2011: International Year of Chemistry
In: P. Riani (ed.), "Methodological and epistemological foundations, history and chemistry education. Massa-Carrara 2003-2004 ", Pisa, Department of Chemistry and Industrial Chemistry, 2005, p. 218-242
Giorgio Nebbia
What we are looking for the family are the product category and chemistry, two disciplines, but I would say, two ways of seeing the world, though quite Related expulsion has become more visible in the academic world and over time.
Since ancient times beings humans have felt the need to meet their needs --- food, water, the body's defense against the cold, housing, movement --- with material objects from nature. These were plants or animals, textiles, stones, salt derived from sea gradually that human societies are organized and that the needs have increased, the extraction and processing of bodies of nature have been made increasingly refined. On the other hand each person could not know everything about the world of things, but told each other what he knew and learned from other knowledge about the nature, perhaps it was this continuous exchange that has characterized the evolution of human beings towards always forms more similar to those we know today.
In large part the knowledge regarding the properties of bodies of nature. At the same time an increasing number of people had to procure certain items or materials from other people or other places and was born a society based on trade. --- First trade based on barter food for salt, hides and skins in exchange for slaves, etc. --- then mediated by a new institution, the money. Any company of which we received evidence known registered trade matters in exchange for money or material, or inventories of material goods that a person or a community owned.
science and philosophy were concerned with many other important things --- the existence of a deity, the motion of the planets, the rights of people --- but the world has always gone forward with progress and with the spread of knowledge objects and their trade. For simplicity I will call "goods" are physical goods, materials, drawn from nature and processed into useful objects with human labor, ignoring the manner in which they were exchanged. I will call
merceologia knowledge of material bodies, physical, from nature, processed and used by humans. Such knowledge could be sought and perfected for purposes of curiosity, for practical purposes, for purposes of exchange and enrichment, could be given to essential goods like food or materials to build a house, or could be directed to objects of all unnecessary or frivolous, such as perfumes or drugs or precious stones or fabrics or leather luxury spoke a language not of necessity but of prestige or pleasure, were signs of power and wealth.
The fact is that, in ancient times, knowledge of practical and useful things can be found in all organized societies. Here I will avoid any opinion on the degree of "civilization" of the communities that we will meet. The works of scientific, geographic, legal and medical professions are also obliged to use sources of knowledge and merchandise for the disease are cured with herbs or roots, because the litigation is to a large parte a scambi merceologici.
Si potrebbe fare una utile ricerca per trovare nelle fonti storiche le conoscenze del tempo in cui sono state scritte. Ci sono alcuni testi che rappresentano per il merceologo una fonte di continue sorprese: la "storia naturale" di Plinio si può considerare una vera e propria enciclopedia merceologica; la "Materia medica" di Dioscoride è una raccolta delle conoscenze di piante e animali che sono stati riconosciuti utili a curare malattie: praticamente di tutti i corpi offerti dalla natura.
Oggetti materiali sono stati usati nei riti religiosi come offerte alle divinità, come ornamenti dei sacerdoti; ce ne sono innumerevoli prove nella Bibbia e nei relativi commenti, soprattutto nella cultura ebraica; what types of incense were suitable for the ceremonies, what kind of myrrh were suitable for the preservation of corpses, and so on.
Even at this early stage comes an activity of interest, even if neglected in serious studies: that of forgery and fraud in the exchange of goods. The transport of goods in remote areas was difficult and expensive, and soon discovered that someone could earn more by mixing with other goods valued less valuable and that an inexperienced buyer could be easily deceived.
fraud could be revealed by empirical tests, but sometimes requires more sophisticated methods. He always mentions the case of Archimedes, which reveals the deception goldsmith of his host that Hieron had made with base metals that would be a crown of gold, Archimedes revealed the deception by measuring the specific gravity of the crown with that of an equivalent mass of pure gold, discovering, as they say, one of fundamental principles of physics.
News on forgery and fraud can be found in Pliny, Dioscorides, in the Bible and probably in many other ancient texts that should be explored in search of one of the oldest evidence of criminal activity.
A new wave of merchandise you have knowledge of the world with the spread of culture and Islamic religion which discouraged commercial activity, but regulates the morality in their movement from the Atlantic coast of Africa to the islands of the Pacific Ocean, from Europe to Central Africa, since the Mecca in Saudi as a proper religious point of attraction, the "faithful" knew a greater number of items and had increasing opportunities for trade and had to adjust the quality of what they bought.
Fraud Islam was considered a form of sin and the state then had its offices and officials involved in the prevention of fraud, officials used physical methods --- the comparison between specific gravity --- but also of the wise that were already "chemical" to distinguish the genuine from those sophisticated goods. Fortunately we have received numerous treatises and manuals that allow you to take a look at this world where he meets a chemical product sector is still in its infancy.
But around the sixteenth century that the knowledge commodity become more sophisticated and that a growing number of scientists and engineers seeking to understand how the nature of the materials are processed and according to which "laws" that are beginning to be more "chemical". The mass of information and chemical commodity increases rapidly from year to year, mainly in the field of metallurgy, is under pressure to obtain the most suitable techniques for metal armor, guns, swords, is under pressure to obtain precious metals can avoid complicated operations extraction. metal genuine.
The conquest of the "Americas" He attracted to Europe not only the traditional goods of the distant Indies, discoveries now in the new lands, but also entirely new market, such as potatoes, tomatoes, tobacco, and a great mass of precious metals. E 'from the sixteenth century onwards that will refine the understanding of chemistry, primarily for merchandise to improve the processes of transformation of natural products and to foil the adulteration and fraud.
Until the seventeenth century did not include the word chemistry in the modern sense, and not even the word commodity economics as a scientific discipline, even if the first two centuries saw the new science of chemistry to solve practical problems involved, merchandise, to understand how you can improve processi di produzione delle merci.
Nel corso del Settecento l'interesse degli intellettuali è rivolto alla comprensione dei processi di trasformazione delle materie naturali in merci: il più importante esempio è offerto dall'"Enciclopedia" che intende parlare di arti e mestieri, cioè di processi di produzione e trasformazione delle materie naturali e delle merci. L'opera a cui si attribuisce la spinta per le trasformazioni culturali più importanti della società e la nascita della società moderna e democratica è un'opera tecnico-merceologica.
Nel Settecento si moltiplicano i dizionari e le enciclopedie merceologiche, comincia a comparire, negli scritti tedeschi, la parola Warenkunde, o scienza things, goods, product category, in short, the same word appears for the first time in the title of a book written by the economist, intellectual, and the German scholar Johann Beckmann (1739-1811) in 1793.
