Davy medal

Successful theories typically both accommodate and predict. Most people, however, are more impressed by predictions than by accommodations. When Mendeleev produced a theory of the periodic table that accounted for all sixty [really sixty-two] known elements, the scientific community was only mildly impressed. When he went on to use his theory to predict the existence of two unknown elements that were then independently detected, the Royal Society awarded him its Davy Medal, . , Sixty accommodations paled next to two predictions, (Lipton, 1991, p, 134)... 

No one could deny, of course, that it is one thing for a theory to make predictions of the existence of hitherto unknown elements and quite another for it to make successful, empirically verified predictions. But neither Maher nor Lipton—nor, so far as we can see, anyone else—cites any substantial evidence for the sceptical attitude of Mendeleev s fellow scientists in 1869 or 1871 and the only evidence they cite for the increased confidence in the theory as a result of the successful predictions is the award to Mendeleev of the Davy Medal in 1882-— and this, as we show in the next sub-section, turns out to be (worse than) unconvincing. 

This again follows several popular accounts. For example, Asimov (1975) immediately follows his remark that Mendeleev was suddenly the most famous chemist in the world with (what we are presumably to take as evidence for this) The Royal Society awarded him the Davy medal in 1882 and other honors were showered on him. ... 

The Davy Medal has been awarded to Dimitri Ivanovich Mendeleeff and Lothar Meyer. 

We have already pointed out that Maher cites no historical evidence for this dramatically increased confidence beyond the award of the Davy Medal and we have shown that the citation for that award tells against his claim rather than for it. But what if—for all the lack of evidence—chemists at the time did regard the eventual discovery of germanium as a matter of course Would they have been wise to do so ... 

In addition, ft is by no means cleer that successful predictions were in bcl so decisive in the acceptance of the periodic tabic by the sciunllfic community in Mmddecv s era. For example, the Davy medal, which predates the Nobel Prize as the highest accolade in chords-try was jointly awarded to Mendeleev and Julius Lothar Meyer his leading compellor, who dkt not make aery predictions. Indeed, there is not even a mention of Mendeleev s predictions in the published speech that accompanied the joint award of the Davy prize. It therefore scons dial this prize was awarded for the manner in which the... 

Woodward was awarded the 1965 Nobel Prize in chemistry for his contributions in the field of chemical synthesis. He received many other awards also, including the Davy Medal (1959) and the Copley Medal (1978) of the Royal Society and the U.S. National Medal of Science (1964). He died of a heart attack in Cambridge on July 8,1979. 

Sir Humphry Davy, 1778—1829. Professor of chemistry and lecturer at the Royal Institution, London. Scientist, poet, and humanitarian. Donor of the Davy Medal. 

While in Germany, one can visit several sites from the life and career of Meyer. He shared the 1882 Davy Medal of the Royal Society (London) with Mendeleev for discovery of the periodic law. Today, Mendeleev is the first name associated with the discovery of the periodic law and invention of the periodic table. In most accounts, though, Meyer stands second. 

MendeMeff had made many enemies by his espousal of liberal movements. In 1880, the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences refused, in spite of very strong recommendations, to elect him member of its chemical section. His liberal tendencies were an abomination. But other and greater honors came to this sage. The University of Moscow promptly made him one of its honorary members. The Royal Society of England presented him with the Davy Medal which he shared with Lothar Meyer for the Periodic Classification of the Elements. 

Marie and Pierre complained. These are days when we scarcely have time to breathe, and to think that we dreamed of living in a world quite removed from human beings They wanted to be left alone, but it was of no avail. Letters, invitations, telegrams, visitors bothered and distracted them. The world clamored for the Curies. They must come out of their laboratory for a few hours at least. Kelvin, England s greatest scientist, personally invited them to come to London to receive the Davy Medal of the Royal Society. 

Gordon Stone (Fig. 7.15) received numerous awards including the Tilden, Mond and Frankland Lectureships as well as the Longstaff Medal from the Royal Society of Chemistry, and the Davy Medal from the Royal Society. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1976 and appointed Commander of... 

Government Grant Board. He received the Davy Medal of the Royal Society in 1948. For many years, he was a member of the select Royal Society Dining Club. Following the end of the 1939-1945 war, he continued his work for the Scientific Advisory Council of the Ministry of Supply, especially with the Chemical Engineering Committee. Fora period, he was a member of the Plants and Soils Committee of the Agricultural Research Council, and was a member of the Blackman Committee which reported on research and related matters for the natural-rubber industry. His work for the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (D.S.I.R., later the Science Research Council) was of special importance here, he served on the Studentships Committee and as Chairman of the Chemistry Sub-Committee, and, during 1950-1955, he served as Chairman of the Chemistry Research Board. For several years, he acted as D.S.I.R. visitor to the Jute Industries Research Association, Dundee, and he was for a time a member of the Forest Products Research Board. 

