Lecture by Jean-Marie LEHN. Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1987

The evolution of the universe has generated increasingly complex forms of matter, up to living and thinking matter, through self-organization. Both animate and inanimate matter, living organisms as well as materials, are formed from molecules and organized assemblies resulting from the interaction of molecules with each other. Chemistry builds the bridge between the molecules of inanimate matter and the highly complex molecular systems that constitute living organisms.

Molecular chemistry has developed a set of very powerful methods for building increasingly sophisticated molecules. Supramolecular chemistry aims to build assemblies of molecules through interactions between their components. The spontaneous formation of organized architectures is based on the implementation of information at the molecular level, in a kind of molecular programming, thus establishing a link between chemistry and information science. It constitutes the basis of the capacity for self-organization that led from matter to life. The field of chemistry is the universe of all molecular species and of all possible transformations of matter. Those that are actually present in nature form only one world among all possible worlds waiting to be created. Conceptual considerations on chemistry and science in general will be presented.

Jean-Marie Lehn

(Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1987) Institute of Supramolecular Science and Engineering, University of Strasbourg, France,