It 's interesting to note that the early writers were economists and historians of goods and non-chemical and chemical product sector and hence seem to walk on two adjoining floors shortly, although the chemicals continue to work on products of commerce and trade sectors have an increasing need for chemical knowledge and tools to describe and understand the goods and to uncover fraud.
Equally curious is the fact that they get taught in high school or university, the chemistry is carried between the disciplines, "natural" product category, and ends between the teachings of the cheapest product category appears as teaching in European business schools --- Germany, Austria, Italy --- Russia also often taught by chemists. Equally curious is the fact that the product category does not appear, even as his own name, in French and Anglo-Saxon, so that should be used to talk to paraphrase --- commodity science, science des merchandises --- that does not do justice to the cultural content of product category, the more so in English commodities, goods and merchandises have different meanings, while coming all three words in the Italian term "goods", whether it be oil, sugar, oilseeds, useful objects, gasoline, tomato sauce or shoes.
While it is easy to recognize the history, all uphill, chemical disciplines in schools and universities, the history of trade sectors between the disciplines of economics has had ups and happy events.
The product category is taught in the first school of commerce in Antwerp in 1852, and in Paris in 1861. Antwerp was taught natural history of commercial and trade sectors and there was a chemical laboratory and a museum merchandise. In Paris, courses were taught applied chemistry, applied physics, materials and commercial products, industrial mechanics.
begin to appear the first books related to commodity interest. Prof. Hassaké Karl (1861-1929) from 1886 taught commercial product category in the Academy of Vienna, where he founded a center for the collection and exchange of geo-material commodity. It 's interesting to note the plots of the product category with geography, as well as chemistry. Hassaké passed in 1896 to teach in the Academy of Graz, where he became commercial director in 1907. Various product categories of treaties Hassaké were translated into Italian and became standard texts from the early years of the twentieth century. Still appear in the nineteenth century the first treatises on product category and you have the creation of the first chairs of this discipline in Russia.
Besides all essays in economics from the late eighteenth century onwards, cominciano con un capitolo intitolato "Le merci"; è così anche per "Il Capitale" di Kal Marx (1818-1883) che fin dall'edizione del primo libro del 1867, proprio nel primo capitolo parla della merceologia sottolineando che le merci hanno un valore d'uso e un valore di scambio. Del valore d'uso, scrive Marx, si occupa "ein eigener Disziplin, der Warenkunde", la merceologia, appunto, del valore di scambio si occupa lui stesso nella lunga critica dell'economia e del valore nella società capitalistica.
Il primo ingresso della merceologia in Italia come materia di insegnamento si ebbe nelle scuole medie superiori ad opera di Arnaudon, professore presso l'Istituto Tecnico di Torino. Egli ottenne che nel 1869 la merceologia venisse introdotta come materia obbligatoria nei programmi degli Istituti tecnici, ma la mancanza di musei merceologici e di laboratori chimici fece sì che l'insegnamento scadesse e che la materia fosse eliminata dai programmi delle scuole medie; soltanto con la fine dell'Ottocento la disciplina è stata di nuovo introdotto negli Istituti tecnici e nelle Scuole commerciali.
Nel frattempo alle prime Scuole superiori di commercio straniere seguirono, nella seconda metà dell'Ottocento, varie simili scuole in Italia. La Scuola superiore di commercio di Venezia fu fondata nel 1868, quella di Genova nel 1884, quella di Bari nel 1886. Le scuole superiori di commercio si proponevano di preparare degli operatori economici e commerciali in grado di affrontare the society of the time is the time when in Italy, with several decades of lagging behind countries foreign born workers and the capitalist society and have taken the character of improvisation and adventure.
No wonder, then, that the rules of "practice" had a leading role in the natural knowledge necessary to recognize the goods, to uncover fraud, responding to the needs of the new merchant class. In these early schools of commerce product category was taught for two or three years, mostly inspired by the German model, had essentially instrumental and descriptive, of each commodity were described aspects of botanical and mineralogical and were messe in rilievo le proprietà atte alla classificazione a fini doganali, le falsificazioni e frodi. Spesso le cattedre erano dotate di laboratori chimici che talvolta venivano messi a disposizione degli operatori economici per controlli e analisi.
Nel 1885 il prof. G. Novi scrisse a Napoli un lungo saggio che raccomanda l'istituzione di una scuola superiore per lo studio dei prodotti commerciali e delle risorse naturali destinata ad insegnare ad una nuova classe di operatori economici e di commercianti come far fronte ad un mondo in continua evoluzione. Novi suggeriva anche l'istituzione di un museo merceologico sotto la responsabilità di un professore di merceologia, coadiuvato da professori di geografia, storia ed economia dei prodotti di commercio.
However, throughout the nineteenth century, in countries where it was practiced and taught, the Commodity has not deviated from the original descriptive approach, a kind of botany, zoology and mineralogy of the goods. The museums were collections of commodity samples of commercial products, mainly of natural origin, the workshops are the characteristics of their goods and reveal fraud through the methods available from chemistry and physics.
In Italy, for example, the Central Laboratory and peripheral administration of Customs have been important centers of product research and many of their officials --- from the first Villavecchia Director Vittorio (1859-1937) del Laboratorio centrale di Roma --- sono poi passati a insegnare Merceologia nelle Università.
Una importante svolta negli studi economici si è avuta all'inizio del Novecento quando il termine "economico" si è andato ad affiancare a quello "commerciale" per caratterizzare gli studi superiori in Italia. Alle materie pratiche, fra cui dominava la merceologia, si sono affiancate quelle teoriche economiche; venivano fondate in questo periodo la Libera Università commerciale Luigi Bocconi di Milano nel 1902, e le Scuole superiori di commercio di Torino (1905), di Roma (1906), Palermo (1918), Catania (1919), Napoli (1920), Trieste (1923, ma preesistente come scuola con ordinamento speciale fin dal periodo austroungarico), Firenze (1926) Bologna (1929), eccetera.
Col prevalere delle discipline economiche e aziendalistiche l'insegnamento della merceologia veniva ridotto da biennale ad annuale. A mano a mano che le Scuole superiori di commercio, agli inizi del XX secolo, si sono trasformate in Facoltà universitarie economiche, alla merceologia sono stati lasciati spazi sempre più ristretti e la disciplina è stata spesso considerata marginale nei nuovi indirizzi di studio. La durata dell’insegnamento diminuì da tre, a due, a un solo anno di corso, proprio in un periodo in cui la merceologia era (sarebbe stata) destinata ad assumere nuova crescente importanza, di fronte alla grande rivoluzione merceologica del XX secolo: l'invenzione dei processi di fabbricazione dei concimi per via artificiale dalla calce e dal carbone (calciocianammide); con la sintesi dell'ammoniaca e la produzione dei suoi derivati partendo dall'idrogeno dell'acqua e dall'ossigeno dell'aria; con l'invenzione delle prime fibre tessili artificiali (cellulosa modificata) e poi sintetiche, e dei primi tipi di gomma sintetica; con i nuovi metalli; con i nuovi carburanti derivati dal petrolio, eccetera.
