Editorial. Introduction to the New Journal of Langmuir - ACS Publications

---

0 Copyright 1985

American Chemical Society

JANUARY, 1985 VOLUME 1, NUMBER 1

A Journal Is Born We present to you the first issue of a new journal of the American Chemical Society. The ”we” includes not just this Editor, the Associate Editor, and a distinguished Advisory Board, but also many individuals and groups. It includes some thousand academic, industrial, and government scientists (many from overseas) who gave an overall 70% support to the concept of the journal in their responses to a widely distributed set of questionnaires; it includes the Executive Committee of the ACS Division of Colloid and Surface Chemistry, who gave the project their enthusiastic approval; and it includes the Task Force appointed to make the initial study and the subsequent Editorial Search Committee, both of whose recommendations were approved by the ACS Society Committee on Publications (SCOP). This committee oversees ACS publications on a continuing basis and bears the prime responsibility for their standards and well-being. Importantly, the “we” also includes the Board of Directors of the American Chemical Society, who officially authorized the creation of the journal, as recommended by SCOP, and approved the initial financing. Each of these steps would have been difficult and in some cases impossible without the active assistance of the staff of the Books and Journals Division of the ACS. Many individuals could be named; the problem would be where to stop. Abbreviated as it is, the above list of acknowledgements is long because of the many stages in the process that has culminated in this first issue of Langmuir. The American Chemical Society does not easily give birth to a new journal. There is a rather different set of acknowledgments to make. As the Associate Editor and I have endeavored to spread the news of Langmuir in a personal way, we have received many, many spontaneous expressions of good will and of encouragement from colleagues. Good authors have made a point of submitting papers. Reviewers, bless them, have been prompt in their responses and both effective and demanding in their evaluations. Now, a word about the journal itself. The name Langmuir was not chosen lightly. It conveys with one word the intent that this journal should bring together all the many areas of surface and colloid chemistry: solid surfaces in ultra-high vacuum, including surface spectroscopy and structural studies; chemistry and electrochemistry at well-defined surfaces; heterogeneous catalysis; all aspects of liquid-liquid and liquid-vapor interfaces; and the great domain of disperse systems. The approach may be theoretical or experimental. Studies of practical importance

are appropriate, the emphasis to be on fundamental science. The name Langmuir expresses this catholicity more truly than could any multiword title. [Some readers may like to be reminded of the great range of Irving Langmuir’s contributions, and are directed to the Langmuir Appreciation that follows. It is fitting, by the way, that the author of this appreciation made the original suggestion for naming the journal.] The cover design, incidentally, is drawn from the type of patterns that may be found in marbled paper-the marbling process is a surface chemical one. The design is intended to be as distinctive as is the name of the journal. Langmuir begins as a small journal in size and a reasonable question to ask is: why should it have so broad a scope? Part of the answer is that we are attempting to provide a unifying influence to counter the proliferation of specialized journals in surface/colloid chemistry. We intend Langmuir to be a quality journal that surface and colloid chemists will enjoy reading and will profit from reading-not just because of articles in their specialized field, but also because the collection of papers in each issue provides a stimulating awareness of what other specialista are doing and thinking. This is an important mission of Langmuir. The mission is manifest in the range of topics spanned in this first issue. It is specifically the reason for our publication here of the 1984 Langmuir Award Lectures. Every year the ACS Division of Colloid and Surface Chemistry selects two well-known scientists, each to present a lecture having some common theme. The one lecture emphasizes the “dry” or solid-vacuum or solid-gas interface, and the other, the “wet” or liquid interface, including disperse systems. We want Langmuir also to be a friendly journal-a collegialjournal, using the term collegial in a broad sense. There will be occasional editorials relevant to its missions. We will have a short section on News and Announcements (and will welcome suggestions). There will be occasional reviews on rapidly developing areas, written by experts and with a bit of personal touch. The Associate Editor and I are making an effort to let authors and reviewers know that we care very much to have as fast and friendly an operation as is consistent with the highest standards. Publication of Langmuir is bimonthly and as one expression of this personal concern both we and the production staff will make a special effort to expedite the publication of Letters. Langmuir is to be an international journal. There are,

0743-7463/85/2401-0001$01.50/00 1985 American Chemical Society

2 Langmuir, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1985

for example, contributions from seven countries in this issue, and still others will be represented in upcoming ones. The Advisory Board is international in membership and plays an active role. We assemble as often as convergence at meetings allows (so far, twice a year); there are news letters and exchanges of opinion. Several of the categories of content in Langmuir have been mentioned: original Articles and Letters, the yearly (we hope) Langmuir Award Lectures, a News and Announcements department, occasional review papers, and occasional editorials. To complete the list, we plan to publish from time to time small, selected symposia collections of papers-enough to illuminate a field but not enough to dominate any one issue of the journal. There will be occasional reviews of potentidy useful books; there will be some relevant commercial advertisements. Various additional details can be found in the Notice to Authors. There is another mission to Langmuir. It is to give notice that surface/colloid chemistry is a broad, important, and established field that merits recognition as such. Too often, for example, the course in surface or colloid chemistry appears as only a minor elective in colleges and universities, if indeed any such course is offered at all. A significant component of the motivation of SCOP in initiating this journal was to enhance the status of the field in both the academic and the industrial worlds, and within the ACS itself. With respect to this last point, Langmuir will maintain a close liason with the ACS Division of Colloid and Surface Chemistry; it is our “home” division.

