Berzelius Sentence Examples
Berzelius saw at once that it afforded an admirable test for the correctness of Dalton's views, and he made numerous experiments expressly designed to test the law.
Berzelius took 8 grams of copper, converted it into the coloured chloride, and sealed up the whole of this in solution, together with a weighed strip of copper.
Berzelius tested this prediction.
On account of this difficulty, the atomic weights published by Dalton, and the more accurate ones of Berzelius, were not always identical with the values now accepted, but were often simple multiples or submultiples of these.
The "symbols" for the elements used by Dalton, apparently suggested by those of the alchemists, have been rejected in favour of those which were introduced by Berzelius.
The atomic weight was determined by Berzelius, Erdmann and Marchand, Dumas and Stas.
Explanations had indeed been put forward by men as eminent as Berzelius and Liebig, but they lacked experimental foundation.
Berzelius; and ten years later he accepted the office of principal of the university of Edinburgh, the duties of which he discharged until within a few months of his death, which took place at Allerly, Melrose, on the 10th of February 1868.
He was a most prolific writer, 364 papers appearing under his name in the Royal Society's Catalogue, and he carried on a large correspondence with other men of science, such as Berzelius, Faraday, Liebig and Wohler.
As to the detergent action of a soap, Berzelius held that it was due to the free alkali liberated with water; but it is difficult to see why a solution which has just thrown off most of its fatty acids should be disposed to take up even a glyceride, and, moreover, on this theory, weak cold solutions, in which the hydrolysis is considerable, should be the best cleansers, whilst experience points to the use of hot concentrated solutions.
AdvertisementBerzelius, who, fired with enthusiasm by the original theory of Dalton and the law of multiple proportions, determined the equivalents of combining ratios of many elements in an enormous number of compounds.2 He prosecuted his labours in this field for thirty years; as proof of his industry it may be mentioned that as early as 1818 he had determined the combining ratios of about two thousand simple and compound substances.
We may here notice the important chemical symbolism or notation introduced by Berzelius, which greatly contributed to the definite and convenient representation of chemical composition and the tracing of chemical reactions.
At a later date Berzelius denoted an oxide by dots, equal in number to the number of oxygen atoms present, placed over the element; this notation survived longest in mineralogy.
Although the system of Berzelius has been modified and extended, its principles survive in the modern notation.
Berzelius objected to the hypothesis that if two elements form only one compound, then the atoms combine one and one; and although he agreed theory.
AdvertisementWhile successfully investigating the solid elements and their compounds gravimetrically, Berzelius was guilty of several inconsistencies in his views on gases.
Berzelius elevated this theory to an important position in the history of our science.
Gerhardt found that reactions could be best followed if one assumed the molecular weight of an element or compound to be that weight which occupied the same volume as two unit weights of hydrogen, and this assumption led him to double the equivalents accepted by Gmelin, making H= 1, 0 =16, and C = 12, thereby agreeing with Berzelius, and also to halve the values given by Berzelius to many metals.
The growth of chemical literature since the publication of Lavoisier's famous Traite de chimie in 1789, and of Berzelius' Lehrbuch der Chemie in 1808-1818, has been enormous.
In the same year as Klaproth detected uranium, he also isolated zirconia or zirconium oxide from the mineral variously known as zircon, hyacinth, jacynth and jargoon; but he failed to obtain the metal, this being first accomplished some years later by Berzelius, who decomposed the double potassium zirconium fluoride with potassium.
AdvertisementIn the following year, 1795, Klaproth announced the discovery of a third new element, titanium; its isolation' (in a very impure form), as in the case of zirconium, was reserved for Berzelius.
Considerable uncertainty existed as to the atomic weights of these metals, the values obtained by Berzelius being doubtful.
Berzelius's investigation of the action of the electric current on salts clearly demonstrated the invaluable assistance that electrolysis could render to the isolator of elements; and the adoption of this method by Sir Humphry Davy for the analysis of the hydrates of the metals of the alkalis and alkaline earths, and the results which he thus achieved, established its potency.
The discovery of boron by Gay Lussac and Davy in 1809 led Berzelius to investigate silica (silex).
At the same time Berzelius obtained the element, in an impure condition, by fusing silica with charcoal and iron in a blast furnace; its preparation in a pure condition he first accomplished in 1823, when he invented the method of heating double potassium fluorides with metallic potassium.