A differenza delle altre discipline che si sono adeguate alle nuove esigenze e ai nuovi tempi, la merceologia restava legata alla sua impostazione originale; questo era dovuti anche al fatto che le merceologia dell'epoca era dominata da una figura di grande rilievo e prestigio, quella già ricordata Vittorio Villavecchia which should, inter alia, a celebrated "Dictionary of marketable goods" whose first edition dates back to 1896 and the last, in four volumes in 1929-1932. Villavecchia held, as has been mentioned for several decades at the same time the product category of professorship at the University of Rome and the direction of the Central Customs Laboratory equipment --- and he was bound and tied his students and successors to the tradition --- typically described as if the product category had as its main purpose is to teach to solve problems of classification of goods.
The second turning point in economic studies took place between the first and second World War, the Great Depression of the thirties of the twentieth century portò gli studiosi di problemi economici a occuparsi prevalentemente degli aspetti monetari e finanziari e si fece più profonda la crisi della merceologia, ormai ridotta comunque nelle università italiane ad insegnamento annuale ed ebbe spazi sempre più ristretti nelle Facoltà di Economia e Commercio, secondo la nuova denominazione assunta, a partire dal 1935, dalle antiche Scuole superiori di commercio.
La merceologia rimase, fino alla recente riforma, come insegnamento negli Istituti tecnici commerciali, triennale, con laboratori chimici, negli Istituti ad "indirizzo mercantile", sempre di meno, e come materia annuale negli Istituti a indirizzo "amministrativo".
La vera grande svolta negli studi merceologici But he had after the Second World War to the goods resulting from natural products, or through limited processing of natural products, we are facing in increasing numbers, goods artificial or even entirely new, profound changes produced by natural or chemical properties of natural resources.
The product category could not be satisfied with the description of natural products and goods produced from them, but he had to approach the study of manufacturing, the characteristics and properties of new materials and their commercial value. The search for the "value" of new goods requires consideration and knowledge of the entire production cycle of processing of raw materials in intermediate products and in many commercial products.
refined petroleum are formed, for example, fractions of a "virgin naphtha" which are then processed industrially by cracking in several other substances, some of them for the production of olefins (raw materials for plastics), other suitable for the production of synthetic rubber, and others with solvent properties or used as raw material for detergents, etc.. In addition to oil commodity --- --- even these many natural materials are intermediate "goods" are goods such as plastics, synthetic detergents, solvents, each of which goods requires new techniques of analysis and investigation.
With the increase in the number of goods also increased the complexity of the products under study. A product of natural rubber was in the late nineteenth century, a commodity relatively "simple", a tire rubber is a commodity today's "complex" consists of several types of natural and synthetic rubber mixed together, from additives to materials reinforcement, and so on.
E 'thus became increasingly difficult to present to the students or the general public a comprehensive view of science of goods, merchandise or equipping of laboratories. Teaching it was necessary for the most part limited to handle the processing of certain raw materials in some simple intermediate goods, excluding the most of goods "complex" that reach and affect the trader and the consumer.
Most university courses in product category, for example, is forced to deal with, steel, minerals, processes that leave and come to some articles of or intermediate steel processors, ignoring entirely the study or description of sheets of tin, the bodywork of cars, pans, and furniture, all goods which are also "complex" consisting of many different parts, of great importance.
Until the late sixties of the twentieth century teachers were mainly chemical product sector, as well as chemicals were largely the docenti di merceologia nelle scuole secondarie superiori. In queste ultime i chimici hanno trovato sempre meno gratificazione, con corsi di dimensioni ridotte con "libri di testo" spesso scadenti e superati, e molti docenti hanno cercato di migrare verso insegnamenti di chimica in Istituti in cui avere maggiori soddisfazioni culturali.
In molti Istituti tecnici sono scomparsi i laboratori chimici, costosi e poco apprezzati dai presidi, e a poco a poco sono anche diminuiti i docenti di educazione chimica, sostituiti nell'insegnamento da laureati in scienze naturali che di chimica e merceologia sapevano ben poco. Non solo: nei corsi di laurea in chimica non è quasi mai stata insegnata merceologia per cui i chimici che hanno insegnato merceologia, negli Technical colleges or universities have had to learn on their own account, sometimes good, sometimes bad, as much or little of the market which had to teach.
At the same time the space of marketable goods in the Faculty of Economic Studies has always been limited, with many professors of the Faculty the product category was "chemistry", was "too chemical" for students and chemical research laboratories were unnecessary expenditure away from other use more relevant to economic studies.
the point that since 1970 has been increasingly difficult to find graduates in chemistry who had desire to address the commercial and academic career in teaching has been entrusted to an increasing number of graduate in economics of commodities that they knew what little they had learned at university and who lacked the cultural basis, which necessarily are the chemical and natural, essential to teach marketable goods.
The latest blow to the final divorce between the chemical and trade sectors has taken place with the reform of high school in 1996 and with the total elimination of the teaching of product category from the technical colleges reformed trade and segregation of product category in a few vocational schools or in addresses few of the technical colleges for women. Ironically, even the cousins \u200b\u200bor sister disappeared as chemical name, relegated to a dubious science of the matter "with programs that also should have contained" technical " e merceologico. Un gran pasticcio in questa gran moda di cambiare nomi consolidati con altri che non si sa che cosa significhino esattamente.
Eppure si stanno realizzando le condizioni culturali e tecnico-scientifiche che mostrano che la stretta integrazione fra discipline chimiche e merceologiche sarebbe essenziale per risolvere molti dei problemi della società contemporanea..
I segni della svolta, per chi li avesse voluti intendere, c'erano già fin dagli anni cinquanta del Novecento quando il prof. Walter Ciusa (1906-1990) dell'Università di Bologna ha suggerito che il vero ruolo della merceologia consisteva nello studio e nell'analisi dei cicli produttivi con cui le materie prime vengono trasformate in materie intermedie e nelle merci finali, dei rendimenti di trasformazione, della destinazione dei vari prodotti.
A titolo di esempio lo studio tradizionale della merce "cereali" consisteva nell'esaminare i vari tipi di frumento, il processo di macinazione, la qualità degli sfarinati e delle merci finali derivate: pane e pasta alimentare. L'analisi dell'intero ciclo produttivo mette in evidenza l'intero ciclo di formazione dei vegetali, il bilancio fisico e chimico di materia richiesta per la coltivazione, e poi i caratteri e le utilizzazioni dei sottoprodotti e co-prodotti della trasformazione dei cereali: i vari tipi di amido e derivati, materie prime per molte merci che vanno dalle colle, all'alcol etilico impiegato come carburante in miscela con la benzina. Besides starch obtained protein concentrates for use as feed or as raw materials for plastics.
