The following article is from a colleague of mine, Professor
Bill Hart, a Mathematics professor at Macomb Community College.  He
and I were talking about his project, "Books for Argentina" the
other day. In the course of the conversation, I asked him if he had
an internet account.  He said no.  Well, I said, would you like to
tell more people about your project?  He said, "YES"!  I agreed to
type his letter and post it on the Internet.
     Just for the record.  Professor Bill Hart has been teaching
for over 27 years.  Bill lives in Troy, Michigan with his wife,
Lidia and his six sons.  He started the project over 4 years ago
and is still continuing.  Besides his normal teaching assignments,
he is guest speaker on the "Joy of Mathematics".  Bill was named
Michigan Professor of the Year for 1989-1990.  Several articles
have appeared in the local papers concerning his project.
     If anyone wishes to contribute books to his project, call him
at the number listed below.  For monetary contributions, make out
checks to Macomb Community College and mark "Argentine Book
Project" in a lower corner.  Send in care of William Hart, in the
address also listed below.  Bill is in need of University texts of
all kinds, especially computer magazines, information concerning
computer operating systems (real-time), denistry materials info,
materials from the Society of Automotive Engineers, and
specifications materials concerning mechanical engineering.
So, if you have books you don’t need, don’t throw them out!  Call Bill.

Thanks,

           Dan Frezza

Internet:  dfre…@vela.acs.oakland.edu
Bitnet:    dfrezza@oakland

Bill Hart
Mathematics Dept. G-401
Macomb Community College, Warren Mi. 48093
Telephone: (313) 445-7143

     Dear Friend of "Books for Argentina" project:
I wish I could tell each of you face-to-face how your goodwill and
kindness has made a positive difference in the lives of some
wonderful Argentine students, professors, and teachers.  Perhaps
this note will convey the benefits of your kindness.
     Lidia, David, and I spent 40 days in LaPlata (population
400,000) during July and August, 1991.  So far, we–with your help-
-have placed about 20,000 books at the schools and university in
La Plata.  The books, all donated, include math, chemistry, dental,
welding, electronics, electrical, biochemistry, easy to read
childrens’ texts for teaching English, literature, engine repair,
physics, etc. etc.  Each and every book is being inventoried and
catalogued by a committee of professors and teachers.  This is done
at the central library at the University of La Plata.  One of the
nicest moments occurred at a Saturday morning reception given at the
university library so that Lidia and I could meet with the
educators who are benefiting from the materials.  When I explained
how people here meet me in the parking lot to transfer boxes of
donated books to my car, and how teachers bring materials to our
donated storage area, several of the professors WEPT.  That’s a
moment I’ll never forget.  Professor Carlos Lopez of the computer
science department told me: "Your wonderful friends must realize
that at the moment, we are in a hole—and you are offering us a
rope so that we can pull ourselves out.  My wife and I believe this
is a gift from God…please tell everyone how helpful this is to
us.  It’s a blessing that the materials are in English–that seems
to be the language of science, and we require our students to read
English.  By the time something is translated into Spanish, it’s
sometimes six or seven years old.  I hope that you and your
wonderful friends have the energy to continue."
     Lopez took us to several schools.  We saw that the books are
in place, right where they are supposed to be.  The fellowship with
the people there convinced me that you and I really are doing
something worthwhile.  At the moment, I’m looking for more
university level materials.  Thank you again for helping Lidia and
me in the effort.  God Bless.
—

——— Dan Frezza
Internet: dfre…@vela.acs.oakland.edu
Bitnet:   dfrezza@oakland

Toward Molecular Control
Second Foresight Conference on Molecular Nanotechnology

7-9 November 1991
Palo Alto, California
Sponsors:
Stanford University Department of Materials Science and Engineering
University of Tokyo Research Center for Advanced Science and
    Technology
Foresight Institute
Micromachine Society of Japan
Institute for Molecular Manufacturing

This interdisciplinary conference is an invitational meeting of
scientists and technologists working in fields leading toward
thorough three-dimensional structural control at the molecular level,
that is, toward the ability to design and synthesize complex
molecular devices.

