Auguste Laurent and the Prehistory of Valence

Auguste Laurent and the Prehistory of Valence PDF Author: Mary Eunice Novitski
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 9783718652358
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 168

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Book Description
This study focuses on the French chemists of 1830-1858, and their roles in the development of organic chemistry and its eventual connectin with atomic and valence-bond theory, and uncovers new complexities in the thought processes that led to the concept of valence. The exploration of Laurent's early career reveals that this French chemist had proposed a hyposthesis to explain phenomena due to valence fifteen years before August Kekule's Exposition of the classic valence-bond theory in 1858. Laurent put forward a hypothesis supposing the dividibility of atoms at a time when such a theory was far removed from the possiblity of experimentation. Within the positivist philosophy which prevailed at the time, few besides him would have dared to advance such a hypothesis. Laurent's hypothesis influenced certain advances in his chemistry, and that of his close associate, Charles Gerhardt, and eventually these advances helped turn most chemists to atomism.

Auguste Laurent and the Prehistory of Valence

Auguste Laurent and the Prehistory of Valence PDF Author: Mary Eunice Novitski
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 9783718652358
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 168

Get Book Here

Book Description
This study focuses on the French chemists of 1830-1858, and their roles in the development of organic chemistry and its eventual connectin with atomic and valence-bond theory, and uncovers new complexities in the thought processes that led to the concept of valence. The exploration of Laurent's early career reveals that this French chemist had proposed a hyposthesis to explain phenomena due to valence fifteen years before August Kekule's Exposition of the classic valence-bond theory in 1858. Laurent put forward a hypothesis supposing the dividibility of atoms at a time when such a theory was far removed from the possiblity of experimentation. Within the positivist philosophy which prevailed at the time, few besides him would have dared to advance such a hypothesis. Laurent's hypothesis influenced certain advances in his chemistry, and that of his close associate, Charles Gerhardt, and eventually these advances helped turn most chemists to atomism.

Reader's Guide to the History of Science

Reader's Guide to the History of Science PDF Author: Arne Hessenbruch
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134262949
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 965

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Book Description
The Reader's Guide to the History of Science looks at the literature of science in some 550 entries on individuals (Einstein), institutions and disciplines (Mathematics), general themes (Romantic Science) and central concepts (Paradigm and Fact). The history of science is construed widely to include the history of medicine and technology as is reflected in the range of disciplines from which the international team of 200 contributors are drawn.

Philosophical Chemistry

Philosophical Chemistry PDF Author: Manuel DeLanda
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472591844
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 246

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Book Description
Philosophical Chemistry furthers Manuel DeLanda's revolutionary intervention in the philosophy of science and science studies. Against a monadic and totalizing understanding of science, DeLanda's historicizing investigation traces the centrality of divergence, specialization and hybridization through the fields and subfields of chemistry. The strategy followed uses a series of chemical textbooks, separated from each other by fifty year periods (1750, 1800, 1850, and 1900), to follow the historical formation of consensus practices. The three chapters deal with one subfield of chemistry in the century in which it was developed: eighteenth-century inorganic chemistry, nineteenth-century organic chemistry, and nineteenth-century physical chemistry. This book creates a model of a scientific field capable of accommodating the variation and differentiation evident in the history of scientific practice. DeLanda proposes a model that is made of three components: a domain of phenomena, a community of practitioners, and a set of instruments and techniques connecting the community to the domain. Philosophical Chemistry will be essential reading for those engaged in emergent, radical and contemporary strands of thought in the philosophy of science and for those scholars and students who strive to practice a productive dialogue between the two disciplines.

Methods and Styles in the Development of Chemistry

Methods and Styles in the Development of Chemistry PDF Author: Joseph Stewart Fruton
Publisher: American Philosophical Society
ISBN: 9780871692450
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 364

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Book Description
Chemistry as it is known today is deeply rooted in a variety of thought & action, dating back at least as far as the fifth century B.C. In this book, Joseph Fruton weaves together the history of scientific investigation with social, religious, philosophical, & other events & practices that have contributed to the field of modern chemistry. The story begins with the influence of alchemy on early Greek numerology and philosophy, followed by the historical account of chemical composition and phlogiston. The life and work of Antoine Lavoisier receive extensive coverage in Chapter Three, with the remaining six chapters devoted to atoms, equivalents, and elements; radicals and types; valence and molectualr structure; stereochemistry and organic synthesis; forces, equilibria, and rates; and electrons, reaction mechanisms, and organic synthesis.

Elixir

Elixir PDF Author: Theresa Levitt
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674250893
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
Drawing on alchemical theory, Édouard Laugier and Auguste Laurent set out to find the vital essence of life through the craft of perfumes. While drawing the ire of enlightened Bohemian Paris, they discovered fundamental differences in the structures of naturally occurring and synthetic molecules, inaugurating a persistent scientific mystery.

