He remained here for the rest of his working life, producing further papers on electricity and a four-volume textbook on theoretical physics. At the age of 74 he retired, and he died four years later, in He married in and was father to seven children.
His family brought him great pleasure, and they spent summer holidays together at his country house in Quaregna.
He was said to have been religious without being bigoted, and seems not to have been keen on social functions. Maybe he was naturally shy, perhaps he felt he had to keep his head down in the world of constant political intrigue, and certainly he endured a good deal of scientific isolation.
He did not travel Europe like Humphry Davy and was even more withdrawn than Dalton. This may well have been one explanation for the minimal impact of his great idea. There are others, of course. He was not a fine experimenter and the lack of hard data in his paper cannot have commended it to working chemists in other European countries.
Also, the great J? That effectively excluded diatomic molecules of the same atoms, like hydrogen, chlorine or oxygen. For the next 50 years the number of convinced Copernicans in Europe was a few dozen only. It may be said of both men that their ideas were simply too far ahead for their time.
This view is supported by the case of the much better known Andr? The bottom line was probably that, though coming from a lawyer, it was not a law but a hypothesis, not a statement of empirical generalisation but a hunch. It could no more be proved to be true at the time than for over three centuries could the sun-centred system of Copernicus. In the years that followed the atomic theory was adopted by some, like Berzelius and Thomas Graham, but its value was strictly limited since atomic weights were merely a matter of opinion.
The organic chemists were particularly affected, and brave efforts to come near to a theory of structure were invariably frustrated by simple ignorance of how many atoms there might be in a new compound; everything depended on correct atomic weights. Thus, a textbook of organic chemistry by Friedrich Kekul?
Meanwhile the very existence of atoms was being questioned during impassioned debates at the Chemical Society in London. Clearly something had to be done. An international conference convened at Karlsruhe, Germany, in got nowhere, but as delegates were leaving they were presented with a pamphlet from another scientist from northern Italy, Stanislao Cannizzaro of Genoa.
After such a Damascus road experience he took a lead in reforming chemistry and uniting it around agreed atomic weights. Such innovations as a clear understanding of valency, a theory of structure and a periodic table all followed from this reform.
Perhaps some can still recall that incantation from their days at school. Modern chemists who ignore history may be blissfully unaware of their debt to the lawyer from Piedmont. Colin Russell is emeritus professor, department of history of science, technology and medicine, Open University, and affiliated research scholar, department of history and philosophy of science, University of Cambridge, UK. Andy Extance discovers why the compound best known as a fertiliser is a surprising candidate to power enormous container ships.
We honored Mole Day and its connection to Avogadro on Oct. The portrait is from the Edgar Smith collection at the University of Pennsylvania, and the restaurant fifth image , in Fort Collins, Colorado, is just cool. William B. Ashworth, Jr. Comments or corrections are welcome; please direct to ashworthw umkc.
From this hypothesis it followed that relative molecular weights of any two gases are the same as the ratio of the densities of the two gases under the same conditions of temperature and pressure. Avogadro also astutely reasoned that simple gases were not formed of solitary atoms but were instead compound molecules of two or more atoms. Avogadro did not actually use the word atom ; at the time the words atom and molecule were used almost interchangeably.
According to Avogadro, the molecule of oxygen had split into two atoms in the course of forming water vapor. Sign Up. Support science journalism. Knowledge awaits. See Subscription Options Already a subscriber? Create Account See Subscription Options.
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