Prout. William

Prout, William. 1815. On the Relations between the Specific Gravities of Bodies and the Weights of their Atoms. Annals of Philosophy. 6 (November 1815) 321-30,472. 

Prout, William, Chemistry, Meteorology, and the Function of Digestion... 

Prout, William (1785-1850) English chemist, physician, and natural theologian in 1815 he hypothesized that the atomic weight of every element is an integer multiple of that of hydrogen, suggesting that the hydrogen atom is the only truly fundamental particle. 

A little earlier, in 1815, the London based physician, William Prout, proposed another general principle. In a few papers, which he published anonymously, Prout wrote that the fact that the atomic weights of many elements seemed to be integral multiples of the weight of hydrogen suggested that all... 

Brock, William H. 1985. From Protyle to Proton William Prout and the Nature of Matter, 1785-1985. Bristol and Boston Adam Hilger. 

William Prout s composite atoms hypothesis. G. Kirchhoff and R. Bunsen discover spectral analysis and significance of Fraunhofer lines Kirchhoff s law. 

Davy, Elements of Chemical Philosophy, 1. For natural theology and chemical philosophy, see William Prout s Bridgewater Treatise, Chemistry, Meteorology and the Function of Digestion Considered with Reference to Natural Theology (London Pickering, 1834). 

See William Whewell, "On the Employment of Notation in Chemistry," J. Royal Inst. 1 (1831) 437438 Alborn, "Negotiating Notation" W. H. Brock, "The British Association Committee on Chemical Symbols 1834 Edward Turner s Letter to British Chemists and a Reply by William Prout," Ambix 33 (1986) 3337. 

Chemists still didn t know why there were so many different chemical elements or whether any patterns could be found in them. In 1815 the English physician William Prout had proposed the hypothesis that all of the elements were condensed hydrogen. For example, the atomic weight of oxygen was 16. According to Prout, this indicated that 16 volumes of hydrogen had condensed to form this element. Of course Prout s hypothesis was incorrect. However, during the nineteenth century there was no empirical evidence that either supported or contradicted the idea. Consequently, some chemists adopted the theory while many others opposed it. 

William Prout, 1785-1850. English physician, physiologist, and chemist. 

Marignac s life work, which, like that of Stas, consisted in making many precise determinations of atomic weights in order to test William Prout s hypothesis (71), won Berzelius sincerest praise, for he wrote ... 

William Prout detects free hydrochloric acid in the stomach. Berzelius isolates amorphous silicon. 

This theory was put forward in 1815 by the chemist William Prout (1785-1850). He made no bones about the source of his inspiration the prote hyle of the ancient Greek philosophers, the stuff from which all matter is derived. It was this primal substance that underpinned old beliefs about transmutation, and now Prout was apparently suggesting that this idea was valid after all. Theprofe hyle, said Prout, is hydrogen. 

A volume that comes halfway between a chemical biography and a thematic history is one on William Prout and the nature of matter, taking the subject to 1985, long after Prout s demise.91 Another combines biography with national trends in chemistry. This is a life of the Melbourne chemist D. O. Masson, contriving at the same time to provide a helpful analysis of the growth, organization, and professionalization of the subject in Australia.92... 

---