scholarly journals XXVII. The Bakerian Lecture. On the relations of electrical and chemical changes

1826 ◽  
Vol 116 ◽  
pp. 383-422 ◽  

A long time has elapsed since I read before this Society the Bakerian Lecture on the Chemical Agencies of Electricity. The general laws of decomposition developed in that Paper were immediately illustrated by some practical results, which the Society did me the honour to receive in a very favourable manner; and which, by offering a class of new and powerful agents, led me away for many years into a field of pure chemical enquiry: and it is only lately, and on an occasion which is well known, that I have again taken up the subject of the general principles of electro-chemical action. After a number of new experiments, which I shall have the pleasure of laying before the Society, and notwithstanding the various novel views which have been brought forward in this and in other countries, and the great activity and extension of science, it is peculiarly satisfactory to me to find that I have nothing to alter in the fundamental theory laid down in my original communication; and which, after a lapse of twenty years, has continued, as it was in the beginning, the guide and foundation of all my researches. I am the more inclined to bring forward these new labours at the present moment, though they are far from being in a finished state, because the discovery of Oersted and that of Morichini, illustrated by some late ingenious enquiries, connect the electro-chemical changes with entirely new classes of facts, and induce a hope that many of the complicated phenomena of corpuscular changes, now obscure, will ultimately be found to depend upon the same causes, and to be governed by the same laws; and that the simplicity of our scientific arrangements will increase with every advance in the true knowledge of nature.

Author(s):  
İnan Keser ◽  
Nimet Keser

For about a hundred and fifty years, it has been continuously expressed that art has been facing a deadly crisis and this crisis roots itself from the reality that there exists no concrete answer to the question of ‘what is art’. However related with the non-existence of consensus on what art is, it’s nothing more than a weak understanding to claim that it is impossible to talk about art. Thus, it can be acknowledged that the continuous repetition of the question of ‘what is art’ and non-existence of consensus on this subject is a clear proof of existence of a sharp struggle in art; and the state of non-consensus and historical continuity of the struggle can be acknowledged as the main source of dynamism of art. For this reason, in this study, it is acknowledged that non-existence of a concrete definition of art is a historical incident; and this controversial state about what art is and calling it the crisis of art itself was made the subject of a sociological analysis. In this analysis, it is concluded that; the actual crisis is not the crisis of art but that of aesthetics’; and that this crisis roots itself from the replacement of aesthetics regime (which dominated art for a very long time) with the non-aesthetic ‘artist regime’ in the beginning of 20th century and the nonfunctioning of aesthetics by this new regime. Keywords: art, sociology of art, aesthetics, art regime, artistic change.


The special object of this paper is to show, first, that sugar is not constituted of carbon and water only; secondly, that during the vinous fermentation water is decomposed; thirdly, that neither pure carbonic acid nor alcohol is, in the common acceptation of the term, the product of this chemical action; and fourthly, that fermented liquors owe some of their valuable qualities to peculiar products formed during fermentation. In order to trace the various chemical changes which occur in this part of his research, the author has had recourse to numerous experiments, the details of which are recorded in tabular forms. The first table exhibits the analysis of different kinds of sugar, honey, treacle, grape-juice and extract of malt and hops, the general result of which is that all these compounds contain oxygen in excess above the proportion in which it exists in water, and that they also contain a small quantity of nitrogen. He shows, by two independent modes of experimenting, that these bodies, when in solution, cannot be the only compounds undergoing decomposition during that fermentation, which has for its product spirit and carbonic acid; and in proof of this proposition he recapitulates the different elements in the compounds at the commencement and at the conclusion of the experiments. He finds that when the proximate elements are made the subject of calculation, the weight of the alcohol (constituted of two equivalents of carbon, three of hydrogen and one of oxygen) added to that of the carbonic acid and undecomposed sugar, exceeds the weight of the sugar employed by about 7 per cent. On recapitulating the ultimate elements, he finds that the hydrogen and the oxygen in the compounds after the fermentation exceed their quantity in the sugar experimented upon, by 15 per cent, of the former, and nearly 14 per cent, of the latter; and as a proof that no material error is occasioned by the mode of experimenting, it is found that the difference between the quantity of carbon at the first and at the last is very small.


