Questions tagged [chemistry]
For questions about the study of chemical reactions, dynamics and related phenomena
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Why are the terms electrophile/nucleophile used? Are they not identical to Lewis acids/bases?
My understanding is that the above pairs of terms are identical in definition, indicating acceptors/donors of an electron pair. So, why are both used?
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Who was the inventor of the 18-electron rule?
According to Wikipedia, the first person who proposed 18-electron rule was American chemist Irving Langmuir, but the rule is widely known by the name Sidgwick's rule. I cannot find any information ...
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A brief history of "delocalization" of electrons
I have been studying the concepts of "resonance" and "mesomerism" recently and a common principle of these concepts is the "delocalization" (of electrons, molecular ...
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Were molecules called atoms in the 19th century?
E.g. a quote from Justus von Liebig, 17th Chemical Letter, 1858, in German:
Wir können ein Stück Zucker, auch wenn wir es noch so fein reiben, nicht flüssig machen, noch viel weniger können wir durch ...
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History and origin of the Iso-, Sec-, Tert- and Neo- prefixes?
I have studied the prefixes "Iso-", "Sec-", "Tert-" and "Neo-" for a long time in chemistry but wonder where they originate from i.e. where is the place (the ...
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What is the history of the classification of states of matter?
In my school curriculum, and in many standard presentations such as Wikipedia, it is claimed that there are four fundamental states of matter: solids, liquids, gases, and plasmas. How was this list ...
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How do we know Hennig Brand's name?
The story of Hennig Brand discovering the element phosphorous is often repeated without citation, and there doesn't seem to be much scholarship about Brand in particular (although the history of the ...
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Kekulé and his discovery of benzene
“I was sitting writing at my textbook, but the work did not progress; my thoughts were elsewhere. I turned my chair to the fire, and dozed. Again the atoms were gamboling before my eyes. This time the ...
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How did the concept of pH originate and develop?
Background & My research
To begin I did some research to find a few articles on the history of pH namely "The Symbol for pH"- William B. Jensen, "One-Hundred Years of pH" - ...
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In JJ Thomson's cathode ray experiment I need values for the electric field and magnetic field when net force on the cathode beam = 0
I asked here as well https://chemistry.stackexchange.com/questions/177889/in-jj-thomsons-cathode-ray-experiment-why-is-effects-of-gravity-on-electron-not
https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/...
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A summary of Major events in Pre-Modern Atomist Philosophy of Chemistry [closed]
When I started learning about Laws related to "constant proportions" and other hypothesis like "all matter is composed of smallest indivisible particles", I didn't notice it was ...
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What substances from the body did Boyle try when attempting to produce phosphorus?
According to Wikipedia, Hennig Brand discovered phosphorous. Later, Robert Boyle desired to replicate Brand's discovery, but didn't know that urine was used - only that it involved something that &...
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Is there info on how Mayans invented hard rubber?
I know they had balls from the rubber trees mixed with morning glory flowers. A technology that was lost when the European colonizers came. But was there any info on who made this discovery and how?
user18836
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What values of Avogadro's Number did Jean Perrin come up with?
I am currently plundering the contents of the $1969$ reprint of the 2nd edition of Data and Formulae for Engineering Students published by Pergamon International (authors J.C. Anderson, D.M. Hum, B.G. ...
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What is the iodine fax process mentioned in Vannevar Bush's "As we may think"?
What is the iodine fax process mentioned in Vannevar Bush's "As we may think"?
Another process now in use is also slow, and more or less clumsy. For fifty years impregnated papers have been ...
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First time equilibrium notation was used
I was wondering when was the first time that a chemist wrote a chemical equilibrium with the $\rightleftharpoons$ symbol. And if it was before or after Arrhenius's dissociation theory.
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Are there substances that were initially thought to be elements but are actually compounds?
I am wondering what are good examples of substances that were initially thought to be elements but then were found out to be compounds. How exactly were these substances found to be compounds?
