Philosophical Transactions papers

Many of these experiments, as we have seen, Watt conducted himself, recorded in his Common Place Book, and published in his 1784 Philosophical Transactions paper. They are our strongest evidence that Watt was not a mere speculator hanging from Priestley s fraying coat-tails, but rather a serious chemical thinker, not averse to devising and prosecuting his own experimental trajectory, and constantly learning from, and trying to make theoretical capital from, his practical projects. 

The concept of the corrosion process, derived from the Latin corrodere (to eat away, to destroy), first appeared in the Philosophical Transactions in 1667 [2]. It was discussed in a German translation from the French on the manufacture of white lead in 1785 and was mentioned in 1836 in the translation of an English paper by Davy on the cathodic protection of iron in seawater [3]. However, almost until the present day, the term was used indiscriminately for corrosion reaction, corrosion effects, and corrosion damage. Only in DIN 50900, Part I, were these terms distinguished and defined [4] (see Section 2.1). 

Faraday developed the laws of electrolysis between 1831 and 1834. In mid-December of 1833. he began a quantitative study of the electrolysis of several metal cations, including Sn2+, Pb2+, and Znz+. Despite taking a whole day off for Christmas, he managed to complete these experiments, write up the results of three years work, and get his paper published in the Philosophic Transactions of the Hoyal Society on January 9,1834. In this paper, Faraday introduced the basic vocabulary of electrochemistry, using for the first time the terms "anode," cathode," ion, "electrolyte," and "electrolysis."... 

This paper was first published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London A, 1993, 342, 469-504. Reproduced with permission from The Royal Society, copyright 1993. This is Part XI of Developments in the Theory of Cationic Polymerisations. 

Boyle described this substance in a 1675-1676 issue of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. In this paper, which was published under the reversed initials B. R., Boyle does not reveal how his incalescent mercury was made and does not identify it as philosophical mercury. He says only that philosophical mercury is of kin to the substance he prepared. But he describes the production of heat and explains how other mercuries can be tested to see if they produce heat with gold, too. 

In 1667 the Italian physician Carlo Fracassati published a paper in the Philosophical Transactions in which he maintained that the black color of the blood at the bottom of a dish filled with it is caused not by the presence of a melancholy humour but by its lack of contact with the air. When he exposed the dark blood to air, it became bright red again (200). 

Alembic Club Reprint No. 3, Experiments on Air. Papers published in the Philosophical Transactions by the Honourable Henry Cavendish, F.R S., Wm F. Clay, Edinburgh, 1893, pp 39-52 H Cavendish, Phil. Trans, 75. 372-84 (1785). Read June 2, 1785. 

Most of his scientific research was done during the decade 1796 to 1806. His first paper in the Philosophical Transactions described his analysis of the Carinthian lead molybdate (4). The celebrated Scheele, said he, in 1778 read before the Academy of Sciences at Stockholm an essay in which he proved. . . that the mineral called Molybdaena was composed of sulfur and a peculiar metallic substance, which, like arsenic and tungsten, was liable by super-oxygenation to be converted into a metallic acid which in its properties differed from any other that had been previously discovered. Hatchett mentioned the confirmatory researches of B. Pelletier, P. J. Hjelm, and Mr. Islmann [J. C. Ilsemann], and added But the existence of this substance was known to be only in that mineral which Scheele had examined. This lead mineral from Carinthia had been described by the Abbe F. X. Wulfen and by N. J. Jacquin. For several years it was believed to be lead tungstate, but Klaproth proved it to be lead molybdate. Since Klaproth had had an insufficient amount of the mineral, Hatchett made a complete analysis of it and investigated the properties of molybdic add. 

After reading Hatchett s paper in the Philosophical Transactions (12), Samuel Latham Mitchill, editor, published an abstract of it in his Medical Repository (36, 50). In commenting on the name Naut-neague he said, From the same place, it is probable, more of the like ore can be obtained. This is particularly desirable, as Mr. Hatchett has had so small a piece to work upon, and no other specimen but the half which he reserved for the museum is known to exist. We hope the gentlemen of Massachusetts, who respect Mr. Winthrop s memory and are acquainted with the scope and direction of his researches, will find out the mine and procure more samples of this singular mineral. We think this matter would not be unworthy of that excellent institution the Historical Society" (36). 

Sir William Watson, 1715-1787. British physician, naturalist, and electrician who contributed many original papers and summaries of the work of others to the Philosophical Transactions. In 1750 he communicated Dr. William Brownngg s paper on platinum to the Royal Society. This portrait was engraved by Thom-thwaite after a painting by Abbott. 

The little bit that came, said Cronstedt, lie handed over to Scheffer, who, driven by his customary zeal, soon solved the mystery of its nature, and showed in a paper that it was a peculiar metal, different from all others, almost infusible when alone, just as noble as gold, and less pliable. He anticipated Mr. Lewis, who made experiments on a greater quantity of it and later published the results of them in the Transactions of the British Scientific Society [Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (67)], but during the investigation neither was aware of the other s manipulations and conclusions, wherefore each of them established a special property in addition to what they in all other respects found to be identical. 

A few papers in the Memoires of the Paris Academy and quite a few in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society took careful notice of the air to be found in many mineral spring waters. In addition to these, there were a couple of papers on the cause of the asphyxiation of small... 

Priestley s first chemical paper, Observations on Different Kinds of Air appeared in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society in 1772. The results are described within a phlogistic terminology sufficiently well developed that it is easy to believe that phlogistic thinking guided the formulation of the very experiments he is reporting. 

Wanke, H. and Dreibus, G. (1988) Chemical composition and accretion history of terrestrial planets. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, A325,545—557. This paper describes how chemical fractionations resulted from accretion of different materials to form the terrestrial planets. 