More broadly, we see Langmuir as joining such journals as The Journal of Organic Chemistry, Biochemistry, Inorganic Chemistry, The Journal of Physical Chemistry, and Journal of the American Chemical Society as within the general ACS mandate to serve the major areas of chemistry. There is, in particular, a special relationship between Langmuir and the latter two journals. This second mission was strongly supported in the responses to the questionnaires. It is important that our colleagues now show their support in an active way. I conclude with a comment on what may lie ahead. Not only is research in the traditional areas of surface/colloid chemistry flourishing, but some exciting new developments have been taking place. On the research side, we are seeing what amounts to a renaissance of heterogeneous catalysis in the form of current work on chemistry and electrochemistry at well-defined surfaces; the future here seems unlimited. On the practical side, current and continuing work in the fields of two-dimensional electronic circuitry, solar energy conversion, and behavior in field- and gravity-free space will surely continue to lead to new fundamental developments. Many other examples could be given. The point is that Langmuir will be worth the effort if it can function as a vehicle for the effective exchange of information between the various subfields and for the stimulation of new ideas.

Arthur Adamson Editor

Why “Langmuir”? Not many people have advanced as many novel scientific ideas that did not survive the test of time as did Irving Langmuir. But there are few, if any, who have contributed as many new and original ideas that became obvious truths, and often basic truths, for his contemporaries and for succeeding generations. Endowed with a powerful intellect and tremendous mental and physical energy, driven by an insatiable curiosity about the workings of nature, and nurtured by the facilitating and stimulating ambiance of his family and the General Electric Laboratory, Langmuir “had fun”. “Fun”, elucidating to his satisfaction and high standards an incredible multitude of problems whether encountered in the laboratory or in the library or while boating. Langmuir read extensively and observed meticulously not only in the laboratory but everywhere he went. He assiduously checked this information qualitatively against his extensive body of knowledge and often made orderof-magnitude estimates to gain better insight. Upon encountering a conflict or a promising lead, he would devise ingenious, simple experiments and methods of measurement, develop models and theories, and perfect applications until everything fitted into a coherent picture. His writings were highly persuasive, communicating his excitement and convictions. But if later developments showed the need for revision or abandonment, Langmuir was always happy to take this additional step toward more complete understanding. His work soon attracted recognition at home and abroad beginning in 1915, when he was only 34, with the Nichols Medal of the New York Section and 3 years later the 0743-7463/85/2401-0002$01.50/0

Hughes medal of the Royal Society (the firsts of some 20 other medals). His honors included the DSc. of Northwestern University in 1921 (the first of some 15 others) and the Presidency of the American Chemical Society in 1929 and culminated in the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1932 for his work in surface chemistry. He was only the second American chemist to be so honored, and that after a hiatus of 18 years! With an undergraduate degree of Met. Eng. (Columbia), a Ph.D. in physical chemistry (Goettingen), and soon thereafter the position of “research chemist and physicist”, Langmuir, toward the end of his life, listed his disciplines as %urface chemistry; colloid chemistry; meteorology”. In this last field he was mainly concerned with weather modification by cloud seeding, so that some of it, at least, could be included in the preceding under nucleation and aerosols. Volumes have been written analyzing Langmuir’s contributions, which range from the development of the modern gas-filled helical-filament incandescent bulb to the formulation of the basic ideas of plasma physics. It may suffice here to recall as highlights of his permanent achievements: the concept of chemisorption and of oriented monolayers; the isotherm and the trough which bear his name; the deduction from first principles alone of the final specifications for both the condensation vacuum pump and the efficient smoke generator; the first elucidation of the molecular mechanism of a heterogenous catalytic reaction, that of CO with 0,; and the first calculation of the repulsion of diffuse high-potential double layers. 0 1985 American Chemical Society

Langmuir, Vol. I, No. I , 1985 3 An international survey of prospective authors and readers of a new journal to be published hy the American Chemical Society in the area of interest of the Division of Colloid and Surface Chemistry showed a widespread desire for excellence above all, and for breadth a coverage of surface as well as of bulk phenomena, of dry as well as wet systems, of thermodynamic as well as kinetic aspects, of

aerosols as well as emulsions, of theory and experiment as well as applications. The coincidence of these desiderata with Irving Langmuir’s attitudes and with most of his major interests make it only appropriate that this new Journal proudly carry his name. Karol J. Mysels Unioersity of California, San Diego

i

i.

Photograph eouiirry

IRVING LANGMUIR

,I

C e n ~ r a lE l ~ r c r i rCa.