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Were scientific discoveries ever inspired by art?
We can often see art that is influenced by science, be it in paintings, music, novels or movies. But has any idea from the arts ever influenced a scientist to come up with a new discovery or idea?
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When was the hydrogen's absolute mass found first in history?
When was hydrogen's absolute mass i.e, in Kg, was found for the first time.
What method was used and what information from earlier researches were used for it?
Also was there any method at that time ...
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How did Thomson claim that charge on hydrogen ion was equal to charge on electron without knowing charge on electron?
From "The Electron" by J. J. Thomson, published in The Scientific Monthly Vol. 20, No. 2 (Feb., 1925), pp. 113-115
https://www.jstor.org/stable/7115
[Continued discussion] previously ...
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Were oxocarbons other than carbon monoxide/dioxide always classified as organic compounds?
The simplest and most common oxocarbons are carbon monoxide (CO) and carbon dioxide (CO2). The general consensus is that they are inorganic (see: Is carbon dioxide organic or inorganic?). The other ...
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How and when did scientists first determine that hydrogen was the lightest element?
Cavendish first isolated hydrogen and recognized it for what it was; Lavoisier realized that water consisted of hydrogen and oxygen; Dalton used hydrogen as the basis for relative atomic weights by ...
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Naturally occurring elements in other planets and their natural satellites other than earth [closed]
Naturally occurring elements
Is it possible to find natural elements in other planets and their natural satellites other than planet earth?
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Who coined the term "sulphuretted hydrogen"?
Hydrogen sulfide was previously named "sulphuretted hydrogen" but I can't find the person who named/coined it. Although Carl Wilhelm Scheele is credited to have discovered and isolated the ...
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When Was The Leidenfrost Effect First Demonstrated By Touching Molten Metal?
The Leidenfrost Effect is a described as follows on Wikipedia:
The Leidenfrost effect is a physical phenomenon in which a liquid,
close to a surface that is significantly hotter than the liquid's
...
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When was the term "Sparingly soluble" first introduced in chemistry?
This question is inspired from: Why do we call salts such as AgCl sparingly soluble?
The extent of solubility can be expressed as descriptive terms. U.S. Pharmacopoeia has made the following ...
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How did they explain the radiation from hot objects at different wavelengths before the concept of atom was widely accepted?
I was reading about blackbody radiation and came across the following quote.
Planck did not believe in atoms, nor did he think the second law of
thermodynamics should be statistical because ...
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When was the geometric structure of a water molecule discovered?
How and when was water the structure of a water molecule (specifically the angles) discovered?
Was it discovered by using a specific type of spectroscopy?
I know you can derive these angles ...
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What molecule's models might Linus Pauling be holding up in this photo? Perhaps something akin to pentagonal dodecahedrane, or could they be viruses?
The Chemistry SE question What dodecahedral molecule is Linus Pauling likely holding in this photograph? Does it have 40 carbon atoms? begins:
The video Quasicrystals ; Prof. Daniel Shechtman ; Nobel ...
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Element classification by Döbereiner and Newland (law of octaves)
I have been recently studying periodic classification. I am having some confusion regarding old periodic classification.
Newland's law of octaves
In that you can see, in the 4th horizontal line, ...
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Were Michael Sendivogius findings in Chemistry considered by him to be Alchemy?
According to Michael Sendivogius
Michael Sendivogius (/ˌsɛndɪˈvoʊdʒiəs/; Polish: Michał Sędziwój; 2
February 1566 – 1636) was a Polish alchemist, philosopher, and medical
doctor.
A pioneer of ...
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Did the medieval Islamic scholar al-Tusi state the principle of conservation of mass?
This article: Farid Alakbarli, A 13th-Century Darwin? Tusi's Views on Evolution, Azerbaijan International (2001) claims that Nasir al-Din al-Tusi (13th century) stated an early version of the law of ...
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History of word gram-atom / gram-molecule?