The reasoning can easily be extended with the analysis of several cycles of economic interest, minerals, steel and aluminum, from oil to all derivatives and the first mention of the fate of each of them in the great movement of matter through the economy of each country.
From 1964 began to be established independent of Chairs of "Technology of the production cycle" or "production processes". The study of processes of production and use of goods made it possible to tackle some interesting problems. For example, for each production process (should be) analyzed the "budget" or accounting in physical units of mass and energy. Various production processes are as compared based on the amount of matter and energy that you get the same unit of the same item, or different goods (eg.: textiles, detergents, adhesives) can perform the same functions.
It 'clear that this path may be made only on the basis of accurate chemical knowledge, the only science that deals with materials budgets, which represents a kind of "accounting" or accounting processes and nature. And yet in the teaching of chemistry has increased the hassle for the character material and useful process and has increased the distance between product category and chemistry, just as increased opportunities to meet and merge.
Analysis of material balance of processes and production cycles, the transformation of nature, allows the development of the scale of "values" regardless of cost or the price of traditional monetary economics considered. "That" more, for example, a product that performs the same function with lower power consumption or reduced consumption of oil or other commodities. In a sense, is recovered so that the concept of "use value" that Marx in "Capital" was recognized as the end of the investigation of the product category.
Considerations There have been similar proposals to link the cash price of food with their "content" of the energy value of protein, with which you can determine which foods provide energy and protein to a minimum cash price.
The importance of the new approach to product category is even greater given the increasing attention to environmental problems. The pollution of air, water or soil, are mainly due to the entry in those receiving natural bodies, by-products or waste production and use of goods. To know the adverse effects of these wastes on the environment and to address the remedies (purification, recycling, etc.), you must have information details on the amount of matter and energy together, the "cross" each production cycle.
The product category, as the science of items for trade, human use, mainly deals with the quantity of matter and energy that leads to unity of weight of the goods in question, however, is easy to extend the analysis also including the quantity and composition of both the materials that you "buy" from nature without paying any money price, either by-products which are not "sold" for money to anyone and are placed back at no cost to the environment.
properly extending the concept of "goods" to everything that is exchanged, regardless of whether it is exchanged through the intermediary of money, we can say that the product category (it should) also take up the trading of "goods" or goods not associated with the physical exchange of money and may produce physical records, natural , in trade and therefore the overall movement of matter and energy from nature, the processes of production and consumption, until their return to nature as a second-hand goods, scrap, waste, waste of movement, ie, nature --- --- goods nature.
For example in steel-making we certainly need to iron ore, coal or oil, and limestone, four goods that the producer buys in exchange for money. But the operation of the blast furnace (the equipment that turns iron ore into cast iron) and the operation of the "converter" (the device that turns iron into steel) are only possible if the system "buy", though also not paying any price for it, the oxygen from the atmosphere. In the process also form by-products and waste solids, liquids and gases that are released into the surrounding worsening quality.
More generally, the slag and waste of all activities of production and consumption are substances consisting of matter and potentially also energy carriers. They may be true "negative goods" as a source of corruption of foreign recipients naturali in cui vengono gettate, fonti, cioè, di inquinamento. Oppure una parte delle scorie e dei rifiuti può essere ricuperata e può diventare "materia seconda" con cui fabbricare nuove merci, uguali o praticamente uguali a quelle che si ottengono con le "materie prime" tradizionali.
Non a caso ormai nel parlare comune --- e anche in alcune disposizioni legislative --- si parla di qualità o di composizione "merceologica" dei rifiuti. I processi di riciclo, cioè di trasformazione della carta usata in carta nuova, del vetro usato o degli imballaggi di ferro o di alluminio in nuova carta, vetro, ferro, alluminio, sono dei veri processi produttivi come quelli che partono dal legno o dalla sabbia o dai minerali.
But I repeat once again, no "evaluation", that expression of the "value" of a product or process can be done without adequate knowledge of the chemical materials, all of them, both with and without monetary value, but all have valuable physical, material.
The product category has an important role in informing and educating consumers. In homes and everyday life come several goods, each with a name and characteristics established by laws, these laws for some years now, are generally the same for all EU countries.
With the growth of the world of products becomes increasingly difficult for the merchant know what sells, the more so for the untrained consumer becomes increasingly difficult to understand and "read" the labels of the objects found in stores. In a sense we can say that the goods "talk" with their labels, but the consumer is becoming increasingly difficult to understand the message it receives.
Hence the importance of informing and educating the consumer commodity, which are then the entire population of a country. With the reform of 1977 in lower secondary school was introduced to the teaching of "Technical Education", mandatory three-year, which provided a large part in its programs of information on items and goods with which the student is and will be contact. Such education would help citizens better understand and distinguish among the many advertisements that reach through the mass media.
Unfortunately, although a growing number of large circulation magazines and even popular encyclopedia dealing with feeding problems, textiles, detergents, cosmetics, etc., just missing a magazine dedicated to the dissemination in the field of goods (the "Magazine of the product sector" scientific in nature and limited edition) and there is no "internet merchandise (except for a makeover, very technical, published by Hoepli in seven volumes, appeared in the years 1971-1977, the" Dictionary of the product sector ", by V. Villavecchia, whose fifth and last edition dates back to the thirties of the twentieth century).
For some years now it has also developed a line of interest in the social aspects of production operations and use of goods, some universities have been established in the teaching of "social technology" (a term used with A second meaning is completely different, use of technical sociological survey). Within studies, commodity, the term "social technology" has been used as used in 1934 by Lewis Mumford (1895-1990) in the book: "Technology and Culture", ie as a study of the social processes of production and consumption of goods and related innovazioni, ma poi anche questo termine è stato abbandonato nelle Università italiane.
Rientra in questa linea l'esame degli effetti ambientali, già ricordati, dell'irrazionale smaltimento dei rifiuti, degli effetti del pericolo di esaurimento delle riserve di risorse naturali (petrolio, carbone, acqua, foreste, animali), rinnovabili o non rinnovabili, in seguito all'eccessiva produzione delle merci, dei rapporti fra disponibilità di alimenti e popolazione, eccetera.
