Chemists From England

"The Publisher of Transactions in that of October 1675 indeavours to cover former injuries done me by accumulating new ones, and this with so much passion as with integrity to lay by discretion; otherwise he would not have affirmed, that it was as certain that none of my Watches succeeded, as it was that I had made them several years ago: For how could he be sure of a Negative? Whom I have not acquainted with my Inventions, since l looked on him as one that made a trade of Intelligence. Next whereas he says l made them without publishing them to the world in Print, he prevaricates, and would have it believed that they were not published to the world, though they were publickly read of in Sir John Cutlers Lectures before great numbers at several times, and though they were made and shewn to thousands both English and Foreiners, and writ of to several persons absent, and though they were in the year 1665 in the History of the Royal Society published to the world in Print, because, forsooth, they were not printed in his Transactions. Thirdly, whereas the Publisher of Transactions makes along story of my seeing his Journal De Scavans, and my desiring to transcribe that part of it which concerned this matter, as if l had requested some singular favour thereby, l answer, First, that he knew I designed presently to have printed it with Animadversions, but he endeavoured to prevent me, designing first clancularly to get a Patent of it for himself, and thereby to defraud me. Next, I say, I had a right without his favour to have seen, perused, and copied it, as I was one of the Royal Society, the intelligence he there brings in being the Societies. ... To his upbraiding me with his having published some things of Mine; I answer, he hath so, but not so much with mine as with his own desire, and if he send me what I think worth publishing, l will do as much for him, and repay him in his own coyn. Lastly, Whereas he makes use of We and Us ambiguously, it is desired he would explain whether he means the Royal Society, or the Pluralities of himself. If the former, it is not so, as l can prove by many Witnesses; if the later, I neither know what he is acquainted with, or what has been imparted or explained to him. So not designing to trouble my self any further with him, unless he gives me occasion, I dismiss him with his — Speque metuque Procul hinc procul ito."

"Hooke merited a larger share of the admiration of posterity than has hitherto been awarded to him..."

"'I should here have described some Clocks and Time-keepers of great use, nay absolute necessity in these and many other Astronomical observations, but that I reserve them for some attempts that are hereafter to follow, about the various wayes I have tryed, not without good success of improving Clocks and Watches and adapting them for various uses, as for accurating Astronomy, completing the Tables of the fixt stars to Seconds, discovery of Longitude, regulating Navigation and Geography, detecting the properties and effects of motions for promoting secret and swift conveyance and correspondence, and many other considerable scrutinies of nature: And shall only for the present hint that I have in some of my foregoing observations discovered some new Motions even in the Earth it self, which perhaps were not dreamt of before, which I shall hereafter more at large describe, when further tryalls have more fully confirmed and compleated these beginnings. At which time also I shall explaine a Systeme of the World, differing in many particulars from any yet known, answering in all things to the common Rules of Mechanicall Motions: This depends upon three Suppositions. First, that all Cœlestial Bodies whatsoever, have an attraction or gravitating power towards their own Centers, whereby they attract not only their own parts, and keep them, from flying from them, as we may observe the Earth to do, but that they do also attract all the other Cœlestial Bodies that are within the sphere of their activity; and consequently that not only the Sun and the Moon have an influence upon the body and motion of the Earth, and the Earth upon them, but that Mercury also, Venus, Mars, Saturne, and Jupiter by their attractive powers, have a considerable influence upon its motion as in the same manner the corresponding attractive power of the Earth hath a considerable influence upon every one of their motions also. The second supposition is this, That all bodys whatsoever that are put into direct and simple motion, will so continue to move forward in a streight line, till they are by some other effectual powers deflected and bent into a Motion describing a Circle, Ellipsis, or some other more compounded Curve Line. The third supposition is, That these attractive powers are so much the more powerful in operating, by how much nearer the body wrought upon is to their own Centers. Now what these several degrees are I have not yet experimentally verified;'—But these degrees and proportions of the power of attraction in the celestiall bodys and motions, were communicated to Mr. Newton by R. Hooke in the yeare 1678, by letters, as will plainely appear both by the coppys of the said letters, and the letters of Mr. Newton in answer to them, which are both in the custody of the said R. H., both which also were read before the Royall Society at their publique meeting, as appears by the Journall book of the said Society.—'but it is a notion which if fully prosecuted as it ought to be, will mightily assist the astronomer to reduce all the Cœlestiall motions to a certaine rule, which I doubt will never be done true without it. He that understands the natures of the Circular Pendulum and Circular Motion, will easily understand the whole ground of this Principle, and will know where to find direction in nature for the true stating thereof. This I only hint at present to such as have ability and opportunity of prosecuting this Inquiry, and are not wanting of Industry for observing and calculating, wishing heartily such may be found, having my self many other things in hand which I would first compleat, and therefore cannot so well attend it. But this I durst promise the Undertaker, that he will find all the great Motions of the World to be influenced by this Principle, and that the true understanding thereof will be the true perfection of Astronomy.'"