The terms "gram-atom / gram-molecule" are obsolete nowadays in chemistry and got replaced by the concept of "mole/ Avogadro Number". But recently, I encountered a question that can ...
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What rule or rules did Madelung discover, exactly?
There are two widely used rules of thumb to determine which subshells are filled in a neutral atom in its ground state:
Electrons are assigned to subshells in order of increasing value of $n + \ell$.
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Why didn't Boyle made a correlation between V and T of a gas (and similarly between P and T)?
I was just reading about The Gas Laws of Boyle, Charles and Avogadro from a general college book Chemistry (7th edition, Zumdahl&Zumdahl).
Boyle was the one who discovered a correlation between ...
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What books did Lavoisier read?
I am interested in Antoine Lavoisier's intellectual formation/background.
Is there any available list of the books which Antoine Lavoisier read, especially ones on science/mathematics/philosophy (even ...
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What is the evidence for the existence of Geber?
In an unrelated question, some users started arguing about the existence of Geber (Jabir ibn Hayyan - جابر بن حيّان) from 806−816 AD and pseudo-Geber (probably from 13th-14th century). This ...
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When was mercury given its name?
The Wikipedia page for mercury says that it was named after the Roman god because of his speed and mobility. When did the name mercury start to be used to designate the metal?
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Books on history of biochemistry
I am looking for books on the history of biochemistry. Searching online there are some short articles that can be found, which just mention a few highlights, but I haven't really found more ...
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Did tobacco smoke confound the results of an experiment by entering a reaction with the subject of study?
I dimly remember watching a popular sciencie movie that mentioned an experiment conducted by a pair of great physisicists (Einstein was one of them, unless my memory is playing tricks on me) that had ...
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How did Meyer know atomic volumes to plot them just before Mendeleev's periodic table?
Back to 1868, Mendeleev's periodic table has not been published yet, but we are quite there.
As a scientist, you're still struggling to identify very clearly these elements with limited means.
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How is it possible that Pierre and Marie Curie's daughter Ève was so healthy?
I know that problems caused by radiation are pretty much random and unexpected at low levels of exposition but this randomness begins to be more probable when the exposition grows and this makes me ...
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How did Faraday determine the Faraday's constant?
Here is the reference. I'm wondering how he experimentally proceeded to derive the fact the if we pass 96485 Coulombs through a solution, then 1 gram equivalent of substance is electrolyzed.
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When was nicotine identified as an addictive substance?
I was watching a TV series (Godless) which is set in the Wild West in 1884. At some point they sing Don't forget the girls of LaBelle, which includes the following verses:
The Creole girl is a one-...
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Did C.S Peirce make any noteworthy contributions to physics or chemistry?
According to this article
Peirce was the first to experimentally tie a unit, the meter, to an
absolute standard, the wavelength of a spectral line
Did C.S Peirce make any other noteworthy ...
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Fritz Haber and nitrogen fixing: Was there a movement to increase the population?
I read a dramatic statistic something like 3 out of 5 living humans owe their existence to food that could be grown due to Haber's work. But was there a time when anyone said, we need to be able to ...
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Was the wide use of mercury in experiments in the 19th century related to alchemy?
We know that Newton's hair samples showed high level of mercury and of course he used mercury like crazy in his alchemy experiments (as did many/all alchemists not just in the west but also China) and ...
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Was Joseph Priestley "isolated"
Joseph Priestley is often said to have discovered Oxygen, or not due to calling it Dephlogisticated air - depending on one's preference. However, regardless of this, it is often said in popular ...
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Who was the first to weigh chemical reaction products?
It is said that Lavoisier and Lomonosov both discovered that the cumulated mass of reactants is conserved. My question is simple: who (and when) started weighing chemical products before and after ...
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When did stoichiometry begin to be taught in U.S. high schools?
Stoichiometry, "the quantitative relationship between two or more substances especially in processes involving physical or chemical change" (Merriam-Webster), is currently a major part of the U.S. ...
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