Contemplating the Finger: Visuality and the Semiotics of Chemistry

A historical overview of the development of chemical signs reveals the central role of the Table as a representational device, as well as its limitations. Furthermore, the decreasing importance of linguistic signs such as names, compared to iconic signs such as structural formulas, accords with and reinforces the intensely visual character of chemistry. Chemistry's symbolic language is shown to mimic many features of natural languages, including the ability to construct fictional worlds. I argue that these 'scientific fictions' are as cognitively valuable in chemistry as they are in ordinary life, and that chemists creatively mix 'true' and 'fictional' representations of molecules and substances.