"The Reason of the present Animadversions. ...How far Hevelius has proceeded. That his instruments do not much exceed Ticho. The bigness, Sights and Divisions, not considerably differing. Ticho not ignorant of his new way of Division. ... That so great curiosity as Hevelius strives for is needless without the use of Telescopic Sights, the power of the naked eye being limited. That no one part of an Instrument should be more perfect than another. ... That if Hevelius could have been prevail'd on by the Author to have used Telescopic Sights, his observations might have been 40 times more exact than they are. That Hevelius his Objections against Telescopic sights are of no validity; but the Sights without Telescopes cannot distinguish a less angle then half a Minute. That an Instrument of 3 foot Radius with Telescopes, will do more then one of 3 score foot Radius with common Sights, the eye being unable to distinguish. This is proved by the undiscernableness of spots in the Moon, and by an Experiment with Lines on a paper, by which a Standard is made of the power of the eye. ... A Conclusion of the Animadversions. That the learn'd World is obllig'd to Hevelius for what he hath done, but would have more, if he had used other instruments. That the Animadvertor both contrived some hundreds of Instruments, each of very great accurateness for taking Angles, Levels, &c. and a particular Arithmetical lnstrument for performing all Operations in Arithmetick, with the greatest ease, swiftness and certainty imaginable. That the Reader may be the more certain of this, the Author describes an Instrument for taking Angles in the Heavens..."

"At these meetings, which were about the year 1655, divers experiments were suggested, discoursed, and tried with various successes, though no other account was taken of them but what particular persons perhaps did for the help of their own memories; so that many excellent things have been lost. Some few only by the kindness of the authors have since been made public. Among these may be reckoned the Honourable Mr Boyle's Pneumatic Engine and Experiments, first printed in the year 1660; for in 1658 or 1659 I continued and perfected the air-pump for Mr Boyle, having first seen a contrivance for that purpose made for the same honourable person by Mr Gratorix, which was too gross to perform any great matter."

"Robert Hooke was the first to announce that the force of the spring is as its angular distance from its position of rest. It seems, indeed, from his posthumous works, edited by Waller.... that Hooke, as early as 1656, had under the form of an anagram, expressed the law Ut pondus sic tensio. I have therefore little doubt that to Hooke we owe the invention of the fusee, one of the most beautiful of the many contrivances required to make a perfect timekeeper."

"When any body is strained beyond a certain amount and then released, it fails to return completely to its original form and volume or it retains a permanent set. The largest strain of any kind which a body may undergo and still completely recover from when released is called the limit of elasticity for that form of strain, and the corresponding stress is called the limiting stress. The limit of elasticity is... widely different for different substances. Thus, rubber may be greatly extended and yet recover, while the limit for glass and ivory is very small. ... Within the limit of elasticity a simple law, first stated by Hooke in 1676 and known as Hooke's law, holds, namely, "stress is proportional to strain." (Hooke's statement in Latin was "Ut tensio sic vis.") Hooke illustrated his law by various cases of strain, such as the stretching of a spiral spring and of a wire, the bending of a beam, the twisting of a wire, and so on."

"The next moneth he published another little... pamphlet,—Discourse of a new instrument he haz invented to make more accurate observations in astronomy then ever was yet made, or could be made by any instruments hitherto invented, and this instrument... performes more, and more exact, then all the chargeable apparatus of the noble Tycho Brache or the present Hevelius of Dantzick."