1981 ◽  
Vol 20 (03) ◽  
pp. 169-173
Author(s):  
J. Wagner ◽  
G. Pfurtscheixer

The shape, latency and amplitude of changes in electrical brain activity related to a stimulus (Evoked Potential) depend both on the stimulus parameters and on the background EEG at the time of stimulation. An adaptive, learnable stimulation system is introduced, whereby the subject is stimulated (e.g. with light), whenever the EEG power is subthreshold and minimal. Additionally, the system is conceived in such a way that a certain number of stimuli could be given within a particular time interval. Related to this time criterion, the threshold specific for each subject is calculated at the beginning of the experiment (preprocessing) and adapted to the EEG power during the processing mode because of long-time fluctuations and trends in the EEG. The process of adaptation is directed by a table which contains the necessary correction numbers for the threshold. Experiences of the stimulation system are reflected in an automatic correction of this table. Because the corrected and improved table is stored after each experiment and is used as the starting table for the next experiment, the system >learns<. The system introduced here can be used both for evoked response studies and for alpha-feedback experiments.


2002 ◽  
Vol 96 (4) ◽  
pp. 879-880
Author(s):  
David Goldfischer

As Michael O'Hanlon concludes in his excellent contribution to Rockets' Red Glare: “We should…get used to the debate over ballistic missile defenses. It has been around a long time, and no final resolution is imminent” (p. 132). In one sense, a review of these three recent books makes clear that many analysts had grown a bit too used to positioning themselves in terms of the 1972 ABM Treaty. Preoccupied with arguments over whether the treaty should be preserved, modified, or rewritten in light of a changing strategic and technological context, no one seemed to have anticipated that President George W. Bush would simply withdraw from it, invoking Article XV's provision that either party could withdraw if “extraordinary events related to the subject matter of this Treaty have jeopardized its supreme interests.” Even many strategic defense supporters who deemed the treaty obsolete (as Robert Joseph persuasively maintains in his contribution to Rockets' Red Glare) generally believed that it should only—and would only—be scrapped if negotiations over U.S.-proposed changes broke down. (“The Bush Administration,” surmises O'Hanlon, “will surely try very hard to amend it before going to such an extreme”) (p. 112). In the event, the president's team disavowed even the word “negotiation,” saying they were willing only to “consult” the Russians regarding the treaty's impending demise.


2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-40
Author(s):  
Faiha Fairouz ◽  
Rumana Rashid ◽  
Abdullah Abu Sayeed

Background: Snakebite is an old health problem in rural areas. In Bangladesh, the snakebite issue is included in school syllabus, in curriculum since long time, so that people can take/get immediate first aid treatment and can prevent snakebite. The success of snakebite treatment depends more on providing first aid treatment immediately after snakebite by learning and by sending the patients quickly to hospital. Snakebite is a preventable health problem indeed. If it can be prevented the rate of snakebite will also decrease. In the recently published snake bite management Guideline by WHO it has been targeted to reduce 50% of mortality & disability due to snakebite by 2030.1 Methods: a. The snakebite topic or issue has been thoroughly reviewed in the secondary and higher secondary school books. b. National Guidelines on snakebite in providing/ giving first aid treatment has been reviewed.2 c. The correlation between the topic to learn the subject and the national guidelines have been reviewed and given taken into account. d. The similarity or correlation between the national guidelines and the topic in the prevention of snakebite in the book have been observed & reviewed. It was a descriptive/narrative research study. Results: In the book of class IV in Primary and Secondary level students, ‘Elementary Science, (‘Prathomiik Bigghan’) page no. 86 and in book of class VIII Home Science (‘Gharjhastha Biggan’) page no. 16 the Snakebite issue/topic is mentioned.2,3 There are 22 information on the first aid/primary treatment of Snakebite among which 5 (five) are nonscientific rather harmful. (Table & Picture) Bangladesh J Medicine Jan 2020; 31(1) : 39-40


1881 ◽  
Vol 32 (212-215) ◽  
pp. 407-408

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.


