Disciplines merge at Coventry

An intensive effort to raze the barriers that compartmentalize science has begun in the School of Molecular Sciences at the University of Warwick in Coventry, England. There, Malcolm Clark heads a department of about 20 instructors engaged in teaching and study of phenomena at the molecular level. Clark conceives this field as a single broad discipline lying between physics and biology. “The present divisions,” he says “such as chemical physics and theoretical, physical inorganic, organic chemistry and biochemistry, are rapidly losing their relevance. Moreover in their continuance lies the danger that mere differences of emphasis may harden into sharp distinctions bearing no relation to the natural world.”