Excursus The Road to Valence

But these developments were complex. Not only did a host of protagonists participate in the story, many of whom did not always clearly understand, or in many cases were not even immediately aware of, others contributions in real time there were also many different scientific and methodological issues that were so tightly interfiliated that none can be dealt with cleanly in isolation. In this section we review some of these developments in order to understand more clearly why various leading chemists chose the formulas they did, what they actually meant by some of their words and formulas, and why all of this happened at such a furious cadence. This background is also helpful in order fully to comprehend the particular path taken by Kekule, our main focus here. 

Let us first examine some aspects of the interconnected problem of atomic weights, formulas, and molecular magnitudes. In chapter 1 we noted much disunity and confusion in the chemical community on these questions, such as the crucial issue of the formula for water. What Williamson had done in 1850-51 was to present the first direct experimentally based argument that in the water molecule there really is one indivisible oxygen atom weighing 16. That water really is H2O 

Anschutz, 1 52-57 Kekule to Planta, 28 October and 28 December 1854, AKS Mein Ent-schluss steht also fest, einen chemischen Stiefelputzer zu werden.  

The standard and still quite indispensable source on this subject is Russell, History of Valency (1971). 

Many chemists attempted answers to these and related puzzles in a rapid-fire tempo. The contributions summarized in the following subsections all appeared in the three years 1854-56. 

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