1984 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Ombres

By the 1230s Latins and Greeks were riot short of issues for debate or polemic, but the topic of purgatory did have a novel feel about it. The doctrine seems to emerge on the common agenda fairly suddenly, finding no place, for example, in the wide-ranging list of 104 points of divergence drawn up by the Byzantine prelate, Constantine Stilbès, in the wake of the cruel sack of Constantinople by the Latins in 1204. The subject did, however, establish itself as a hardy perennial, and it is proposed to trace its main ramifications up to the death of Emperor Michael viii in 1282, and then to concentrate on the Council of Ferrara–Florence (1438–9). Without a doubt the debates and the constant attempts at reunion were not conducted in isolation from wider cultural, political and military considerations, the kind of considerations that in 1400 would lead the Byzantine emperor to journey as far as England. But here the emphasis will fall on the theological aspects. Moreover, there were also in play forces of inertia, ignorance and mutual incomprehension difficult to assess rationally. The thirteenth-century friar, Humbert of Romans O.P., in discussing what would make for reunion with the Greeks noted how a schism might be continued simply because it had existed for a long time, just like the feud between Guelf and Ghibelline.


2014 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gualtiero Calboli

AbstractI started from the relative clause which occurs in Hittite, and in particular with the enclitic position of the relative pronoun. This is connected with the OV position and this position seems to have been prevailing in Hittite and PIE. The syntactic structure usually employed in Hittite between different clauses is the parataxis. Nevertheless, also the hypotaxis begins to be employed and the best occasion to use it was the diptych as suggested by Haudry, though he didn't consider the most natural and usual diptych: the law, where the crime and the sanction build a natural diptych already in old Hittite. Then I used Justus' and Boley's discussion on the structure of Hittite sentence and found a similarity with Latin, namely the use of an animate subject as central point of a sentence. With verbs of action in ancient languages the subject was normally an animate being, whereas also inanimate subject is employed in modern languages. This seems to be the major difference between ancient and modern structure of a sentence, or, better to say, in Hittite and PIE the subject was an animate being and this persisted a long time, and remained as a tendency in Latin, while in following languages and in classical grammar the subject became a simple nominal “entity” to be predicated and precised with verb and other linguistic instruments. A glance has been cast also to pronouns and particles (sometimes linked together) as instruments of linking nominal variants of coordinate or subordinate clauses and to the development of demonstrative/deictic pronouns. Also in ancient case theory a prevailing position was assured to the nominative case, the case of the subject.


1886 ◽  
Vol 3 (11) ◽  
pp. 481-489 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. J. H. Teall

If we take a general view of the present position of geological science, we are struck by the fact that, although there is substantial agreement amongst geologists on matters relating to the origin of the rocks usually designated as aqueous and igneous, the greatest diversity of opinion prevails with regard to the circumstances under which the so-called metamorphic rocks have been produced. Every fragment of evidence calculated to throw light on the origin of these rocks, therefore, deserves the most careful consideration. Of recent years special attention has been directed to the effects of mechanical energy in modifying the mineralogical and structural characters of rocks originally formed by aqueous and igneous agencies; and a suspicion has been aroused that it is in this direction that we must look for a solution of many of the problems connected with the origin of the crystalline schists. A visit to the Lizard Peninsula of Cornwall during the present summer has convinced me of the immense importance of this view so far as that district is concerned. That portion of the peninsula which lies south of a line drawn from Porthalla on the east to Polurrian Cove on the west is formed.partly of igneous rocks—such as gabbro, greenstone, serpentine, and granite—and partly of crystalline schists. The igneous rocks, in certain places, become foliated and sohistose and sometimes show a definite banding due to a variation in the relative proportions of the different constituents. In other words they present characters which are usually regarded as distinctive of the crystalline schists. There is, moreover, evidence to show that these characters are mainly the result of a yielding to earth-pressure subsequent to the consolidation of the original rock. At the present moment, having just returned from the district, I am unable to treat the subject from a general point of view with any prospect of success; but it has occurred to me that some details with regard to one of the rocks may not be without interest to members of the Association.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 455-461
Author(s):  
Peter Baumann ◽  

That knowledge is factive, that is, that knowledge that p requires that p, has for a long time typically been treated as a truism. Recently, however, some authors have raised doubts about and arguments against this claim. In a recent paper in this journal, Michael Shaffer presents new arguments against the denial of the factivity of knowledge. This article discusses one of Shaffer’s objections: the one from “inconsistency and explosion.” I discuss two potential replies to Shaffer’s problem: dialetheism plus paraconsistency and epistemic pluralism. This is not to be understood so much as a criticism of Shaffer’s view but rather as a request to develop his very promising objection from inconsistency and explosion further.


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