La merceologia, quando è stata insegnata e studiata soprattutto nelle Scuole secondarie e nelle Facoltà di carattere economico e commerciale, è strettamente legata a, e fornisce la base per, altre discipline come la economic geography and economic history itself, the technical and commercial and industrial market research, the applied analytical chemistry, industrial chemistry and also some fields of engineering sciences. Although now virtually expelled from secondary schools and endangered in the universities, science merchandise would still have many things to study and teach.
energy problems require a description and experimental evaluation of the main characters of fossil fuels such as coal, oil, natural gas, and their derivatives. This part comprises the processes of extraction, transport and related environmental problems, and the destination of the various products in different areas of human activity: energy for industry and steel, transport, electricity, heating and environmental effects of the different sectors.
The fossil fuels are scarce and non-renewable, as shown in an investigation of their known reserves. It 's always more important to use them wisely and to use renewable energy sources such as solar, wind and wave, the potential energy of water in motion. The freight derivatives are obtained low-temperature heat from the Sun or the mechanical energy and electricity from hydraulic machines or photovoltaic systems. Among the sources of energy including nuclear energy and should be a debate on its limits sectors.
In the study of commodity metals and their production processes, beside the main metals such as iron, aluminum, copper, etc., take on increasing importance metals that perform special functions with the new techniques, the germanium and silicon used in semiconductors, titanium and rare earths, precious metals --- gold, silver, platinum, palladium, rhodium --- whose technical uses, particularly in the electrical and electronics and catalysts, such as excess amount uses in the ornaments.
The traditional building materials including lime, cement, ceramics, but also new materials such as asbestos cement products, insulation materials. The only problem of ceramics involves complex issues of quality, international trade and pollution.
An important chapter of the studies concerns the commodity chemical industry, including rapidly changing raw materials, intermediate products and final. From a few basic materials --- oil, natural gas, nitrogen, air, sulfur, limestone --- the many important goods are manufactured in the chemical industry "primary", later transformed into the intermediate "secondary chemistry" to the products coming into our homes as artificial and synthetic fibers, detergents, cosmetics, home furnishings, furniture, packaging, and so on.
While previous issues include goods produced by the "exploitation" di risorse naturali non rinnovabili, minerali e rocce e materiali fossili le cui riserve sono più o meno vaste, un grande capitolo della ricerca merceologica riguarda le merci ottenute dalla trasformazione delle materie del regno vegetale e animale, cioè basate su materie rinnovabili dipendenti dal ciclo naturale del carbonio.
Fra i vegetali un posto primario occupano i cereali di cui la merceologia studia e analizza i caratteri, la provenienza, i derivati destinati all'alimentazione, umana e degli animali da allevamento, ma anche ad usi industriali, rivolgendo la propria attenzione anche alle disuguaglianze nella disponibilità di alimenti nelle varie parti del mondo.
I prodotti forestali alimentano un importante commercio internazionale e le industrie della carta, dei pannelli e dei mobili; i danni dell'eccessivo sfruttamento delle risorse forestali, che si rinnovano soltanto lentamente, possono essere ridotti con la produzione di carta nuova dalla carta straccia o ricorrendo a materiali cellulosici a rapida crescita.
Nell'analisi dei prodotti di origine vegetale rientrano importanti casi di materie industriali "naturali" per esempio le fibre tessili e la gomma, che subiscono la concorrenza dei corrispondenti prodotti sintetici. L'evoluzione di tale concorrenza appare meglio se si esaminano comparativamente le somiglianze e le diversità dei caratteri merceologici dei prodotti naturali e sintetici.
I prodotti alimentari vegetali stanno alla base, a loro volta, della "produzione" di alimenti di origine animale; l'allevamento del bestiame presuppone la disponibilità di pascoli o di mangimi e fornisce alimenti carnei, ma anche prodotti industriali, come i pellami (la materia prima per l'industria del cuoio, delle pelli, delle scarpe, ecc.) e vari sottoprodotti della macellazione.
Infine un importante capitolo riguarda la "merce" acqua, considerata generalmente un bene disponibile in quantità illimitata, ma che si rivela, in molte zone, scarsa, soprattutto se ci si riferisce alla disponibilità di acqua potabile di buona qualità igienica e "merceologica". L'acqua dissalata, ormai prodotta su larga scala nel mondo, è una vera e propria merce "fabbricata" from the sea with processes that eliminate the salt and fresh water to recover.
European economic integration requires that the goods produced in one country may be freely sold in other EU countries, so more and more laws and rules that establish or modify the quality, characteristics, limitations Analytical goods. Commodity knowledge are therefore even more essential in commercial operations, at a time when, ironically, the discipline is disappearing from the courses of instruction.
A field of growing interest is, finally, the story of goods and technical processes of production, they can teach us many useful suggestions to avoid errors in the choice of goods.
The resolution of many problems --- characterization business, fight fraud, etc. --- on the areas listed above requires experimental research on the goods based on the use of chemical and physical methods of investigation. It 'hard to believe that a research and product analysis to be able to resolve any analytical problem, so you typically have university labs to product category, each specializing in particular areas. Commodity research laboratories experimental or control exist, under various names, in public administration, in many industries and large commercial distribution companies.
part of the public administration of research and commodity controls are conducted in the laboratories of the Ministry of Health (or now called), or of public health facilities for goods (foods, cosmetics, etc..) whose use can be harmful to health, the Ministry of 'agriculture (or as now known) for the prevention of fraud on agricultural products, fertilizers, seeds, etc.., the Ministry of Industry (or as now known) for controls on textile fibers, paper, metals, etc. .; by the Ministry of Finance (or as now known) for controls on goods and import or export of items subject to tax.
So far I have talked about the various product categories and its troubles, public misunderstanding to this discipline and how it needs to do its job well, support and tools of chemistry. But the chemistry, especially in the university and the public, she has her troubles. Speaking of chemistry is present as a sister company in the past stormy .. "Chemistry" is a word displeasing to many ears, especially poorly informed, for various reasons, apparently conflicting.
The first is the way the mainstream media talk about things in which the chemical is involved, there lacked nothing but attacks with "chemical weapons" in addition to accidents "chemical" reckless use the "chemistry" in agriculture, etc., to emphasize anything unpleasant associated with the adjective "chemical". There is no doubt that industrial accidents, poisoning of workers in factories, pollution of the environment often occur in chemical plants or handling chemical products and by chemicals. There is no doubt that many factories producing dangerous chemicals, sometimes useless, sometimes obscene as agents of war, those from poison gas and tear gas to incapacitate.
There is no doubt that the discovery of fraud, including toxic substances in water and food, of herbicides in wells are the result of misuse and violent of chemicals and a large popular movement that rightly calls for more strict regulations in the production, circulation and use of chemicals for industrial and commercial applications.
The second reason lies in the chemistry of the dubious manner in which the corporation of chemical producers react to the criticisms of those who are summarily dismissed as "green" or "green." The answer put in circulation by evil orchestrated media campaigns is saccharine and unconvincing and elicits a rejection reaction in public opinion. Not enough to mobilize large companies advertising and public relations to be credible and convincing when presenting the image that the chemistry is by definition good and beneficial for mankind, and therefore the manufacturers of chemicals must be valued and praised as those who spread the good inherent in the chemical industry.