AdvertisementIn the same year Berzelius discovered selenium in a deposit from sulphuric acid chambers, his masterly investigation including a study of the hydride, oxides and other compounds.
Arfvedson, a pupil of Berzelius, detected a new element, which he named lithium, in various minerals - notably petalite.
Balard completed for many years Berzelius's group of " halogen " elements; the remaining member, fluorine, notwithstanding many attempts, remained unisolated until 1886, when Henri Moissan obtained it by the electrolysis of potassium fluoride dissolved in hydrofluoric acid.
Hydrobromic and hydriodic acids were investigated by Gay Lussac and Balard, while hydrofluoric acid received considerable attention at the hands of Gay Lussac, Thenard and Berzelius.
In 1845 a further contribution to the study of allotropy was made by Anton Schrotter, who investigated the transformations of yellow and red phosphorus, phenomena previously noticed by Berzelius, the inventor of the term " allotropy."
Klaproth, and especially by Berzelius; these chemists are to be regarded as the pioneers in this branch of descriptive chemistry.
Hisinger and Berzelius, was of ceria, the oxide of cerium, in the mineral cerite found at Ridderhytta, Westmannland, Sweden.
At this time there existed a belief, held at a later date by Berzelius, Gmelin and many others, that the formation of organic compounds was conditioned by a so-called vital force; and the difficulty of artificially realizing this action explained the supposed impossibility of synthesizing organic compounds.
Berzelius, in 1813 and 1814, by improved methods of analysis, established that the Daltonian laws of combination held in both the inorganic and organic kingdoms; and he adopted the view of Lavoisier that organic compounds were oxides of compound radicals, and therefore necessarily contained at least three elements - carbon, hydrogen and oxygen.
However, in 1833, Berzelius reverted to his earlier opinion that oxygenated radicals were incompatible with his electrochemical theory; he regarded benzoyl as an oxide of the radical C 14 H 1Q, which he named " picramyl " (from 7rucp6s, bitter, and &uvyalk, almond), the peroxide being anhydrous benzoic acid; and he dismissed the views of Gay Lussac and Dumas that ethylene was the radical of ether, alcohol and ethyl chloride, setting up in their place the idea that ether was a suboxide of ethyl, (C2H5)20, which was analogous to K 2 0, while alcohol was an oxide of a radical C 2 H 6; thus annihilating any relation between these two compounds.
The radical theory, essentially dualistic in nature in view of its similarity to the electrochemical theory of Berzelius, was destined to succumb to a unitary theory.
Vigorous opposition was made by Liebig and Berzelius, the latter directing his attack against Dumas, whom he erroneously believed to be the author of what was, in his opinion, a pernicious theory.
Still, till the last Berzelius remained faithful to his original theory; experiment, which he had hitherto held to be the only sure method of research, he discarded, and in its place he substituted pure speculation, which greatly injured the radical theory.
Unwilling to discard the strictly unitary views of these chemists, or to adopt the copulae theory of Berzelius, he revived the notion of radicals in a new form.
At about the same time Hermann Kolbe attempted a rehabilitation, with certain modifications, of the dualistic conception of Berzelius.
Since the time of Berzelius many experimenters have entered the lists, and introduced developments which we have not space to mention.
We may, however, notice Heinrich Rose i and Friedrich WShler, 2 who, having worked up the results of their teacher Berzelius, and combined them with their own valuable observations, exerted great influence on the progress of analytical chemistry by publishing works which contained admirable accounts of the then known methods of analysis.
This law-purely empirical in origin-was strengthened by Berzelius, who redetermined many specific heats, and applied the law to determine the true atomic weight from the equivalent weight.
The results of Berzelius were greatly extended by Hermann Kopp, who recognized that carbon, boron and silicon were exceptions to the law.
Berzelius stated that neutral salt solutions could be decomposed by electricity, the acid appearing at one pole and the metal at the other.
After studying at Berlin, he went to Stockholm to work under Berzelius, and later to Paris, where he studied for a while under Gay-Lussac and Thenard.
Berzelius about 1823 found that the yellow oxide, when treated with excess of sulphuric acid, gave a sulphate not unlike the ferric salt.
These results were adopted until Peligot in 1840 discovered that Berzelius's (and Klaproth's) metal contains oxygen, and that his (Ur 2) 0 3 really is (U606) 03= 3U 2 0 3, where U= 120 is one equivalent weight of real uranium.