"About this time, 1655, having an opportunity of acquainting myself with astronomy by the kindness of Dr. Ward, I apply'd myself to the improving of the pendulum for such observations, and in the year 1656, or 1657, I contriv'd a way to continue the motion of the pendulum, so much commended by Ricciolus in his Almagestum which Dr. Ward had recommended to me to peruse. I made some trials to this end, which I found to succeed to my wish. The success of these made me further think of improving it for finding the longitude; and the method I had made for myself for mechanick inventions, quickly led me to the use of springs, instead of gravity, for the making a body vibrate in any posture. Whereupon I did first in great, and afterwards in smaller modules, satisfy myself of the practicableness of such an invention; and hoping to have made great advantage thereby, I acquainted divers of my freinds, and particularly Mr. Boyle, that I was possessed of such an invention, and crav'd their assistance for improving the use of it to my advantage. Immediately after his majesty's restoration Mr. Boyle was pleased to acquaint the lord Brouncher and Sir with it, who advis'd me to get a patent for the invention, and propounded very probable ways of making considerable advantage by it. To induce them to a belief of my performance, I shewed a pocket watch, accommodated with a spring, apply'd to the arbor of the ballance, to regulate the motion thereof, concealing the way I had for finding the longitude. This was so well approv'd of, that Sir Robert Moray drew me up the form of a patent, the principal part whereof, viz. the description of the watch so regulated, is his own hand writing, which I have yet by me. The discouragement I met with in the management of this affair, made me desist for that time."

"Some other Course therefore must be taken to promote the Search of Knowledge. Some other kind of Art for Inquiry than what hath been hitherto made use of, must be discovered; the Intellect is not to he suffer'd to act without its Helps, but is continually to be assisted by some Method or Engine, which shall be as a Guide to regulate its Actions, so as that it shall not be able to act amiss: Of this Engine, no Man except the incomparable Verulam hath had any Thoughts, and he indeed hath promoted it to a very good pitch; but there is yet somewhat more to be added, which he seem'd to want time to compleat. By this, as by that Art of Algebra in Geometry, 'twill be very easy to proceed in any Natural Inquiry, regularly and certainly: And indeed it may not improperly be call'd a Philosophical Algebra, or an Art of directing the Mind in the search after Philosophical Truths, for as 'tis very hard for the most acute Wit to find out any difficult Problem in Geometry. without the help of Algebra to direct and regulate the Acts of the Reason in the Process from the question to the quœsitum, and altogether as easy for the meanest Capacity acting by that Method to compleat and perfect it, so will it be in the inquiry after Natural Knowledge."

"By the means of Telescopes, there is nothing so far distant but may be represented to our view; and by the help of Microscopes, there is nothing so small, as to escape our inquiry; hence there is a new visible World discovered to the understanding. By this means the Heavens are open’d, and a vast number of new Stars, and new Motions, and new Productions appear in them, to which all the ancient Astronomers were utterly Strangers."

"Nor is this kind of Texture peculiar to Cork onely; for upon examination with my Microscope, I have found that the pith of an Elder, or almost any other Tree, the inner pulp or pith of the Cany hollow stalks of several other Vegetables: as of Fennel, Carrets, Daucus, Bur-docks, Teasels, Fearn, some kinds of Reeds &c., have much such a kind of Schematisme, as I have lately shewn that of Cork, save onely that here the pores are rang'd the long-ways, or the same ways with the length of the Cane, whereas in Cork they are transverse. The pith also that fills that part of the stalk of a Feather that is above the Quil, has much such a kind of texture, save onely that which way foever I set this light substance, the pores seem'd to be cut transversly, so that I guess this pith which fills the Feather, not to consist of abundance of long pores separated with Diaphragms, as Cork does, but to be a kind of solid or hardned froth, or a congeries of very small bubbles consolidated in that form, into a pretty stiff as well as tough concrete, and that each Cavern, Bubble, or Cell, is distinctly separate from any of the rest, without any kind of hole in the encompassing films, so that I could no more blow through a piece of this kinde of substance, then I could through a piece of Cork, or the found pith of an Elder."

"The true Mathematical and Mechanical Form of all manner of Arches for building with the true butment necessary to each of them, a Problem which no Architectonick Writer hath ever yet attempted, much less perform'd. ...Ut pendet continaum flexile, sic stabit contiguum rigidum, which is the Linea Catenaria."