Again the excessive zeal of the apologists often falls into the ridiculous. There is no doubt that the substances in the blood are made up of chemical molecules --- and what else should they be? --- And that the food needed for survival, the drugs that save the lives of people, colors that decorate the fabrics, cosmetics that make nice, clean appearance, are made of chemicals. There is no doubt that chemicals are --- although it is generally handled by non-chemical --- the analysis to recognize the disease.
But it is equally true that the history of recent years is full of incidents of damage health and the environment caused by industrial chemicals and not because these substances are "chemicals" but because they were careless and incompetent producers, transporters, users. And do not serve either the "chemical" or the entrepreneurs with the hearing office made by the willing "scientists" and academics and critics who ridicule their ignorance. These defenses have the taste of things already heard: even the manufacturers of the 1800 British responded to the challenge of those who wanted them to be improved working conditions in factories, mobilizing "scientists." It 'was the famous Dr. Andrew Ure (1778-1857), chemist and production, which, full of zeal, he wrote a whole book, "The philosophy of manufactures" (a partial translation into Italian was published in the "Library economy", Second Series, volume 3, by Tipografico-editor of Turin in 1863) to demonstrate how the work in the mills and mines were beneficial to the health of children, removed from the road and its vices.
The third reason, linked to the previous two, just the good name of the chemical in the popular imagination, is the widespread ignorance of chemistry. Intelligent and educated people, who can speak with expertise in literature and music and art, "intellectuals", as they say, dare, their ignorance of the strong chemistry, often foolish to make judgments about the failures e sui vizi della "chimica".
Non c'è dubbio che la chimica si insegna poco e spesso male nelle scuole secondarie superiori --- dove pure circa 400 mila studenti ogni anno sono "costretti" a seguire un qualche corso di chimica --- sulla base di testi che talvolta (spesso) sono modesti e noiosi. Quel poco di nozioni appiccicate alla mente, talvolta senza andare al di là di poche frasi fatte, ripetute come litanie, sono il terreno ideale per fare nascere idee distorte e luoghi comuni e vere sciocchezze.
Ancora peggiore è la situazione dopo la riforma della scuola superiore del 1996, con la chimica, come si è prima accennato, privata perfino del suo nome e inclusa nella "Scienza della materia".
Non c'è perciò da meravigliarsi se i giornalisti, i parlamentari, gli amministratori, spesso persone colte e attente, straparlano quando si tratta di esprimere dei giudizi sulla chimica, sull'effetto serra, sulle marmitte catalitiche, sulle virtù di cosmetici o sui danni dell'ozono (poco conta se troposferico o stratosferico).
Si aggiunga che la situazione è scoraggiante benché in Italia esistono decine di migliaia di laureati in chimica, centinaia di professori universitari di discipline chimiche: la loro voce si sente troppo poco e quasi niente, come se ci fosse un pudore nell'intervenire e nel parlare della loro scienza. Una volta Linus Pauling (1901-1994, premio Nobel per la chimica e poi premio Nobel per la peace) wrote that we must instead learn to speak to someone other than their own tubes. The very highest Italian society of chemists, the Italian Chemical Society, with a few thousand members, mostly members of the academic world, known magazines, however, a very limited circulation, is unknown to the public as well not exist.
Unlike other national chemical societies and in particular that of America, the American Chemical Society, which publishes a weekly newspaper, the well known Chemical and Engineering News, which "pulls" more than a million copies (half of the run, record-breaking , of the Christian Family), which mobilizes its members because they speak on television local organizing national days of chemistry, chemistry Olympiad, which induces the government to print commemorative stamps of chemistry and chemists, and so on.
This situation means that in Italy there are very few journals in chemistry, with limited movement, not a really popular character and popular, which are only a few or very few popular books on chemistry, whose knowledge for the general public are handled the brief encounter in high school, with school texts.
I am reminded of the "Letters on chemistry" that Liebig (1803-1873) published serially sull'Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung and who reached over the years, the number of fifty, gathered in various volumes, translated into all languages \u200b\u200band also in Italian, as they appeared in German, and had a great popular success. It will not hurt to remember that the 200th anniversary of the birth of Liebig was proclaimed in Germany, "Jahr der Chemie", while an important event has gone virtually unnoticed in Italy.
regarding disclosure of chemical recommend reading the recent book, "Communicating chemistry. History of textbooks in Europe Between 1789 and 1930, Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent, and Anders Lundgren, Cambridge, 1999.
Just as there is in Italy a good dictionary of trade sectors, in Italy there is not even a good dictionary or a good encyclopedia People's chemistry. And 'natural enough that even the translators of foreign newspaper articles storpino chemical names, with silicon and silicon becomes vice versa, which becomes iodine iodine, carbohydrates that become hydrocarbons, carbon dioxide, which becomes carbon monoxide, and so on.
But never like this when a chemical culture is crucial for protecting the health of citizens and also to give new breath to a feeble industry. Never before at this time the chemical problems are central to the economy and progress. Just read the Official Journal of the European Communities or officials of the Italian Republic to see that more and more often there are whole files, the real volumes, full of chemical information, formulas, synonyms, proposals for unification, full of standardized analytical methods to detect the purity of the substances, to defeat the fraud, to reveal pollution. The symbol of the CAS Chemical Abstracts Service is also used in the texts of the law now goes where the number, initials and the name of the substances that enter the medicines, cosmetics, pesticides, etc., that is in production, trade and use of goods.
than ever at this time the survival of the civilian industrial countries depend on better public services, product control and environmental services that require chemical methods of inquiry practiced by chemists. With all the talk that is made of European unity, we must realize that we can be if they demonstrate a truly European public and private companies have advanced technologies and in this progress has an important role in chemistry and chemists have, just as the product category and have the product category.
Right now, we would need a degree in chemical preparations, proud of their culture and their skill and ability, knowing the role they can play in civil society, as at this time would be needed for the connoisseurs and insenanti processes of natural resource use and production of goods
With all due respect to the other natural sciences and experimental chemistry is perhaps the only one that offers the welding between the fundamental laws of matter and the application of these laws to daily life, the metabolism of food to the beauty of the colors of butterfly wings or petals of flowers, large flows of matters that are the basis of the economy.
Chemistry is the science of accounting fact of nature. The budget is a budget of chemical reactions "cheap" it, by definition, must be balanced, all that is left is to find a formula to right: the subject must always find it all. And now here we find the differences between the accounts of nature and that "economic monetary union". Even economists make the accounting of money: the money spent must be equal to those earned. But "things" materials which are described by the monetary exchange is only a small fraction of those that affect real life.