The conference will cover topics relevant to the pursuit of this goal,
drawing from fields such as:
*  physics (e.g., proximal probes such as the STM and AFM)
*  chemistry (e.g., molecular recognition)
*  biochemistry (e.g., protein design)
*  materials science and engineering
*  computer science (e.g., molecular modeling, computational
chemistry, system design issues)
*  mechanical engineering

Developments in these fields are converging, opening opportunities
for fruitful collaboration in developing new instruments, devices, and
capabilities. Presentations will:
*  describe the current state of the art in techniques and tools for
molecular control;
*  suggest experiments and approaches for extending molecular
control;
*  propose targets for near-term research and development.

Presentations will focus on making the relevant concepts and
capabilities of each discipline clear to those from other disciplines.
A major objective will be to enable participants to gather information
and contacts that can aid them in pursuing molecular control. Since
these efforts frequently cross disciplinary boundaries, the meeting
will be organized to help attendees make contact with potential
collaborators from other fields.

Speakers and topics (partial list)
Titles not yet final
Molecular modeling
   William Goddard, California Institute of Technology
Scanned probe microscopy
   Kumar Wickramasinghe, IBM Watson Research Center
Organic synthesis
   Rick Danheiser, MIT
Computational nanotechnology
   Ralph Merkle, Xerox Palo Alto Research Center
Biological molecular machines
   David Blair, University of Utah
Atomic force microscopy (AFM)
   Jan Hoh, University of California at Santa Barbara
Deliberate evolution of biomolecules
   Craig Tuerk, University of Colorado
Protein engineering
   Stephen Sligar, University of Illinois
Immobilization
   Klaus Mosbach, University of Lund, Sweden
Monoclonal antibodies
   Al Tramontano, Scripps Research Institute
Progress in Japan
   Iwao Fujimasa, University of Tokyo
Modified proximal probes: a proposal
   Bruce Gaber, Naval Research Laboratory
Branched DNA for nanoscale fabrication
   Nadrian Seeman, New York University
Molecular systems design and construction
   Eric Drexler, Stanford University
   Conference Chairman

Corporate Sponsorship
The organizers gratefully acknowledge the financial support of:
Event Sponsor          
   Apple Computer, Inc.
Supporting Sponsors
   BIOSYM Technologies, Inc.
   Molecular Simulations, Inc.
   Perkin Elmer Corporation
   Tripos Associates, Inc.
   Xerox Palo Alto Research Center

Demonstrations
Throughout the meeting there will be demonstrations by leading
vendors of products useful in the pursuit of molecular control,
including molecular modeling software and hardware, and proximal
probe systems (STM, AFM).

Proceedings
Proceedings of the conference will be refereed and published in a
special issue of the international journal Nanotechnology, published
by the Institute of Physics. Copies of the Proceedings will be mailed
to registrants.  A bound volume is planned for publication by the
Institute of Physics or MIT Press.

Further information
Requests for invitations (send bio, resume, c.v., or journal article)
or for additional information should be directed to the Foresight
Institute, PO Box 61058, Palo Alto, CA 94306, USA. Tel 415-324-
2490; fax 415-948-5649; electronic mail: foresi…@cup.portal.com.

Hello,

        I was wondering if anyone might know where I could find an efficient
matrix diagonalization routine which would calculate both eigenvalues and
eigenvectors of matrices which most often are real but may be complex.
Thus far I have been using the jacobi routine from Numerical Recipes in C,
but it seems (to me, anyway) that it transposes the eigenvector matrix in
some weird way.  That is, it does not appear to be a transpose in the linear
algebra sense of the word, i.e., a simple [i][j] => [j][i] operation does not
fix the problem.  Furthermore, it doesn’t handle complex numbers.  I would
like the program to be portable (Unix GNU C, Vax/VMS C and DOS Borland C++),
but at the moment I am most interested in just something that works and is
relatively fast.  Would anyone know where I might find such a beastie (if I
am not asking too much ?  Thank you,

John Duchowski

I’m looking for a program to display orbitals generated by Gaussian 90. 3-d
displays (as in books by Jorgensen & Salem or by Hehre et al.) would be best,
although contour plots are also OK.  QCPE may have appropriate programs, and I
would be grateful for their address or other info.