"[Following Galileo...] The next great inventor and improver of the science of horology was Hooke. In the year 1658 he invented the balance-spring, an improvement of the first importance in the art of timekeeping. ...Immediately after the invention of the balance-spring by Hooke, it was found that as the watches to which the spring was adapted kept so much more accurate time than those formerly made, it became desirable to divide the hour into more minute portions, and so the motion work was invented and the minute-hand applied."

"Having now retrieved a little more of leasure, both for Delineation and Description, for a further elucidation of what I have said, I shall make it my third Attempt, to explain; First, A Helioscope to look upon the body of the Sun, without any offence to the Observers eye. Secondly, A way of shortening reflective and refractive Telescopes. Thirdly, A way of using a Glass of any length, without moving the Tube. Fourthly, An Instrument for taking the Diameters of the Sun, Moon and Planets, or for taking any other Distances, to five or ten Degrees, to the certainty of a Second. ... Fifthly, An Instrument for describing all manner of Dials, by the tangent projection. Sixthly, The uses thereof; 1. For adjusting the Hand of a Clock, so as to make it move in the shadow of a Dial, whose style is parallel to the Axis: Or, 2. In the Azimuth of any Celestial Body, that is, in the shadow of the upright, or any other way inclining Style, upon any plain. 3. For making a Hand move according to the true æquation of Time. 4. For making all manner of Elliptical Dials, in Mr. Foster's way, &c. 5. For communicating a circular motion in a Curve Line, without any shaking: And for divers other excellent purposes."

"When I look back on my life and consider all the way I have been led, above all I thank God to Whom I owe everything, for all His goodness to me and ascribe to Him all the praise and honour."

"The question whether our elementary atoms are in their nature indivisible, or whether they are built up of smaller particles, is one upon which I, as a chemist, have no hold whatever, and I may say that in chemistry the question is not raised by any evidence whatever."

"Ethers are prepared by the Williamson synthesis, an SN2 reaction of an alkoxide with a haloalkane. This reaction works best with primary halides or sulfonates that do not undergo ready elimination. Cyclic ethers are formed by the intramolecular version of this method. The relative rates of ring closure in this case are highest for three- and five-membered rings."

"While still a graduate student, he published his first textbook, Higher Mathematics for Chemical Students."

"The Alexandrian chemists were very near to a recognition of gases."

"In 1919 he was appointed sole Professor of Chemistry at the East London College (renamed Queen Mary College in 1934). ...Partington chose to lecture exclusively on inorganic and physical chemistry. A compulsory one-term course on the history of chemistry that he introduced in 1919 was soon abandoned, though he revived it as an elective from 1945 onwards."

"A great number of our common ideas and ways of looking at the world were really shaped for us by the Greeks of antiquity, and... incorporated into the scientific knowledge of today. Such ideas as those of matter, force, element, number, space, time, etc., came to us from the ancient Greeks."

"Side by side with the production of metals, the Egyptians and the inhabitants of Mesopotamia perfected the arts of making glazed pottery... and the production of glass. ...vessels were baked in tall closed furnaces. "Egyptian blue" was made in Egypt by heating silica with malachite and lime... applied with soda as a blue glaze on faience, and the blue glass is also colored with copper. Some early... Egyptian and Babylonian blue glass are coloured with cobalt."

"We find Theophrastus (315 B.C.) describing... the manufacture of white lead... "lead is placed in an earthen vessel over sharp vinegar, and after it has acquired some thickness of a kind of rust... they open the vessels and scrape it off. ...repeating over and over again... til it is wholly gone. What has been scraped off they then beat to a powder and boil with water for a long time, and what at last settles to the bottom is white lead."

"Just as his four-volume History is an indispensable aid to our discipline, his chemistry papers, his Higher Mathematics for Chemical Students, his Thermodynamics, his Specific Heats of Gases, and his huge Advanced Physical Chemistry remain monuments to the development of physical chemistry since the 1900s."

"Disagreement between theory and experiment has proved a most potent agent in broadening theoretical views, and in making clear the necessity for new concepts or hypotheses."

"We perceive clearly that theories and hypotheses are not accepted or rejected outright; they have their periods of activity, and then lie dormant for a time, only to be revived in a new form later on."

