scholarly journals Contributions to the chemical history of the compounds of palladium and platinum

1843 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 379-380
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Caustic Potash ◽  
Double Salts ◽  
Basic Carbonate ◽  
History Of ◽  
Chemical History ◽  
Series Of Experiments ◽  
True Basic ◽  
Hydrated Oxide ◽  
Palladium Platinum

The author states it to be his object, in this and in some subsequent papers, to examine specially the composition and properties of the compounds of palladium, platinum, and gold; and to ascertain how far they agree, and in what they differ, as to the laws of combination to which these compounds are subjected. He commences with the investigation of the compounds of palladium, employing for that purpose a portion of that metal with which he was furnished by the Royal Society out of the quantity bequeathed to the Society by the late Dr. Wollaston. He describes the mode of obtaining the protoxide of palladium, and enters into the analysis of the hydrated oxide, the black suboxide, and the true basic carbonate of that metal; detailing their properties and the formulae which express their mode of composition. The chlorides of palladium form the next subject of inquiry; and the author concludes from his experiments that the loss of chlorine which the protochloride undergoes, when kept for some time in a state of fusion at a red heat, is perfectly definite; and also that the loss represents one half of the chlorine which the salt contains. But in the double salts formed by the protochloride of palladium with the chlorides of the alkaline metals, he finds that the similarity of constitution usually occurring between the compounds of ammonium and potassium is violated. From his analysis of the oxychloride of palladium the author concludes that it is quite analogous to the ordinary oxychloride of copper. He then examines a variety of products derived from the action of a solution of caustic potash on solutions of ammonia-chlorides of potassium. Their properties he finds to indicate analogies between palladium and other metals, whose laws of combination are better known. The sulphate, the ammonia-sulphates, the nitrates, and the ammonia-nitrates of palladium, and lastly, the double oxalate of palladium and ammonium, are, in like manner, subjected to examination in a detailed series of experiments. The second section of the paper relates to the compounds of platinum, and comprehends researches on the composition of the protochloride of platinum; on the action of ammonia on biniodide of platinum; and on the action of ammonia on the perchloride of platinum; in which the properties of these substances are detailed and the formulae expressing their composition deduced.

XV. Contributions to the chemical history of palladium and platinum

1842 ◽  
Vol 132 ◽  
pp. 275-308
Keyword(s):  
Inorganic Chemistry ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Noble Metals ◽  
The State ◽  
History Of ◽  
Chemical History ◽  
Object Of Study ◽  
Palladium Platinum

Notwithstanding the attention which has been paid to the properties of the noble metals by the chemists who have made their compounds an object of study, their history is yet very far from the state of completeness, to which so many departments of inorganic chemistry have recently been brought. The researches hitherto made have had for their objects generally, either the more direct or certain extraction of the metal from the state of combination in which it naturally exists, or the examination of some few compounds, which were remarkable for their beauty or facility of production, or important from their applications. But the general history of these metals has as yet been but imperfectly studied, as may be seen by reference to the meagre account of their salts and other compounds, which even the most extended systematic works present. It is my object in this and in some subsequent papers, to examine specially into the composition and properties of the compounds of palladium, platinum, and gold, and to endeavour to ascertain how far they agree, and in what they differ, as to the laws of combination to which these compounds are subjected. As this paper may be considered but as the commencement of this work, the general bearings of which may change according to the progress of our knowledge, I shall not attempt to give to it any systematic form, or to arrange the bodies to be described in any order or classification, except that all the compounds of the same metal will in each memoir be described together. It is my duty, at this moment, to express my sincere gratitude and thanks to the Council of the Royal Society, which most kindly placed in my hands, for the purposes of these investigations, a portion of the palladium that had been bequeathed to the Society by its illustrious discoverer, to be used in the advancement of science. Should the results I have obtained, in endeavouring to extend and render more accurate our knowledge of the compounds of that remarkable metal, appear such as to justify that appropriation, for which when made I feel I had little claim, I shall be fully rewarded for the time and labour they have required, and use my best efforts to extend them by subsequent researches.

scholarly journals X. An investigation on the chemical nature of wax

1848 ◽  
Vol 138 ◽  
pp. 147-158
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Chemical Nature ◽  
The Body ◽  
Remarkable Change ◽  
Vegetable Products ◽  
History Of ◽  
Chemical History ◽  
Von Liebig ◽  
The Way