Peligot's results, though called in question by Berzelius, have been amply confirmed by all subsequent investigators; only now, on theoretical grounds, first set forth by Mendeleeff, we double Peligot's atomic weight, so that U now signifies 240 parts of uranium, while UO 3 stands as the formula of the yellow oxide, and UO 2 as that of Berzelius's metal.
Uranous Compounds.-Uranium dioxide, UO 2 (Berzelius's metal), is a brown to copper-coloured powder, obtained by heating U308 or uranyl oxalate in hydrogen.
Unable to accept Berzelius's doctrine of the unalterability of organic radicals, he also gave a new interpretation to the meaning of copulae under the influence of his fellow-worker Edward Frankland's conception of definite atomic saturation-capacities, and thus contributed in an important degree to the subsequent establishment of the structure theory.
Berzelius (Jahresb., 182 5, 4, p. 91) by the action of chlorine on silicon, and is also obtained when an intimate mixture of silica and carbon is heated in a stream of chlorine and the products of reaction fractionated.
Berzelius hailed this discovery as marking the dawn of a new era in organic chemistry, and proposed for benzoyl the names "Proin" or "Orthrin" (from irpcoi and dpOpus).
Somewhat similar views were held by Berzelius, when developing his dualistic conception of the composition of substances.
In later years Berzelius renounced the " oxygen acid " theory, but not before Davy, and, almost simultaneously, Dulong, had submitted that hydrogen and not oxygen was the acidifying principle.
Opposition to the " hydrogen-acid " theory centred mainly about the hypothetical radicals which it postulated; moreover, the electrochemical theory of Berzelius exerted a stultifying influence on the correct views of Davy and Dulong.
In Berzelius' system + potassium sulphate is to be regarded as K 2 0.S0 3; electrolysis should simply effect the disruption of the positive and negative components, potash passing with the current, and sulphuric acid against the current.
Experiment showed, however, that instead of only potash appearing at the negative electrode, hydrogen is also liberated; this is inexplicable by Berzelius's theory, but readily explained by the " hydrogen-acid " theory.
This view, which was specially supported by Gay-Lussac and Leopold Gmelin and accepted by Berzelius, necessitated that all acids were monobasic. The untenability of this theory was proved by Thomas Graham's investigation of the phosphoric acids; for he then showed that the ortho- (ordinary), pyroand metaphosphoric acids contained respectively 3, 2 and I molecules of " basic water " (which were replaceable by metallic oxides) and one molecule of phosphoric oxide, P2 05.
The atomic weight of gold was first determined with accuracy by Berzelius, who deduced the value 195.7 (H= i) from the amount of mercury necessary to precipitate it from the chloride, and 195.2 from the ratio between gold and potassium chloride in potassium aurichloride, KAuC1 4.
Berzelius, who prepared tantalic acid from the mineral tantalite in 1820, obtained an impure metal by heating potassium tantalofluoride with potassium.
The preparation of the pure metal was successfully effected by Werner von Bolton in 1905, who fused the compressed product obtained in the Berzelius process in the electric furnace, air being excluded.
Berzelius, who showed it to be potassium carbide.
The metal was obtained by Berzelius as an iron-grey powder by heating potassium zirconofluoride with metallic potassium.
Potassium sulphide, K 2 S, was obtained by Berzelius in pale red crystals by passing hydrogen over potassium sulphate, and by Berthier as a flesh-coloured mass by heating the sulphate with carbon.
The hydrosulphide, KHS, was obtained by Gay-Lussac on heating the metal in sulphuretted hydrogen, and by Berzelius on acting with sulphuretted hydrogen on potassium carbonate at a dull red heat.
Berzelius to the property possessed by certain substances of existing in different modifications.
Berzelius, although by common consent it was much simpler and more convenient than his cumbersome system of circular symbols.
He studied in Berzelius's laboratory at Stockholm, and there began a lifelong friendship with the Swedish chemist.
Chemists also had to thank him for translating three editions of the Lehrbuch of Berzelius and all the successive volumes of the Jahresbericht into German from the original Swedish.
These phenomena were quite in accordance with the atomic conception of matter, since a compound containing the same number of atoms of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen as another in the same weight might differ in internal structure by different arrangements of those atoms. Even in the time of Berzelius the newly introduced conception proved to include two different groups of facts.
Berzelius as to their composition; and his observation that corresponding phosphates and arsenates crystallize in the same form was the germ from which grew the theory of isomorphism which he communicated to the Berlin Academy in December 1819.
