Here is an introduction to Chemistry which is just that. You take in food, you breathe in air, you breathe out carbon dioxide and the carbon atoms that were you for some time go back into the world as the immortal beings they are to make other plants and animals.

The material is written in didactic verse and is accompanied by illustrations on the supposition that this will make it easier to read and perhaps more memorable. A place at the periodic table has been set for you to dine on chemical history from 'HO, HO, H2O' to 'DNA'.

Frank Eastwood

Frank Eastwood (1930-) was appointed Senior Lecturer (later Reader) in Chemistry at Monash University in 1960 and arrived on the Clayton campus in January 1961 to initiate teaching and research in organic chemistry and help develop the department, the library facilities and the University generally in its first years. Frank went to school during World War II and had an abiding interest in political and social theory, history and technology. He was a graduate of Sydney University, BSc (Hons) 1st Class (1952), and MSc (1953), having worked on natural products.  He was awarded an 1851 Exhibition Scholarship to study at Oxford with Sir Robert Robertson (1886-1975) on synthetic approaches to tropolones and graduated DPhil in 1957. In June 1956 he was awarded a Salters Scholarship and moved to Cambridge to work with Sir Alexander Todd (1907-1997) on the structures of new antibiotics provided by the Glaxo Pharmaceutical Company, while working with two PhD students.

To initiate research at Monash with only limited facilities, Frank explored cyclic orthoformate structures as models for low energy transition states and found 1,2-diols formed cyclic orthoformates which decomposed on heating to yield alkenes, the first of several studies of pyrolytic reactions. As the department grew Frank collaborated with other members of staff so that the wide expertise accumulated was available to students. He continued synthetic and structural studies and later participated in a study of Solanum alkaloids as a source of steroids. Major projects were introduced in collaboration with Roger Brown on cumulenones (H2CnO) (n=3, 4, 5) which were highly unstable molecules, pyrolytic rearrangements of aromatics leading to  benzyne intermediates, studies which laid the groundwork for determining reaction pathways at high temperatures. Frank also collaborated with Ronald Brown on the formation of a new oxide of carbon, C3O, for microwave studies. Frank canoed, sailed and voyaged on square-rigged ships to learn the ropes and, with a group bought and restored an old hotel which is now a registered historic building.  He found life full of interest, read widely and enjoyed writing poetry.


Paperback
Book dimensions: 205 x 147 mm
Pages: 276