Scerri's research has mainly been in the history and philosophy of chemistry, in particular on the question of the extent to which chemistry reduces to quantum mechanics. He has specialized in the study of the periodic table of the elements, including its historical origins and its philosophical significance. More recent writings have included critiques of claims for the emergence of chemistry and the existence of downward causation.
In addition to historical and philosophical work Scerri has published numerous articles in the chemical education literature, including accounts of the electronic structures of transition metals and the occurrence of anomalous
electron configurations.
In A Tale of Seven Elements (2013) Scerri recounts the story of the discovery of the seven elements missing from the periodic table shortly after the turn of the 20th century, including the setbacks, misguided claims, and sometimes acrimonious priority debates and disputes.
In December 2015, Scerri was appointed by
IUPAC as the chair of a project to make a recommendation on the composition of
group 3—whether it should be the elements
Sc, Y, La and Ac; or Sc, Y, Lu and Lr. In January 2021, the project issued a provisional report in IUPAC's news magazine Chemistry International suggesting Sc, Y, Lu and Lr.[8] This accords with a previous IUPAC report from 1988, as well as a suggestion by
Lev Landau and
Evgeny Lifshitz in their Course of Theoretical Physics.
Most recently (2016) he proposed a new evolutionary approach to the philosophy of science based on seven case studies of little known scientists such as John Nicholson, Anton Van den Broek and Edmund Stoner. Scerri has argued that these lesser known figures are just as significant as the heroic personalities in that they constitute the missing gaps in a gradual evolutionary and organic growth in the body of scientific knowledge. Although he rejects the occurrence of scientific revolutions as envisioned by
Thomas Kuhn, Scerri very much supports Kuhn's notion that scientific progress is non-teleological and that there is no approach towards an external truth.
Second editions of Scerri's two most cited books were published in 2019 and 2020.
2011, The periodic table: A very short introduction, Oxford University Press, Oxford,
ISBN9780199582495
2009, Selected papers on the periodic table, Imperial College Press, London,
ISBN9781848164253
2008, Collected papers on philosophy of chemistry, Imperial College Press, London,
ISBN9781848161375
2007, The periodic table: Its story and its significance, Oxford University Press, New York,
ISBN9780195305739
2006, Philosophy of Chemistry: Synthesis of a New Discipline, with co-editors Baird D & McIntyre L, Springer, Dordrecht,
ISBN1402032560
Articles
2023, A commentary on Robin Hendry’s views on molecular structure, emergence and chemical bonding, in D. Vecchi, New Mechanism: Emergence and Scientific Explanation. Ontological and Epistemological challenges in the Natural Sciences, Springer.
2022, Hasok Chang on the Nature of Acids, Foundations of Chemistry, 24, 389–404.
2022, In Praise of Triads, Foundations of Chemistry,24, 284-300.
2022, Various forms of the periodic table including the left-step table, the regularization of atomic number triads and first member anomalies, Chem Texts, 8, 6 (2022).
https://doi.org/10.1007/s40828-021-00157-8
2021, Integrating the History and Philosophy of Science and restoring the centrality of the Periodic Table into a college general chemistry course, Chimica Nella Scuola, 4, 16-23.
2021, Provisional report on Discussions on Group 3 of the Periodic Table, Chemistry International, January–March issue, 2021, 31-34.
2021, 'Reassessing the Notion of a Kuhnian Revolution: What Happened in 20th C. Chemistry, A Commentary on Wray’s claim of the discovery of atomic number as a revolution in chemistry', in Interpreting Kuhn, B. Wray (ed.), Cambridge University Press.
2021, 'How was Nicholson’s highly inconsistent atomic theory able to yield explanatory as well as predictive success?' in Contemporary Scientific Challenge from the History of Science, T.Lyons, P.Vickers, (eds.), Oxford University Press, New York.
2021, 'The impact of twentieth century physics on the periodic table and some remaining questions in the twenty-first century', in Giunta, C.J.; Mainz, V. V.; Girolami, G. S. Eds. 150 Years of the Periodic Table - A Commemorative Symposium; Perspectives on the History of Chemistry; Springer: Heidelberg
2020, 'On Chemical Natural Kinds', Journal for the General Philosophy of Science, 51, 427–445.
doi:
10.1007/s10838-020-09511-9
2020, 'Recent attempts to improve the periodic table', Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A, 378: 20190300.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2019.0300
2020, 'The Periodic Table and the Turn to Practice', Studies in History and Philosophy of Science A, 79, 87-93.
2019, 'Happy Sesquicentennial to the Periodic Table', Scientific American, January 22.
idem, 'Looking backwards and forwards at the development of the periodic table', Chemistry International, January–March, 16-20.
idem, 'Happy 150th Birthday to the Periodic Table', Chemistry A European Journal, 25, 7410–7415.
idem, 'Five ideas in chemical education that must die', Foundations of Chemistry, 21, 61–69.
doi:
10.1007/s10698-018-09327-y
idem., 'What Elements Belong in Group 3?', with coauthor Parsons W, in E R Scerri & G Restrepo (eds), Mendeleev to Oganesson, Oxford University Press, New York.
2017, 'The Gulf Between Chemistry and Philosophy of Chemistry, Then and Now', Structural Chemistry, 28, 1599-1605
idem., 'On the Madelung Rule', response to Marc Henry's “Super-Saturated Chemistry”,
InferenceArchived 2017-04-12 at the
Wayback Machine, March.
idem., 'El descubrimiento de la tabla periódica como un caso de descubrimiento simultáneo', Epistemologia e Historia de la Ciencia (Argentina), 1, 2.
2016, 'The Changing Views of a Philosopher of Chemistry on the Question of Reduction', in E R Scerri & G Fisher (eds), Essays in the Philosophy of Chemistry, Oxford University Press, New York
idem., 'Which Elements Belong to Group 3 of the Periodic Table', Chemistry International, Volume 38, Issue 2, Pages 22–23, March
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abUCLA Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry 2013, 'Scerri, Eric R.', University of California. For current biographical information see the home page of
Eric Scerri