Thanks,
Karl Irikura
(National Institute of Standards and Technology)

(Forwarded by al…@chem.nwu.edu)

- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -

>In article <1991Sep22.203901.2…@casbah.acns.nwu.edu> thom…@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Robert Parkhurst) writes:
>>        My parents import plastic bottles and customers often ask what they
>>can and can’t put in the bottles.  For example, some solvents will eat
>>plastic (i.e. acetone).  There is a process that "flourinates" the inside
>>of the bottle.  All I know is that some gas containing flourine is sprayed
>>into the bottle which makes the plastic unreactive to the solvents that
>>would have previously "eaten" the plastic.  What is this gas?  If it
>>contains flourine, how dangerous is the gas?  What is this process?  What
>>chemistry is going on?

>>                                                                Robert

>The solvent resistance of a bottle depends on the material that the
>bottle is made from.  The bottle could be polyethylene terephthalate
>(like 2 liter pop bottles), polycarbonate, polystyrene, polyethylene,
>or others.  Without this critical information, it’s hard to answer your
>question.  As far as "fluorinating" the bottle, I am not familiar with
>such a process, but two possibilities come to mind: (1) the inside of
>the bottle is protected with a layer of a Teflon-like substance or (2)
>some chemical reaction of C-H bonds in the plastic replaces the hydrogen
>atoms with fluorine atoms.  This chemistry would probably be fairly
>drastic.

>David Allan
>Department of Chemistry
>Northwestern University
>Evanston, IL  60208

Fluorination of polyethylene is commonly used to impart
hydrocarbon permeation resistance to containers.  The most
common is auto fuel tanks.  I believe about 30% of tanks are
now plastic.  The process involves puitting the containers
in an evacuated chamber and adding a cotrolled mixture of
F2/O2.  Oxy fluorination replaces the Hydrogen at the
surface with Fluorine.  The process was developed
by Air Products.  See M. Anand et.al. Polymer, v22,p 361 (1981) and
references therein.
Allen Padwa

I an new at using this network, and am not sure the message
is going to the correct person.  Please forward.
Allen Padwa
Monsanto Chemical Co., Plastics Div.
Springfield, MA
ARP…@CAMLOT.MONSANTO.COM

Suppose I use some volatile solvent like acetone for some purpose.
The more solvent I can recover, the less I have to spend to replace and
the less goes into the air I breathe (I have no hood in my room,
and am not sure that putting a fan  in the window  will make much difference).

Is it really practical to collect the solvent that evaporates and reuse it ?
How would one do it ?

Allan Adler
a…@altdorf.ai.mit.edu

In view of the recent interest in the location of the vertices of the
icosahedron, I thought the following might be of interest to some of the
readers of this newsgroup.

I just received a preprint from Bruce Reznick of the University of Illinois
at Urbana-Champaign math dept in which he proves, among other interesting
things, the following: let (a1,b1,c1),(a2,b2,c2),…,(a6,b6,c6) be siz
points in space. These six point together with their negatives
(-a1,-b1,-c1),(-a2,-b2,-c2),…(-a6,-b6,-c6) form the 12 vertices of
an icosahedron inscribed in a sphere of radius (5/6)^(1/4) centered at
the origin if and only if the following identity of polynomials holds:

(x^2+y^2+z^2)^2=(a1*x+b1*y+c1*z)^4+(a2*x+b2*y+c2*z)^4+…+(a6*x+b6*y+c6*z)^4

Allan Adler
a…@altdorf.ai.mit.edu

How does thermal paper work? I’m refering to the kind in FAX machines and
the like. What’s in it, and why does it deteriorate with time?
Thanks
Joel

Who are interested in business contacts with Chemistry Plant in
Alytus, Lithuania?

The contacts goals can be:
 - joint venture organizing;
 - western company division establishing in Lithuania;
 - technology transfer;
 - etc.

Please, reply to my e-mail address.

Algirdas Pakstas
(sorry, I’m only computer scientist, not chemist)

What specific chemicals are currently substituted for
chlorofluorohydrocarbons as propellants?

Also, what regulations are in force relating to the use of
chlorofluorohydrocarbons as propellants?

Thanks in advance for your response.  Please post here.

–
Gerry Macridis, PO Box 3929, Wellington, New Zealand
Phone +64 4 899444  Mail: xa…@tornado.welly.gen.nz