First published by the Royal Society 1993 as Volume 343 Number 1667 of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, A, and 1993 The Royal Society and authors of individual papers... 

The early statement that corruption is the mother of vegetation doubtless arose from the observation that manures, composts, dead animal bodies, and parts thereof such as blood, hair, hoofs, and so on, increased plant growth. John Woodward (cited by Russell, 1973), in a paper published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (Vol. 21, p. 382), observed that the falloff in yields of crops grown in successive years on unmanured land could be rectified when supplied with a new fund of matter, of like sort with that it first contained which supply is made in several ways, either by the ground s being fallow some time, until the rain has poured down a fresh stock upon it or by tiller s care in manuring it. He considered that the best... 

Volta pile — On March 20, 1800, Alessandro - Volta, then professor of the University of Pavia sent a letter in French from Como, Lombardy to Sir Joseph Banks (1743-1820) the president of the Royal Society of London, for publication. He described a device - that he called artificial electrical organ referring to the natural electrical organ of the torpedo or electric eel - producing perpetual electrical motion. The paper was read at the Society on 26 June and published in the September issue of the Philosophical Transactions. The whole paper appeared in English in the Philosophical Magazine the same year [i, ii]. 

The famous Young s equation, as described by Thomas Young himself in his original paper An Essay on the Cohesion of Fluids published in 1805 in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London (vol. 94, p. 65). 

James Watt Esqr of Birmingham, inventor of the new Steam engine, and author of a valuable paper in the last volume of the Philosophical Transactions, being desirous of becoming a fellow of the Royal Society, we whose names are hereunto subscribed do, from our personal knowledge, recommend him, as likely to be an useful member...5... 

One of the main outcomes ofWatt s chemical activities in the early 1780s was his only high-profile chemical publication, the paper offering Thoughts on the Constituent Parts of Water and of Dephlogisticated Air which was published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society in 1784.64 This paper is, as we have seen, the chief basis for Watt s claim to have discovered the composition of water. Whilst its importance in that connection is undeniable, discussion of it in relation to the water controversy has, I believe, contributed to the neglect of serious attempts to understand the complexities of the chemical views that it presents. 

By the time De Luc published his Idees sur laMeteorologie in 1787, Watt was not only familiar with the ideas expressed there but had learned about many of them firsthand and prior to publication. Watt s experiments in the early 1780s, which were so important to his ideas on both steam and the composition of water, were developed in concert with De Luc s work. In fact, when Watt wrote the famous letters to Matthew Boulton and to Joseph Black (discussed in Chapter 4), in which he announced his ideas about the composition of water he had been working directly with De Luc in the laboratory on steam, heat and evaporation. As we have seen, Watt s paper on the composition of water in the Philosophical Transactions in 1784 took the form of a letter to De Luc, and, of... 

Since his thermometers showed such consistency between them, mathematician Christian Wolf of Halle, Prussia, devoted a whole paper in an edition of Acta Eruditorum, one of the most important scientific journals of the time, to two of Fahrenheit s thermometers that Wolf received in 1714. In 1724 Fahrenheit published a paper entitled Experimenta circa gradum caloris liquorum nonnullorum ebullientium instituta (Experiments done on the degree of heat of a few boiling liquids) in the Royal Society s publication Philosophical Transactions and was admitted to the Royal Society the same year. 

At present, aU papers appearing in Royal Society (http //www.royalsoc.ac.uk) journals can be accessed free of charge 12 months after their publication, but the Royal Society has expressed concern that the proponents of open access should not aim unilaterally for an environment inimical to for-profit scientific publishing. The Society s publications include Biology Letters, Philosophical Transactions Parts A and B, and Proceedings of the Royal Society Parts A and B (http //www.royalsoc.ac.uk/page.asp id=2462). 

Most of the alchemical tracts known to have been in Boyle s possession were contributions from a circle of friends and acquaintances. Sometimes he sought their help directly, however, and Principe has argued that Boyle s famous paper in the Philosophical Transactions (the main publication of the London Royal Society) on an incalescent mercury (a mercury that grew increasingly hot) was in fact a plea for help from alchemical adepts who knew the proper procedure for using mercury to produce the Philosophers Stone. His own assistant was given the job at one point of oversee-... 

In our modem era when university tenure decisions are sometimes based upon the sheer poundage of publications, it is interesting to note that Cavendish published 18 papers in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (and no books). He left many unpublished works and unstylishly referred to them In his published works. 

Partington. ).R. (1961) A History of Chemistry, volumes 2, 4, Macmillan. London, p. 526 Philosophical Transactions (1766). p. 141 Cavendish s papers are in The Scientific Papers of the Honourable Henry Cavendish, F.R.S., volume 2 (ed. Sir Edward Thorpe), University Press, Cambridge (1921). Chemical and... 

Chapman and Thorp, "On the Relation" (1866), 494. This paper, presented 1 November 1866, represents the second paper using graphic formula ever printed in the Journal of the Chemical Society (after Crum Brown s reprinted paper the previous year) the paper cited above by Frankland and Duppa represents the first graphic formula ever to appear in the Philosophical Transactions. 

Reynolds, Osborne (1842-1912) published his famous paper that described the Reynolds number in 1883. The paper, An experimental investigation of the circumstances which determine whether motion of water shall be direct or sinuous and of the law of resistance in parallel channels, was published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. 

In 1909 the Royal Society of London accepted the surface-tension paper in modified form for its Philosophical Transactions. Bohr, who was still only a student working toward his master s degree when the essay appeared, had to explain to the secretary of the society, who had addressed him by his presumed academic title, that he was not a professor. ... 

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