine a series of encompassing issues such as purity, perception, authority, precision, and the supernatural comparing how each is handled in the realm of science, art/poetry and Jewish scholarship. The result of the study provides a range of contemporary values that arrive at a respect and appreciation for the underlying unity of all knowledge.

Genres: Nonfiction, Jewish

362 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 1997

About the author

Roald Hoffmann (born Roald Safran; July 18, 1937) is an American theoretical chemist who won the 1981 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He is the Frank H. T. Rhodes Professor of Humane Letters, Emeritus, at Cornell University, in Ithaca, New York.

Hoffmann graduated in 1955 from New York City's Stuyvesant High School, where he won a Westinghouse science scholarship. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree at Columbia University (Columbia College) in 1958. He earned his Master of Arts degree in 1960 from Harvard University. He earned his Doctor of Philosophy degree from Harvard University while working under direction of subsequent 1976 Nobel Prize in Chemistry winner William Lipscomb. Under Lipscomb's direction the Extended Hückel method was developed by Lawrence Lohr and by Roald Hoffmann. This method was later extended by Hoffmann. He went to Cornell in 1965 and has remained there, becoming professor emeritus.

Hoffmann has investigated both organic and inorganic substances, developing computational tools and methods such as the extended Hückel method, which he proposed in 1963.

He also developed, with Robert Burns Woodward, rules for elucidating reaction mechanisms (the Woodward–Hoffmann rules). He also introduced the isolobal principle.

In 1981, Hoffmann received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, which he shared with Kenichi Fukui "for their theories, developed independently, concerning the course of chemical reactions".

Other awards:

Priestley Medal (1990)
Arthur C. Cope Award in Organic Chemistry
Organic Chemistry Award (American Chemical Society), 1969
Inorganic Chemistry Award (American Chemical Society), 1982
Pimentel Award in Chemical Education (1996)
Award in Pure Chemistry
Monsanto Award
Literaturpreis of the Verband der Chemischen Industrie for his textbook The Same and Not The Same (1997)
National Medal of Science
National Academy of Sciences
American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellow
American Philosophical Society Fellow
Kolos Medal
Foreign Member, Royal Society
Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
Harvard Centennial Medalist
James T. Grady-James H. Stack Award for Interpreting Chemistry

Hoffmann is member of the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science and is a member of the Board of Sponsors of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

In August 2007, the American Chemical Society held a symposium at its biannual national meeting to honor Hoffmann's 70th birthday. He also has served as a consultant with Eli Lilly and Company, a global pharmaceutical corporation.

Reviews

[H.L. Gibson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I discovered this book from a reference in The Rarest Blue, and I'm so glad that I followed it up with the purchase of this fascinating book. The way the essays are presented adds to the quality of the subject matter discussed. The perfect balance between the artful and the technical, this book is a wonderful reminder that science, subject to Adonai because it's His creation, is also a method for us to draw closer to Him. Totally worth the read!

[Jane Burnett · Rating 3 out of 5]

Old Wine, New Flasks: Reflections on Science and Jewish Tradition by Roald Hoffmann and Shira Leibowitz Schmidt is a nonfiction work of literature that compares and contrasts science and religion in a unique way. The authors organize their thoughts on the two subjects into eight chapters, beginning with “Is Nature Natural?” In this section, a fictitious set of people correspond with one another through the mail and attempt to answer this very question by tying to form a definition of what it means to be natural, and then discussing the various possibilities of both science and religion allowing many to believe Earth is simply for human use. The next chapter, “A Sukkah from an Elephant,” defines what it takes for a structure to be a Sukkah and helps readers to understand the origins and reasoning behind many Jewish practices in order to further discuss the topic of science versus religion. “You Must Not Deviate to the Right or the Left” is the third section of the nonfiction work and explores similarities and differences between seemingly opposite things, such as right- and left-handed molecules and mirror image paintings. These juxtapositions serve as a reference to how science and religion are perceived as opposites, but truly hold many similarities. In “Bitter Waters Run Sweet” a fabricated email group named “Bibl-e-mail” includes chemists and religious figures as they attempt to make sense of a biblical passage where Moses instructs a man to throw a tree into a river to alleviate the bitterness of their drinking water. The chapter displays differences in how things are explained in science and religion. “The Flag That Came out of the Blue” is a play about Korah’s uprising, a religious revolt, and is broken up by a fictitious professor that discusses its moral and spiritual ramifications on the audience, both scientifically and religiously. The sixth chapter, “Signs and Portents: No Parking in the Courtroom,” is based off of a true case regarding a man fighting a parking ticket he was given and discusses how certain symbols, such as a stop sign, should not hold the power to prohibit more than one interpretation of their meaning. They extend the discussion to explain how certain religious stories and their many interpretations are similar to how a molecular drawing can truly represent more than one compound. “Pure/Impure” is a chapter in which the two authors discuss differences of what it means for a substance to be pure or impure in both Chemistry and the Jewish religion. Lastly, “Camel Caravans in the Pentagon” takes form in a conversation between Roald and Shira in which they discuss the differences between parchment and leather, components of the Torah scroll, to determine the scientific requirements for a religious piece of writing.
I gave the book a 3 out of 5. I found it to be very bland at times because the authors of the book went off on numerous irrelevant tangents that were difficult to relate back to the main focus of the chapters. Also, Roald and Shira dove very deep into the Jewish religion and minor customs that they uphold which I did not think was pertinent to what they were saying. However, I did think that it was very interesting at moments. Especially when they brought up the argument that both science and religion can make people think that Earth is only for human use. While this is most definitely not the case for all people involved in both subjects, I still found the discussion that ensued to be very interesting. I also found the way that they discussed science and religion throughout the book to be very clever in their uses of switching writing styles between chapters. My favorite chapter was “Bitter Waters Run Sweet,” for I thought that including an online discussion group with multiple people in it was a very unique way to bring up multiple different perspectives of one topic and the Chemistry discussed in this portion of the text was quite intriguing. This section also contained quite a bit of humor within the discussions in the which made it a great read. Overall, this book was not my favorite piece of nonfiction, but I still found it to be rather interesting in certain cases.