In the summer of 1845, while studying at Giessen, in the laboratory of Professor von Liebig, I undertook, at the request of that distinguished chemist, the analysis of certain waxes which were the results of an experiment made by Herr Gundlach of Cassel, of feeding bees upon different kinds of sugar. It is not my intention to give those analyses here, and I mention them now only for the purpose of stating that it was this circumstance which first turned my attention to the inquiry of which I now offer the results to the Royal Society, and that it was in Professor von Liebig’s laboratory that this investigation was begun. Various chemists have before me undertaken a similar inquiry. The chemical history of a substance so abundant in nature and so useful to man as wax was always a curious question. Of late it has acquired a peculiar interest from our knowledge, derived from repeated experiments, that wax is formed in the organs of the bee, and that in the body of that insect that remarkable change of sugar into wax takes place, the knowledge of the true conditions of which would, we may hope, throw light upon the formation of fatty bodies, and on the way by which out of vegetable products the continual repair of the animal structure is effected. The first step to such a knowledge must be the accurate study of the chemical nature of those substances which are thus produced.

Thanato-Laboratorien. Theorien von Tod und Sterben und Elias Canettis Buch gegen den Tod

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-86
Author(s):  
Elisabeth Heyne
Keyword(s):  
Human Life ◽  
Death And Dying ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Visual Images ◽  
Elias Canetti ◽  
History Of ◽  
Series Of Experiments ◽  
First Time ◽  
Textual Form ◽  
Or History

AbstractAlthough visual culture of the 21th century increasingly focuses on representation of death and dying, contemporary discourses still lack a language of death adequate to the event shown by pictures and visual images from an outside point of view. Following this observation, this article suggests a re-reading of 20th century author Elias Canetti. His lifelong notes have been edited and published posthumously for the first time in 2014. Thanks to this edition Canetti's short texts and aphorisms can be focused as a textual laboratory in which he tries to model a language of death on experimental practices of natural sciences. The miniature series of experiments address the problem of death, not representable in discourses of cultural studies, system theory or history of knowledge, and in doing so, Canetti creates liminal texts at the margins of western concepts of (human) life, science and established textual form.

George Gabriel Stokes

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Fluid Dynamics ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
Mathematical Analysis ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Science And Religion ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
Public Servant ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Many ◽  
Natural Philosophers

George Gabriel Stokes was one of the most significant mathematicians and natural philosophers of the nineteenth century. Serving as Lucasian professor at Cambridge he made wide-ranging contributions to optics, fluid dynamics and mathematical analysis. As Secretary of the Royal Society he played a major role in the direction of British science acting as both a sounding board and a gatekeeper. Outside his own area he was a distinguished public servant and MP for Cambridge University. He was keenly interested in the relation between science and religion and wrote extensively on the matter. This edited collection of essays brings together experts in mathematics, physics and the history of science to cover the many facets of Stokes’s life in a scholarly but accessible way.

scholarly journals XIV. On the absorption of gases by solids

1881 ◽  
Vol 32 (212-215) ◽  
pp. 407-408
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Hydraulic Press ◽  
Careful Examination ◽  
Solid Matter ◽  
Chemical Action ◽  
High Pressure And Temperature ◽  
Solid Iron ◽  
Series Of Experiments ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Very High

During the progress of the investigations which I have from time to time had the honour of bringing under the notice of the Royal Society, I have again and again noticed the apparent disappearance of gases inclosed in vessels of various materials when the disappearance could not be accounted for upon the assumption of ordinary leakage. After a careful examination of the subject I found that the solids absorbed or dissolved the gases, giving rise to a striking example of the fixation of a gas in a solid without chemical action. In carrying out that most troublesome investigation, the crystalline separation of carbon from its compounds, the tubes used for experiment have been in nine cases out of ten found to be empty on opening them, and in most cases a careful testing by hydraulic press showed no leakage. The gases seemed to go through the solid iron, although it was 2 inches thick. A series of experiments with various linings were tried. The tube was electro-plated with copper, silver, and gold, but with no greater success. Siliceous linings were tried fusible enamels and glass—but still the' tubes refused to hold the contents. Out of thirty-four experiments made since my last results were published, only four contained any liquid or condensed gaseous matter after the furnacing. I became convinced that the solid matter at the very high pressure and temperature used must be pervious to gases.

Hooke recommemorated

1996 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 139-140
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Domestic Life ◽  
Robert Hooke ◽  
Arts And Sciences ◽  
Personal Interaction ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Christ Church ◽  
History Of

Richard Nichols, The Diaries of Robert Hooke, The Leonardo of London, 1635-1703 . Lewes, Sussex: The Book Guild, 1994, Pp. 185, £15.00. ISBN 0- 86332-930-6. Richard Nichols is a science master turned historian of science who celebrates in this book Robert Hooke’s contributions to the arts and sciences. The appreciation brings together comments from Hooke’s Diaries , and other works, on each of his main enterprises, and on his personal interaction with each of his principal friends and foes. Further references to Hooke and his activities are drawn from Birch’s History of the Royal Society, Aubrey’s Brief Lives , and the Diaries of Evelyn and of Pepys. The first section of the book, ‘Hooke the Man’, covers his early years of education at home in Freshwater, at Westminster school and at Christ Church, Oxford, where he soon joined the group of experimental philosophers who set him up as Curator of the Royal Society and Professor of Geometry at Gresham College, Bishopsgate. Hooke’s domestic life at Gresham College is described - his intimate relationships with a series of housekeepers, including his niece, Grace Hooke, and his social life at the College and in the London coffee houses.