In the budget of a factory, for example, the monetary accounts based solely on matters which are bought and sold. If we think of a steel factory counting iron ore and coal, which are obtained in exchange for money, but money is not included in the accounts that you get free oxygen in the air that is used to burn coal in part by transforming it into oxide carbon that reduces oxides of iron and cast iron. The iron and steel and energy enter the economic accounting because it is bought or sold, but are formed in the reaction --- something obvious and trivial to a chemical dust --- and carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and wastes which are not included in economic accounting because they are thrown into the atmosphere or in a landfill. Except one day realize that people complain about the fumes that are "things" and materials that need to measure the quantity and chemical composition, and that we must filter and collected in order to kill or not to pollute the air or soil.
The ecological context was actually born by the attention given to the adverse effects of all the things that chemistry has always known --- the ones that are left and right of each formula --- But that the traditional economy and the practice of the operator have long ignored. Hence the great importance and relevance of educational value accounting chemistry.
A minimum of attention to those chemicals may suggest --- --- across the entire population that uses the kitchen, wash basin, sink or toilet chemical laboratories --- --- true that the entire mass of materials treaties, including the air that "buy" free atmosphere, is found shortly after the air as a gas, the residues of food, soapy solutions, excrement coming out of our daily lives do not disappear but they end up sewers and then into the sewage treatment works and into rivers and the sea. Accounting and ecosystem ecology home, are just as important as the ecology of the factory or the city.
good chemistry is vital to making good laws against pollution and good and sensible actions for the recycling of materials in the waste, to initiate investigations for remediation of areas contaminated by past production activities. And 'in fact this is a field where you weld the interests of geographical and historical, such trials were held in the factories that occupied a territory? --- --- all chemical substances which were treated and processed? such wastes were produced? What happened and how you can take away from their deposits or diminish the harm? Good chemistry is
needed to design products and materials and products in view of their entire life cycle that includes, again, with material and monetary value of materials that end up in receiving bodies of nature, rejected without any monetary expenditure, but with high social and health costs and environmental .
Good chemistry --- and --- adequate and good chemical controls are necessary for the procedures for the award of the eco-label trials which are listed "from-cradle-to-grave", otherwise the procedures that should defend consumers and the environment are transformed into pure advertising operations. And how much chemical would be needed to verify and inform citizens on both declared environmental claims under of many goods entering the market with big advertising attractions.
In this regard, a modern society would have every incentive to strengthen, indeed to resurrect those structures that had chemical labs "hygiene and prophylaxis, that the intent of the legislators were created a hundred years ago, recognizing that the prevention of disease was possible only through chemical analysis of food, of food, water, products used in agriculture, and then, from the fifties onwards, through a chemical control of working conditions, air pollution, disposal of waste. No coincidence that the direction of the first French laboratory of hygiene and prophylaxis was given al chimico Pasteur (1822-1895).
La polverizzazione delle competenze nel settore sanitario e della lotta alle frodi alimentari, nel settore dei controlli ambientali, e di quelli in campo agricolo e delle stesse dogane, da cui tanti chimici sono poi passati sulle cattedre universitarie di merceologia, ha impoverito la capacità di indagine, di controllo e di analisi delle uniche strutture che possono davvero prevenire le malattie. Proprio quando l'unificazione, il coordinamento e il potenziamento della parte chimica avrebbero potuto rappresentare la vera soluzione.
Sorprende (o non dovrebbe sorprendere ?) che il mondo politico, economico e lo stesso mondo imprenditoriale prestino così poca attenzione agli strumenti conoscitivi chimici che sono essenziali per un genuino sviluppo economico.
La conoscenza chimica consente la spiegazione di come sono fatti e come possono essere prodotti le cose, gli oggetti, i materiali presenti in natura e nella vita quotidiana. La chimica è nata con l'obiettivo di spiegare e descrivere fenomeni naturali e, nello stesso tempo, di risolvere problemi pratici: la sbianca e la tintura dei tessuti, la conservazione dei cibi, la concia delle pelli, la fermentazione del pane. La ricerca scientifica chimica è stata originata e ha avuto i suoi massimi successi in relazione a problemi "pratici": dal premio Nobel a Fritz Haber (1868-1914) per la scoperta delle condizioni che consentono la sintesi dell'ammoniaca, al premio Nobel a Giulio Natta (1903-1979) for discoveries that led to synthesize polypropylene.
I still think that the chemist Liebig, in his laboratory in Giessen, together with the experiments of chemical analysis, paying attention to the social problems of the first industrial revolution, how to alleviate the food shortage that affected the masses of proletarians hungry d 'Europe, who worked to increase agricultural yields, which stimulated the use of Chile as a source of nitrous oxide and sulfuric acid for the dissolution of natural phosphates, which explained to the public the importance of meat and that, overcome the difficulties of transporting the meat from the pastures of South America to Europe with the slow sailing ships without refrigeration, "invented" the meat extract and stimulated the construction of the factory in Fray Bentos Uruguay, helping to start the industrialization of the South American country. That which Liebig, reflecting the close relationship between chemistry and economics and trade sectors, in the famous "eleventh letter" he wrote, albeit a bit 'of ingenuity, that the consumption of sulfuric acid is an index of economic development of a country and the consumption of soap is a measure of its civilization.
Although the chemical helps to understand and explain many fundamental aspects of life --- why certain polluting goods, which is the composition of the waste --- one gets the impression that the chemistry of the kitchen and toilet have little space and dignity in teaching chemistry. The merchandise, for example, which are the chemicals involved in these vulgar aspects of chemistry, chemicals are generally considered second-class.
Better chemical culture would also help many other activities and disciplines. Consider, for example, the cultural gap that exists in Italy in the history of chemistry, history of pharmacy, history of product categories, and compare it with the fact that the professional historian, archaeologist or more have to dealing with chemical problems facing evil sometimes superficially, sometimes stammering inaccurate things, with increasing difficulty of meeting with professionals who know chemistry.
probably an intelligent explanation of the aspects of "practical" of chemistry would help the public to recognize in it not only a science closer to everyday life, but rather the first science of life and things that surround us.
There is another lesser known aspect of chemistry. The public, but also to high school students, chemistry is a science-established, full of certainties, if something new appears on the horizon you should look for in fabulous horizons of biotechnology or advanced materials, as they say. A wrong impression: the world around us is still full of mystery chemicals, even in more mundane fields. She mentions, for example, di amido, di lignina e di cellulosa, le pietre fondamentali del mondo vegetale. La cellulosa attrae l'attenzione come ingrediente della carta, l'amido come ingrediente del pane e della pasta e, più recentemente, della finta "plastica" biodegradabile. E invece siamo di fronte ad un campo pieno di misteri. Ogni vegetale contiene amido, lignina, cellulosa, con caratteri differenti da altri; la composizione di queste macromolecole ha carattere statistico per cui si deve parlare al plurale di amidi, cellulose, eccetera.
