Karlsruhe conference

This thumbnail sketch of where chemistry had got to by 1860 is offered here to indicate that chemists were mostly incurious about such matters as the nature and strength of the ehemieal bond or how quickly reactions happened all their efforts went into methods of synthesis and the tricky attempts to determine the numbers of different atoms in a newly synthesised compound. The standoff between organie and inorganie ehemistry did not help the development of the subjeet, although by the time of the Karlsruhe Conference in 1860, in Germany at least, the organic synthetic chemists ruled the roost. 

Mendeleev met and worked with Bunsen and a lot of Western scientists, and participated in the Karlsruhe conference in Germany (1858). At this conference, there was intensive discussion about Avogadro s hypothesis. Dimitri then visited Pennsylvania to see the first oil wells. After returning to Russia, he developed a new commercial distillation system when he was 32 years old. 

Very shortly after the Karlsruhe Conference the epochal structural theory of Kekul6 began to be widely recognized. This promptly led to a rapid increase in the synthesis and study of organic compounds and thus to increased pressure for a systematic nomenclature. 

What helped make Mendeleev s system seem more plausible was the coincidental publication of Lothar Meyer s periodic table. Meyer had attended the 1860 Karlsruhe conference just as Mendeleev had, and, like Mendeleev, he had gone away convinced that there was some pattern that united the elements through atomic weights. He had sketched out an incomplete table of elements in his book Die modernen Theorien der Chemie (1864), and in 1868 he worked out a much more complete table. He did not publish this until 1870, by which time he was fully aware of Mendeleev s work. In addition to providing independent confirmation of Mendeleev s system, Meyer also added a supporting observation, showing that there was a periodic relationship between atomic number and atomic volume. Atomic volume represents the volume occupied by one mole of an element in its solid state. Meyer showed that atomic volume equaled atomic weight divided by the density of the solid. 

Level 3 symbolic, representational elemental formulaic. This came once chemists understood the concepts of elements, atom, equivalence, valence, stoichiometry, beginning n 1800 and understood by 1860 as confirmed at the Karlsruhe conference. Wet water now becomes H20 with a relative molecular mass of 18 units. Numeric calculations become important. 

On September 3, 1860 the Karlsruhe Conference convened in order to attempt to settle vexing issues pertaining to atoms, molecules, equivalents, nomenclature, and atomic weights. The clarity on atomic weights provided by Cannizzaro s 1858 pamphlet and presentations at the conference moved Julius Lothar Meyer to comment ... 

COMMENT. This method of the determination of the molar masses of gaseous compounds is due to Can-nizarro who presented it at the Karlsruhe conference of 1860 which had been called to resolve the problem ot the determination of the molar masses of atoms and molecules and the molecular formulas ot compounds. 

The hierarchical multicomputer system described at the Karlsruhe conference was the Argonne-developed PHYLIS system (56, 57). The original PHYLIS (a mnemonic for PHYsics on-Line Information Station) system was designed to handle the data acquisition and analysis, both for the inelastic scattering experiments at the 4.5-MeV Van de Graaff and the multiparameter experiments at the 12-MeV tandem machine, on a real-time basis to allow the experimenters to make use of the results of the analysis to change the course of their experiments. The system s small computer was... 

But her instincts had been correct Mendeleev was worth the effort. He continued at the University of St. Petersburg, writing a dissertation that won him a traveling fellowship. While in Europe on this fellowship, he, like Lothar Meyer, attended the Karlsruhe Conference, the first international chemical conference, which was held to resolve difficulties with definitions of atoms, atomic weights, and nomenclature. The conference was not particularly productive, but on the way out the door, Mendeleev was handed a pamphlet by Cannizzaro, explaining the hypothesis of Avogadro. He read it, and it made sense. 

Whilst engaged in writing his Principles of Chemistry from 1868, Mendeleeff sought for some system of classification of the elements, and that based on atomic weights seemed the most promising. He was acquainted with the previous work of Dumas, Lenssen, Pettenkofer, and Kremers, but not that of Strecker, de Chancourtois, or Newlands. He was influenced by the Karlsruhe Conference (see p. 489), which he attended, and by the recent work of Roscoe on vanadium and of Marignac on niobium. He says he had become convinced that ... 

Lothar Meyer attended the Karlsruhe conference in 1860 and learned firsthand of Cannizzaro s groundbreaking work on the atomic weights of the ele-ments. He then edited a version of Cannizzaro s article that appeared in Germany inWilhehn Ostwald s series under the title Klassiker der Wissenschaften. Lothar Meyer later described the effect that Cannizzaro s article had on him by saying, [T]he scales fell from my eyes and my doubts disappeared and were replaced by a feeling of quiet certainty. In 1864, Lothar Meyer published the first edition of a chemistry textbook. Die Modemen Theorie der Chemie, which was deeply influenced by the work of Cannizzaro. The book appeared in five editions and was translated... 

The importance of the Karlsruhe conference in connection with the rationalization of atomic weights and the concept of the molecule is disputed by historian Alan Rocke,... 

However, the work of Gannizzaro (1826-1910) helped explain this and many similar problems. At the Karlsruhe conference in 1860 he promoted the work of Avogadro and his concept that many gases, such as oxygen and hydrogen, were diatomic molecules. 

The predictive power of Mendeleev s table was not the motivation of its French champion supporters. Adolphe Wurtz (1817-84) was among the first to spread the periodic system in France and Mendeleev acknowledged that he greatly contributed to its popularization. Wurtz, co-organizer of the Karlsruhe Conference with August von Kekule (1829-96) in 1860, cared for Mendeleev s periodic classification because it was a vehicle for spreading the atomic weights system recommended at the Karlsruhe Conference. 

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