W. T. Astbury and Ross G. Harrison: the search for the molecular determination of form in the developing embryo

1980 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 195-219 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Limb Bud ◽  
Amphibian Embryo ◽  
X Ray ◽  
Biological Phenomena ◽  
Biology I ◽  
Series Of Experiments ◽  
Molecular Patterns ◽  
Molecular Determination

Amongst the Fellows elected to the Royal Society in 1941 were W. T. Astbury for his studies using X-ray analysis to study the structures of natural fibres, and amongst the Foreign Members elected that year was Ross G. Harrison for his contributions to embryology. Astbury and Harrison were very different in temperament, and worked in very different fields on either side of the Atlantic, yet they were united in their approach to the study of biological phenomena. Both Astbury and Harrison believed that the organization and form of biological materials whether wool fibres or the limb-bud in an amphibian embryo depended on molecular structure and pattern. Moreover both were concerned with dynamic aspects of form; Astbury’s greatest achievement was to demonstrate the dynamic, reversible folding and stretching of proteins in the k-m-e-f group, and Harrison looked to changing molecular patterns to account for changing symmetries in the developing embryo. It was this common approach that brought them together and led to Harrison spending a brief month in Leeds where they and K. M. Rudall performed what have been described as ‘truly progressive experiments in molecular biology’. I believe this short series of experiments illuminates the character and work of both Harrison and Astbury and illustrates the difficulties, practical and conceptual, in carrying out ‘progressive experiments’. I shall begin by reviewing briefly the embryological background of the time before going on to discuss in detail the approaches of Harrison and Astbury to their work and the outcome of their collaboration.

The Royal Society’s first rejection of the kinetic theory of gases (1821), John Herapath versus Humphry Davy

1963 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-180 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Kinetic Theory ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Kinetic Theory Of Gases ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Important Distinction ◽  
Mathematical Inquiry ◽  
History Of ◽  
Humphry Davy ◽  
Apparent Similarity ◽  
Caloric Theory

On 24 May 1820 a manuscript entitled ‘A Mathematical Inquiry into the Causes, Laws and Principal Phenomena of Heat, Gases, Gravitation, etc.’ was submitted to Davies Gilbert for publication in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society . The author was John Herapath (1790-1868), and his article included a comprehensive (if somewhat faulty) exposition of the kinetic theory of gases. Sir Humphry Davy, who assumed the Presidency of the Royal Society on 30 November 1820, became primarily responsible for the fate of the article and wrote several letters to Herapath concerning it. After it became clear that there was considerable opposition to its publication by the Royal Society, Herapath withdrew the article and sent it instead to the Annals of Philosophy , where it appeared in 1821 (1). Herapath’s theory received little notice from scientists until thirty-five years later, when the kinetic theory was revived by Joule, Krönig, Clausius, and Maxwell. The incident is significant in the history of physical science because it illustrates an important distinction between the two doctrines concerning the nature of heat—the kinetic and the vibration theories—a distinction which is often forgotten because of the apparent similarity of both doctrines as contrasted with the caloric theory. It also throws some light on the character of early nineteenth century British science, both in and out of the Royal Society.

Recording the Aloes at Chelsea - a singular solution to a difficult problem

1996 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-57
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Singular Solution ◽  
Difficult Problem ◽  
General Series ◽  
History Of

In the Royal Society archives there is a collection of drawings of Aloes and other plants, made by two of the great botanical artists of the eighteenth century - Georg Dionysius Ehret and Jacob van Huysum. Although the Manuscripts General Series Catalogue records this manuscript only as a ‘Volume of 35 botanical paintings by Georg Dionysius Ehret’ of unknown provenance, the manuscript catalogue of the Arundel and other manuscripts, said to be the work of Jonas Dryander (1748-1810), provides the first clue linking these drawings to the two artists, and to the important collection of Aloes growing at that time in the Society of Apothecaries Physic Garden at Chelsea'. The history of the commissioning of the drawings is told briefly in the Journal Books of the Royal Society, and in the Minutes of Council, but the significance of these lovely and important drawings has been almost completely overlooked.

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