Con un poco di attenzione e di curiosità si scopre, per esempio, che i diversi cereali hanno amidi di diverse qualità, tanto è vero che con alcuni (il grano) si riesce a fare il pane e con altri (come il mais) no. La stessa caratterizzazione dei cereali e dei relativi sfarinati sulla base dell'amido, delle proteine, dei grassi e delle ceneri è una grossolana approssimazione. Si intuisce, ma se ne sa ben poco, che amido, proteine e grassi sono uniti fra loro in "complessi" grassi-proteine, amido-grassi, amido-proteine; la loro esistenza potrebbe spiegare il fatto che il grano duro ha caratteri diversi dal grano tenero, benché all'analisi chimica grossolana i principali componenti siano in quantità quasi uguali. Fra i misteri chimici del pane c'è il fenomeno del rinvenimento, per cui nel pane raffermo, "vecchio" di due o tre giorni, riscaldato, la mollica ritorna elastica come nel pane appena sfornato, anche se questo carattere scompare dopo poche ore.
Una migliore cultura chimica permetterebbe di chiarire alcuni "grandi" misteri, come il buco dell'ozono stratosferico o l'effetto serra dovuto alle modificazioni chimiche dell'atmosfera, ma permetterebbe anche di capire e di conoscere meglio tantissime altre cose, negli alimenti, nei cosmetici, nelle tinture e nei preparati per ondulare i capelli, nelle precauzioni da prendere quando si deve lavare e stirare, nei meccanismi --- chimici --- con cui funzionano le fotocelle solari o le macchine per trasmissione in facsimile, più note come "fax", o i "cuori" dei computers e dei telefoni cellulari, tutti oggetti che stanno alla base di produzioni e di consumi di massa. Se se ne sapesse di più, forse molti hazards and incidents and errors would be avoided.
Another important aspect of the educational value of the chemical is in the habit to think in three dimensions. All things are in three dimensions, but we are used to draw up a sheet on a plane. The chemical knowledge continuously offers the opportunity to help you imagine, to think and "see" the bodies in space. The water molecule-two academic or HOH, has all its quirks, which are essential for life, just the fact that each molecule binds in the space not only to other water molecules, but to all bodies to which closer and it comes in contact.
The carbon chemistry owes its beauty and its appeal to its three-dimensional character of atoms and molecules, and even if we are forgotten, the discovery of this character was a real cultural revolution. Unfortunately we can not do without, for practical reasons, to write formulas on a plane, but perhaps this same limit is an occasion to remember always that the molecules are always many, all together and spread in all directions.
the late forties of last century, the American chemist Linus Pauling was, as mentioned above, the Nobel Prize for having "thought" that the protein molecules were willing to bow, as was seen experimentally in more detail later. This insight alone enabled him to solve all the mysteries of the behavior of proteins, constitutive stones blocks of life. A decade after Watson and Crickett got the Nobel Prize for discovering the structure of DNA, a chain of molecules of sugar, phosphoric acid and some "basics" (adenine, thymine, guanine and cytosine), arranged in " double helix in space. The spatial arrangement of thousands of atoms of each molecule of DNA has allowed to explain the functioning of these molecules essential for "manufacture" of each protein, is always the same specification for each part of each living being. A three-dimensional intuition has in fact solved the fundamental problems of knowledge of life.
I think you could, if desired, really give a joyful image of chemistry and adventurous also an image of beauty, and with it a bolder vision of life, it renders a service to society, economy and ecology --- and the same "chemical" presentable in polite society without shame.
An examination of the paths of cultural goods and the chemistry seems to me that offers an answer to the question: rather than fractious cousins \u200b\u200bthey are really two sisters, even those that are in the house of scientists and administrators of social issues and in the home scientists and administrators of natural things, they explain, albeit with different words, the same things, the way in which nature can, with its physical assets, to meet human needs, which are the only things that matter.
Notes
To see a history of product categories. O. De Marco, "200 years of Products: Past, Present, Future", Chemical Review, 45 (5 / 6), 135-142 (September-December 1993) The history of teaching
merceologia University of Bari is covered by G. Fog, "Commodity", in: A. Vittorio (ed.), "One hundred years of studies in the Faculty of Economics and Commerce of Bari (1886-1986)", Bari, Cacucci Publisher, 1987, p. 145-154
for the citation of the product category in Capital "Marx can be seen: G. Nebbia," The product category and a curious problem philological, "Papers of goods (Bologna), 4 (2), 23-39 (July-December 1965)
The two books of prof. Ciusa Walter (1906-1990) "The production cycles and chemical fundamentals, Bologna, Zuffi, 1948, and" technical and economic aspects of some production processes ", Bologna, Zuffi, 1954, now very rare, include the theoretical basis and culture of the modern twist of the Commodity.
The only foreign book that comes closest to the problems of the fair is: EW Zimmermann (1888-1961), "World Resources and Industries. A functional appraisal of the availability of Agricultural and industrial materials ", Revised edition, New York, Harper & Bros, 1951
The "Review of Commodity", vol. 1, 1962, vol. 39, 2000 (1962 to 1977 appeared under the title "Commodity Papers"), deals with scientific topics of the discipline. Published by the Institutes of the University of commodities, first of Bari, also in Bologna, since 1989 is published by the Commodity of the University of Pescara, from 1996 under the title "Journal of Commodity Science.
The only major dictionary-encyclopedia of the fair is due to Vittorio Villavecchia, "Dictionary of marketable goods", Milan, Heopli, first edition, 1895, in a single volume, second edition, 1908, third edition: Volume I, 1911, Volume II, 1913; quarta edizione in quattro volumi, 1923-1926; quinta e ultima edizione in 4 volumi, 1929-1932. Una edizione successiva, molto meno soddisfacente, è stata curata da Gino Eigenmann e Ivo Ubaldini, "Villavecchia-Eigenmann. Nuovo dizionario di merceologia e chimica applicata", Milano, Editore Heopli, volumi 1-3, 1973; vol. 4, 1974; vol. 5, 1975; vol. 6, 1976; vol. 7, 1977
Qualche notizia sull'evoluzione degli studi merceologici in Italia si può trovare in:
G. Nebbia, "Risorse naturali e merci. Un contributo alla tecnologia sociale", Bari, Cacucci, 1968; G. Nebbia, “Lezioni di Merceologia”, Bari, Laterza, 1996; G. Nebbia, "Risorse merci ambiente", Bari, Progedit, 2001
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