Albert Eschenmoser (b. 1925 in Erstfeld, Uri, Switzerland) is Professor, Emeritus (since 1992) of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich and a member of the Skaggs Institute for Chemical Biology at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California (since 1996). He received his Diploma and doctorate at the ETH in 1949 and 1951, respectively, and spent his career at the ETH. I mention only a few of his exceptionally large number of honors. He is a Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences of the U.S.A., a Foreign Member of the Royal Society (London), and a member of the Academia Europaea. He received the Robert A. Welch Award in Chemistry in 1974, the Davy Medal of the Royal Society in 1978, the Arthur C. Cope Award of the American Chemical Society in 1984, the Wolf Prize in Chemistry (Israel) in 1986, and the Paracelsus Prize of the Swiss Chemical Society in 1999. One of Professor Eschenmoser s latest publications reviews his recent interests [Eschenmoser, A. Chemical Etiology of Nucleic Acid Structure. Science 1999, 2S4, 2118-2124]. We recorded our conversation on September 6, 1999 at the ETH. ... 

Mendeleev s powerful insight. For many chemists, the periodic table was the last theoretical tool they needed, since the table made clear the framework of matter. There would be much more work done refining and adding data to the table over the next century, but the basic principles were set. The discovery of the missing elements and the addition of the noble gases confirmed the truth of the periodic law and the utility of the table. John Newlands, whose work had identified many of the periodic properties of the elements, was eventually awarded the Davy Medal by the Royal Society in 1887, and, in 1998, the Royal Society of Chemistry unveiled a plaque at his birthplace acknowledging his discovery of the periodic law. 

In 1902 he received the Davy Medal of the Royal Society and proposed a theory of immunology. The following year he was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry for his work that originally was believed as improbable by his Uppsala professors. He also published his Textbook of Cosmic Physics. 

National Medal of Science, which he received from President Bush in 1989 the Priestley Medal from the American Chemical Society the Davy Medal from the Royal Society of London and the Gold Medal from the American Institute of Chemists. 

She received, jointly with her husband, the Davy Medal of the Royal Society in 1903, and in 1921, President Harding of the United States, on behalf of the women of America, presented her with one gram of radium in recognition of her service to science. Marie Curie died in Savoy, France, on July 4, 1934. 

Bunsen was a very modest man, despite being honored by some of Europe s most prestigious scientific institutions. In 1853 he was elected to the Chemical Society in London and to the Academie des Sciences in Paris. He was named a fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1858 and received its Copley Medal in 1860. Bunsen and Kirchhoff were together awarded the first Davy Medal in 1877 for their development of spectroscopy. 

In 1894 Cleve was awarded the Davy Medal by the Royal Society in London, see also Holmium Lanthanides Mendeleev, Dimitri Scandium Thulium. 

Mendeleev received the Davy Medal (with Meyer in 1882) and the Copley Medal (in 1905), but Russia s Imperial Academy of Sciences refused to acknowledge his work. He resigned his university position in 1890 and was... 

Davy, Stephenson, and Clanny, did not patent their lamps this came later, the patentees (e.g. Upton and Roberts) usually discrediting the original lamps and declaring them unsafe. Murray of Hull spoke of the Davy lamp as a deadly little instrument . Ansted, on the other hand, reported that in his experience it was safe. Davy in 1817 received a service of plate worth 2,50o Stephenson a silver tankard and oo and Clanny the silver and gold medals of the Society of Arts, and in 1848 a silver salver and ioo. Davy s plate, of which he was very proud, was bequeathed to the Royal Society by his brother John, with the instruction that it should be melted down and sold to found a medal. The first recipients of the Davy Medal were Bunsen and Kirchhoff in 1877. 

In 1903 the Davy Medal of the Royal Society was awarded to Pierre and Mme Curie, and in the same year the Nobel Prize for Physics was divided between Henri Becquerel and the two Curies. Pierre Curie was killed in a street accident in April 1906 and Mme. Curie continued the work alone. The University of Paris awarded her the chair of her late husband, the first time such a post in France had been held by a woman. She taught for many years at the ficole Normale for women teachers at Sevres, and in 1908 became the first woman titular professor at the Sorbonne. In 1911 she was persuaded to submit herself for election to the Institut, but was rejected as a compensation she could in the same year claim a second Nobel Prize, in chemistry, and in 1922 she was elected a member of the Academy of Medicine. 

Mendeleev was awarded the prestigious Davy Medal in 1882, after gallium and scandium had been discovered. The philosophers Patrick Maher and Peter Tipton have recently pointed to this award as proof that it was not until Mendeleev s predicted elements had begun to be discovered that his system received the recognition it deserved. They take this to indicate that prediction weighed much more heavily than accommodation in the acceptance of the periodic system. In fact, Tipton goes so far as to say, Sixty accommodations [the placement of the known elements] paled next to two predictions. ... 

Since two eminent philosophers of science have cited the award of the Royal Society s Davy Medal to Mendeleev as evidence for the superiority of predictions in the acceptance of the periodic system, it is necessary to consider the citation of this award in full. 

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