"The philosopher Comte has made the statement that chemistry is a non-mathematical science. He also told us that astronomy had reached a stage when further progress was impossible. These remarks, coming after Dalton's atomic theory, and just before Guldberg and Waage were to lay the foundations of chemical dynamics, Kirchhoff to discover the reversal of lines in the solar spectrum, serve but to emphasize the folly of having "recourse to farfetched and abstracted Ratiocination," and should teach us to be "very far from the litigious humour of loving to wrangle about words or terms or notions as empty"."

"From the time when Guldberg and Waage gave quantitative form to the speculations of the physicist Berthollet, a clear conception of chemical equilibrium, in sharp contrast to an anthropomorphic theory of affinity dating back to Hippocrates and Barchausen, has yielded rich and abundant fruit."

"An explanation of a phenomenon is regarded, apparently instinctively, as the most general possible when it is a mechanical explanation. The "mechanism" of the process is the ultimate goal of experiment. Now this mechanism in general lies beyond the range of the senses; either by reason of their limitations, as in the case of the atomic structure of matter, or by the very nature of the supposed mechanism, as in the theory of the ether. The only way to bridge the gap between the machinery of the physical process and the world of sense-impressions is to think out some consequence of that mechanism. This we will call the hypothesis. The hypothesis, resting still on the mechanical basis, is yet beyond the range of direct experimental investigation; but if, by mathematical reasoning, a consequence of the hypothesis can be deduced, this will often lie within the range of experimental inquiry, and thus a test of the soundness of the original mechanical conception may be instituted."

"The fundamental materials from which we construct our picture of the universe may appear in different shapes, but there is really very little discontinuity between what seem at first sight very different views."

"It is necessary to guard against a possible danger... of submitting too readily to the result of a so-called "crucial experiment". Very few experiments can, in the nature of things, be really crucial. One so-called "crucial experiment" which decided between Newton's corpuscular theory of light and Huyghens' wave-theory, viz. the relation between the law of refraction and the velocity of light, was not at all decisive."

"In early physical systems we have optics dealing with phenomena perceived by the eye; acoustics treating of auditory percepts, and so on. The subjective concepts of "tone" and "colour" have now been replaced by the objectified concepts of frequency of vibration; and wave-length. The object of this process of elimination is, according to Planck, the striving towards a unification of the whole theoretical system, so that it shall be equally significant for all intelligent beings."

"The earliest applications of chemical processes were concerned with the extraction and working of metals and the manufacture of pottery. ...The irruption of an iron using race or races into Mediterranean sites ...introduced the Iron Age... but many of the oldest arts still survived in almost their original form. The potter, for example, still used nearly the same materials and appliances as Neolithic man."

"The blue dye indigo was obtained from the indigo plant by the Egyptians more than 4000 years ago. ...The famous and valuable "purple of Tyre" was perhaps first made in Crete in very early times... obtained at great cost... from tiny marine molluscs. ...The scarlet dye mentioned in the Bible was obtained from the kermes insect (hence the name "crimson")."

"The first clear expression of the idea of an element occurs in the teachings of the Greek philosophers. ...Aristotle ...who summarized the theories of earlier thinkers, developed the view that all substances were made of a primary matter... On this, different forms could be impressed... so the idea of the transmutation of the elements arose. Aristotle's elements are really fundamental properties of matter... hotness, coldness, moistness, and dryness. By combining these in pairs, he obtained what are called the four elements, fire, air, earth and water... a fifth, immaterial, one was added, which appears in later writings as the quintessence. This corresponds with the ether. The elements were supposed to settle out naturally into the earth (below), water (the oceans), air (the atmosphere), fire and ether (the sky and heavenly bodies)."

"In Alexandria two streams of knowledge met and fused together... The ancient Egyptian industrial arts of metallurgy, dyeing and glass-making... and... the philosophical speculations of ancient Greece, now tinged with ancient mysticism, and partly transformed into that curious fruit of the tree of knowledge which we call Gnosticism. ...the result was the "divine" or "sacred" art (...also means sulphur) of making gold of silver. ...during the first four centuries a considerable body of knowledge came into existence. The treatises written in Greek... in Alexandria, are the earliest known books on chemistry. ...The treatises also contain much of an allegorical nature... sometimes described as "obscure mysticism." ...the Neoplatonism which was especially studied in Alexandria... is not so negligible as has sometimes been supposed. ...The study of astrology was connected with that of chemistry in the form of an association of the metals with the planets on a supposed basis of "sympathy". This goes back to early Chaldean sources but was developed by the Neoplatonists."