Molecular World

Molecular World PDF Author: Catherine M. Jackson
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 026237448X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 461

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Book Description
A compelling and innovative account that reshapes our view of nineteenth-century chemistry, explaining a critical period in chemistry’s quest to understand and manipulate organic nature. According to existing histories, theory drove chemistry’s remarkable nineteenth-century development. In Molecular World, Catherine M. Jackson shows instead how novel experimental approaches combined with what she calls “laboratory reasoning” enabled chemists to bridge wet chemistry and abstract concepts and, in so doing, create the molecular world. Jackson introduces a series of practice-based breakthroughs that include chemistry’s move into lampworked glassware, the field’s turn to synthesis and subsequent struggles to characterize and differentiate the products of synthesis, and the gradual development of institutional chemical laboratories, an advance accelerated by synthesis and the dangers it introduced. Jackson’s historical reassessment emerges from the investigation of alkaloids by German chemists Justus Liebig, August Wilhelm Hofmann, and Albert Ladenburg. Stymied in his own research, Liebig steered his student Hofmann into pioneering synthesis as a new investigative method. Hofmann’s practice-based laboratory reasoning produced a major theoretical advance, but he failed to make alkaloids. That landmark fell to Ladenburg, who turned to cutting-edge theory only after his successful synthesis. In telling the story of these scientists and their peers, Jackson reveals organic synthesis as the ground chemists stood upon to forge a new relationship between experiment and theory—with far-reaching consequences for chemistry as a discipline.

Nationalizing Science

Nationalizing Science PDF Author: Alan J. Rocke
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262264297
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 468

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Book Description
After looking at the early careers of Wurtz's two mentors, Liebig and Jean-Baptiste Dumas, Rocke describes Wurtz's life and career in the politically complex period leading up to 1853. He then discusses the turning point in Wurtz's intellectual life—his conversion to the "reformed chemistry" of Laurent, Gerhardt, and Williamson—and his efforts to persuade his colleagues of the advantages of the new system. In 1869, Adolphe Wurtz (1817-1884) called chemistry "a French science." In fact, however, Wurtz was the most internationalist of French chemists. Born in Strasbourg and educated partly in the laboratory of the great Justus Liebig, he spent his career in Paris, where he devoted himself to introducing German ideas into French scientific circles. His life therefore provides an excellent vehicle for considering the divergent trajectories of French and German chemistry—and, by extension, French and German science—during this crucial period. After looking at the early careers of Wurtz's two mentors, Liebig and Jean-Baptiste Dumas, Rocke describes Wurtz's life and career in the politically complex period leading up to 1853. He then discusses the turning point in Wurtz's intellectual life—his conversion to the "reformed chemistry" of Laurent, Gerhardt, and Williamson—and his efforts (social and political, as well as scientific) to persuade his colleagues of the advantages of the new system. He looks at political patronage, or the lack thereof, and at the insufficient material support from the French government, during the middle decades of the century. From there Rocke goes on to examine the rivalry between Wurtz and Marcellin Berthelot, the debate over atoms versus equivalents, and the reasons for Wurtz's failure to win acceptance for his ideas. The story offers insights into the changing status of science in this period, and helps to explain the eventual course of both French and German chemistry.

Lines of Light

Lines of Light PDF Author: J.C.D. Brand
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351435167
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description
This work provides a perspective on the creation of a scientific discipline. The reader is led to meet the actual people who have contributed to this field and know their trials as well as breakthroughs. From 1800 to 1930, Brand preserves the thread of scientific thought and activity through six generations of working scientists.

Experiments, Models, Paper Tools

Experiments, Models, Paper Tools PDF Author: Ursula Klein
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 9780804743594
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 332

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Book Description
In the early nineteenth century, chemistry emerged in Europe as a truly experimental discipline. What set this process in motion, and how did it evolve? Experimentalization in chemistry was driven by a seemingly innocuous tool: the sign system of chemical formulas invented by the Swedish chemist Jacob Berzelius. By tracing the history of this “paper tool,” the author reveals how chemistry quickly lost its orientation to natural history and became a major productive force in industrial society. These formulas were not merely a convenient shorthand, but productive tools for creating order amid the chaos of early nineteenth-century organic chemistry. With these formulas, chemists could create a multifaceted world on paper, which they then correlated with experiments and the traces produced in test tubes and flasks. The author’s semiotic approach to the formulas allows her to show in detail how their particular semantic and representational qualities made them especially useful as paper tools for productive application.

The Cambridge History of Science: Volume 5, The Modern Physical and Mathematical Sciences

The Cambridge History of Science: Volume 5, The Modern Physical and Mathematical Sciences PDF Author: David C. Lindberg
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521571999
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 714

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Book Description
A new and comprehensive examination of the history of the modern physical and mathematical sciences.