Chemical Abstracts

[Logernaut]

Everytime I veer off the beaten path and explore my universities library, I'm amazed by the vast amount of knowledge availabe at my fingertips.

I stumbled upon a section in my library that features several large book shelves full of dozens of books called "Chemical Abstracts." Organized chronologically by date then letter, the collecton includes what appears, upon first glance, to be some sort of reference to every chemical synthesized by man.

Can anyone with some chemistry background explain what these abstracts are used for?

[SpankyMcLankey]

If I had to guess they'd be used by chemical engineers.

most of them already have every single one of those books memorized anyways.

[The Rev]

I would imagine that even the most meager of school libraries today dwarf (in terms of information available) all the great libraries of antiquity, including the Library of Alexandria. It's an amazing time we live in, in that respect.



The Rev