Dualistic hypothesis

These several principles of nomenclature were promptly applied by de Morveau, Lavoisier, Berthollet, and Foiircroy to the naming of 474 substances belonging to the earths, alkalies, acids, and metals. Their procedure was based on a dualistic hypothesis and forms the basis of our present system. The elements retained their accustomed roots, and the terms oxygen, hydrogen, and azote were introduced. The term oxide was employed for the first time and the class was regarded as intermediate between the element and its acid. The suffixes ic ... 

It was then natural to assume further that the usual operation of elective affinity is itself electrostatic, the attraction of oppositely charged atoms of different species. Davy in England, and Jons Berzelius in Sweden, both soon came to this view, and the latter formulated an electrochemical theory of the formation of compounds, published in 1814, which put forward this dualistic hypothesis in explanation of all chemical action. Berzelius even extended these ideas into organic chemistry, proposing that groups of atoms can form compound radicals , positive and negative, which then join together as elements would. 

Quantum mechanics began with a daring hypothesis by Louis de Broglie (he was a student at the time) if light has a dualistic wave/particle nature, why not matter His reasoning led to the prediction that a particle of mass m and velocity V would exhibit wavelike properties with wavelength... 

In 1948 Ahlquist proposed his basic hypothesis of a- and /2-drenergic receptors to explain the dualistic properties of epinephrine. Some 15 years later this concept bore fruit in the development of the / -adrenergic blocking drugs as represented by propranolol, MJ 1999, alprenolol and Practolol (ICI 50172) (Figure 12). 

Berzelius was the lirst to determine the atomic mass of the elements with satisfactory accuracy. It was he who introduced the chemical symbols still in use. His dualistic electrochemical hypothesis concerning the structure of compounds was a fundamental and progressive chemical theory for a long period. He was one of the pioneers of elemental analysis of organic substances. Berzelius wrote numerous books. His manual of chemistry has been translated into several languages and was reprinted five times in Berzelius s lifetime. In his annual reports, entitled Jahresbericht, published from 1821 until his death he critically abstracted the scientific publications of the year. The Jahresbericht was the ancestor of the numerous present scientific abstracting publications, all of them can be traced back to it. Besides cerium Berzelius discovered... 

The acceptance of Avogadro s ideas was hindered by his rather difficult terminology. He used the terms integral molecule for the particle of a compound, constituent molecule for the particle of a gaseous element, and elementary molecule (or half molecule) for the atom of an element. Many chemists also found it hard to accept that the fundamental particles of gaseous elements contained more than one atom. An influential voice here was the Swedish chemist Jons Jacob Berzelius (1779-1848), whose dualistic theory (Chapter 7) precluded the combination of identical atoms. In consequence, Avogadro s hypothesis was poorly received by his contemporaries, and it was not given much attention by the chemical community until 1860, four years after its author had died in relative obscurity. 

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