Self-assembled Transition Metal Coordination Frameworks of ...

Chapter I__ _ _
irreducible, is a new development but nevertheless one that ensures that the subject
will remain robust in the foreseeable future [1].
Chemistry is oceanic with respect to factual information. In a broad context,
the science of chemistry may be viewed as comprised of (i) a conceptual foundation
of principles and theoretical, often hypothetical, relationships, (ii) an experimental
base of currently available methods and techniques for manipulating and evaluating
matter, and (iii) the chemical content, an enormous data base of specific information
about individual chemicals, chemical systems, and chemical reactions [5]. Molecular
chemistry, the chemistry of the covalent bond, is concemed with uncovering and
mastering the rules that govern the structures, properties, and transformations of
molecular species [6]. The appearance of supramolecular chemistry stimulated new
thinking about the relationship of chemistry with biology and it opens up a huge
discontinuity from physics [1]. Supramolecular chemistry, literally means chemistry
beyond the molecules, provides a convenient introduction to chemists about the notion
of complexity. Since complexity is a temporal attribute what is complex today might
become merely complicated tomorrow, or even trivial [l]. Supramolecular chemistry
is full of emergent phenomena, as the whole is difficult to predict from the properties
of individual parts. The scope and possibilities of this new subject were clearly
enunciated by Jean-Marie Lehn [2,6]. The developments in molecular and
supramolecular science and engineering offer exciting perspectives at the frontiers of
chemistry with physics and biology. Emergence and reductionism are nearly
antithetical. Emergent properties are more easily understood in their own right than in
terms of lower level properties. So in terms of emergence, a useful way of looking at
chemistry and its relationship to mathematics and natural sciences, biology emerges
out of chemistry, which emerges out of physics, which emerges out of mathematics,
which emerges out of the mind contemplating the Absolute, like Sankara’s doctrines
ofadvaita [l].
2