"The Greek chemical treatises contain... a great amount of practical chemical information... fusion, calcination, solution, filtration, crystallization, sublimation and especially distillation; and methods of heating include the open fire, lamps, and the sand and water baths. Nearly all this practical knowledge... the Arabs... derived... from the very source we are now considering."

"The Chinese early learned to work in metals; bronze occurs in the 11th-10th centuries B.C., useful iron from about 500 B.C. At a later period they made brass... True porcelain was first made about A.D. 600. They were probably in possession of mercury at an early date, and learnt how to decompose cinnabar into mercury and sulphur, and recompose it from these materials."

"One of the most brilliant students we have had during the last thirty years."

"The results of a scrutiny of the materials of chemical science from a mathematical standpoint are pronounced in two directions. In the first we observe crude, qualitative notions, such as fire-stuff, or phlogiston, destroyed; and at the same time we perceive definite measurable quantities such as fixed air, or oxygen, taking their place. In the second direction we notice the establishment of generalizations, laws, or theories, in which a mass of quantitative data is reduced to order and made intelligible. Such are the law of conservation of matter, the laws of chemical combination, and the atomic theory."

"Dalton, the mathematical tutor, following up the lead of Newton, combined the whole of the results of quantitative measurement which had accumulated up to his time, in a comprehensive theory, based on the concept of the chemical atom."

"As an instance of the remarkably far-reaching effect which a single mathematico-physical concept has had upon the development of chemical theory, one has but to recall the state of chemistry just before the revival of Avogadro's law by Cannizzaro, to be impressed by its confusion. Relying solely upon their "chemical instinct," the leaders of the various schools of chemical thought had developed each his own theoretical system. ...a host of ...conceptions strove for supremacy. The strife was stilled, order and unity were restored, as soon as Avogadro's great idea was seen in its true light, and the concept of the molecule was introduced into chemistry. A formula which had required pages of reasoning from a purely chemical standpoint to establish, and that insecurely, was fixed by a single numerical result."

"The extension of Black's method by the physicist Lavoisier led to the downfall of the purely qualitative theory of phlogiston, and gave to chemistry the true methods of investigation, and its first great quantitative law—the law of conservation of matter."

"The quantitative investigations of Black on the burning of lime and magnesia alba, in which the balance (previously characterized by the French chemist Jean Rey as "an instrument for clowns") was applied at every turn, led to the rejection of a hypothetical "principle of causticity," and replaced it by a "sensible ingredient of a sensible body," fixed air."

"Wenzel and Richter, the latter... of most pronounced mathematical temperament, laid the foundations of stoichiometry, or "the art of measuring the chemical elements"."

"There are not wanting, even to-day, chemists who advocate "purely chemical" methods in chemistry, and cannot appreciate the value of physical evidence in conjunction with mathematical calculations. We can only hope that their number is decreasing exponentially with time."

"It is clear, however, that the distinguishing mark of the whole development of theoretical chemistry and physics is the elimination of the anthropomorphic elements, especially specific sense-impressions, from the concepts. This process is called by Prof. M. Planck the objectification of the physical system."

"Partington's method presupposes... that Greek fire and gunpowder represent premodern forms of "scientific" knowledge. ...Partington's second presumptuous belief is that the history of Greek fire and gunpowder is primarily to be understood through chemistry... These beliefs were what justified Partington's biographical approach; he was interested in those who wrote texts and what was written in them, mainly recipes and formulas. Perhaps the most familiar practitioner of this method is the founder of the modern founder of the history of science, George Sarton, whose Introduction to the History of Science (1927-47) Partington's work closely resembles."

"On the one hand, the student has been informed by some writers that the only certain way lies in the use of the entropy-function and the thermodynamic potentials; on the other hand, he is told with equal authority that the method used by the original investigators has been the consideration of cyclic processes, and that the former method is nothing but a mathematical (perhaps unnecessary) refinement of the results obtained by the latter. These extreme attitudes appear to me to be unfortunate, and more especially when one observes the physical clearness introduced by the use of cyclic processes, but at the same time remembers that most of the results obtained by separate investigators using cyclic processes had, with a great many more, previously been found by J. Willard Gibbs by means of a purely analytical method."