Altenstein did not immediately carry out this proposal, but he obtained for Mitscherlich a government grant to enable him to continue his studies in Berzelius's laboratory at Stockholm.
Berzelius at about the same time also examined it and came to the conclusion ' So Irenaeus.
The name thoria (after the Scandinavian god Thor) was first given in 1815 by Berzelius to a supposed new earth which he had extracted from several rare Swedish minerals.
Berzelius found 235.5; Delafontaine, 229.7; Cleve, 232.6 by analyses of the sulphate, and 232.2 by analyses of the oxalate.
Subsequent papers by Dulong were concerned with " New determinations of the proportions of water and the density of certain elastic fluids " (1820, with Berzelius); the property possessed by certain metals of facilitating the combination of gases (1823 with Thenard); the refracting powers of gases (1826); and the specific heats of gases (1829).
Berzelius early in the 19th century had advanced the hypothesis that chemical combination was due to electric attractions between the electric charges carried by chemical atoms. The notion, however, that electricity is atomic in structure was definitely put forward by Hermann von Helmholtz in a well-known Faraday lecture.
Berzelius described as one of the most remarkable memoirs in the history of chemical theory.
As soon as he was able to work again he attempted to obtain the metals of the alkaline earths by the same methods as he had used for those of the fixed alkalis, but they eluded his efforts and he only succeeded in preparing them as amalgams with mercury, by a process due to Berzelius.
Berzelius from an analysis of the chloride gave values from 79.2 to 79.35.
Frederick Slare noticed that the luminosity increased when the air was rarefied, an observation confirmed by Hawksbee and Homberg, and which was possibly the basis of Berzelius's theory that the luminosity depended on the volatility of the element and not on the presence of oxygen.
The atomic weight of phosphorus was determined by Berzelius, Pelouze, Jacquelin, Dumas, Schrotter, Brodie and van der Plaats.
Hofmann and Muspratt, and they adopted the name toluol (anglicized to toluene), which was proposed by Berzelius.
Berzelius, which at the time his work began were widely accepted as the true theory of the constitution of compound bodies, and opposed a unitary view to the dualistic conception of the Swedish chemist.
Wenzel by Berzelius through a mistake which was only corrected in 1841 by Germain Henri Hess (1802-1850), professor of chemistry at St Petersburg, and author of "the laws of constant heat-sums and of thermoneutrality" (see Thermochemistry).
A great advance was made by Dalton, who, besides introducing simpler symbols, regarded the symbol as representing not only the element or compound but also one atom of that element or compound; in other words, his symbol denoted equivalent weights.4 This system, which permitted the correct representation of molecular composition, was adopted by Berzelius in 1814, who, having replaced the geometric signs of Dalton by the initial letter (or letters) of the Latin names of the elements, represented a compound by placing a plus sign between the symbols of its components, and the number of atoms of each component (except in the case of only one atom) by placing Arabic numerals before the symbols; for example, copper oxide was Cu +0, sulphur trioxide S+30.
His terminology was vague and provoked caustic criticism from Berzelius; he assumed that all molecules contained two atoms, and consequently the atomic weights deduced from vapour density determinations of sulphur, mercury, arsenic, and phosphorus were quite different from those established by gravimetric and other methods.
The development of the atomic theory and its concomitants - the laws of chemical combination and the notion of atoms and equivalents - at the hands of Dalton and Berzelius, the extension to the modern theory of the atom and molecule, and to atomic and molecular weights by Avogadro, Ampere, Dumas, Laurent, Gerhardt, Cannizzaro and others, have been noted.
Berzelius immediately appreciated the importance of this discovery, notwithstanding 1 The reader is specially referred to the articles Alizarin; Indigo; Purin and Terpenes for illustrations of the manner in which chemists have artificially prepared important animal and vegetable products.
More emphatic opposition to the dualistic theory of Berzelius was hardly possible; this illustrious chemist perceived that the validity of his electrochemical theory was called in question, and therefore he waged vigorous war upon Dumas and his followers.
The formulation of the atomic theory by John Dalton gave a fresh impetus to the development of quantitative analysis; and the determination of combining or equivalent weights by Berzelius led to the perfecting of the methods of gravimetric analysis.
In his researches, Roscoe showed that the atomic weight of the metal as determined by Berzelius and the formulae given to the oxides were incorrect, and pointed out that the element falls into its natural place in group V of the periodic classification along with phosphorus and arsenic, and not in the chromium group where it had originally been placed.