Lavoisier's Achievement; More Than a Chemical Revolution

Abstract

The Chemical Revolution of the late eighteenth century consisted essentially of combustion being explained by the addition of oxygen rather than by the removal of phlogiston. This has been seen as the “paradigm shift” of a scientific revolution in the familiar Kuhnian sense. Yet Lavoisier helped to change chemistry in several other ways as well, particularly by the introduction of a new chemical language. This reorganisation of chemistry, at a time when it was being swamped with many new substances, has great similarity to the slightly earlier systematisation of botany by Linnaeus through the introduction of a binomial nomenclature. A further parallel in the late eighteenth century was the introduction of the metric system, which also introduced a new language. Yet, however one understands the Chemical Revolution, Lavoisier clearly made an enormous difference, not only to the internal science of chemistry, but also to its status. By the end of the 1700s, chemistry had become something of a model science.     

Authority and authorship in the method of chemical nomenclature

The 1787 Method of Chemical Nomenclature jointly authored by Guyton de Morveau, Lavoisier, Berthollet and Fourcroy displays a particularly authoritarian approach to nomenclature reform in chemistry. This paper explores the basis for this authority, analysed in institutional and philosophical terms. By comparing this reform to the 1782 proposal by Guyton, we see how a consensual approach was put aside for this more authoritarian one, with Lavoisier offering the naturalised empiricist philosophy of Condillac as justification. Nevertheless, I argue that the basis for the authority of the reform remained the Academy of Sciences, the central scientific institution in ancien régime France. I also explore French commentaries on the reform to show how the approach was perceived by the scientific community both inside and outside the Academy of Sciences.     

Lavoisier's Views on Phlogiston and the Matter of Fire before about 1770

Abstract

The 1787 Method of Chemical Nomenclature jointly authored by Guyton de Morveau, Lavoisier, BerthoUet and Fourcroy displays a particularly authoritarian approach to nomenclature reform in chemistry. This paper explores the basis for this authority, analysed in institutional and philosophical terms. By comparing this reform to the 1782 proposal by Guyton, we see how a consensual approach was put aside for this more authoritarian one, with Lavoisier offering the naturalised empiricist philosophy of Condillac as justification. Nevertheless, I argue that the basis for the authority of the reform remained the Academy of Sciences, the central scientific institution in ancien régime France. I also explore French commentaries on the reform to show how the approach was perceived by the scientific community both inside and outside the Academy of Sciences.     

Specificities and origins of the Slovak nomenclature of inorganic chemistry

Nowadays the discussion on the symbiosis of the international and national nomenclature systems in different areas of science provides clear evidences that full implementation of conventional international (mainly English) nomenclature principles in the local ones is sometimes not only unnecessary, but even redundant or impossible. Rapid development of natural sciences necessitates creation of accurate, comprehensive and comprehensible nomenclature systems for objects and phenomena under research. This study outlines the origins and development of the Slovak chemical nomenclature which is based on the Czech model. We analyze the unique Slovak nomenclature items as well as the re-evaluation of linguistic means in the field of inorganic chemistry in the international context. A part of this work is devoted to the syntactical structure of the names of inorganic compounds. At the same time we draw a parallel between chemical nomenclature and the phenomenon of controlled language.     

Connecting the philosophy of chemistry,green chemistry,and moral philosophy

This paper aims to connect philosophy of chemistry, green chemistry, and moral philosophy. We first characterize chemistry by underlining how chemists: (1) co-define chemical bodies, operations, and transformations; (2) always refer to active and context-sensitive bodies to explain the reactions under study; and (3) develop strategies that require and intertwine with a molecular whole, its parts, and the surroundings at the same time within an explanation. We will then point out how green chemists are transforming their current activities in order to act upon the world without jeopardizing life. This part will allow us to highlight that green chemistry follows the three aforementioned characteristics while including the world as a partner, as well as biodegradability and sustainability concerns, into chemical practices. In the third part of this paper, we will show how moral philosophy can help green chemists: (1) identify the consequentialist assumptions that ground their reasoning; and (2) widen the scope of their ethical considerations by integrating the notion of care and that of vulnerability into their arguments. In the fourth part of the paper, we will emphasize how, in return, this investigation could help philosophers querying consequentialism as soon as the consequences of chemical activities over the world are taken into account. Furthermore, we will point out how the philosophy of chemistry provides philosophers with new arguments concerning the key debate about the ‘intrinsic value’ of life, ecosystems and the Earth, in environmental ethics. To conclude, we will highlight how mesology, that is to say the study of ‘milieux’, and the concept of ‘ecumeme’ proposed by the philosopher and geographer Augustin Berque, could become important both for green chemists and moral philosophers in order to investigate our relationships with the Earth.     

Chemistry and dynamics in the thought of G.W. Leibniz I

Chemistry and dynamics are closely related in G.W. Leibniz's thinking, from the corpuscularism of his youth to the theory of conspiracy movements that he proposes in his later years. Despite the importance of chemistry and chemical thought in Leibniz's philosophy, interpreters have not paid enough attention to this subject, especially in the recent decades. This work aims to contribute to filling this gap in Leibnizian studies. In this first part of the work I will expose the theory of matter that the young Leibniz conceives under the influence of chemical corpuscularism. Leibniz uses R. Boyle's interpretation of the Aristotelian idea of form in order to give an explanation of the unity and cohesion of bodies. As opposed to the Cartesians, Leibniz puts forth the idea of a dependence between the variables of extension, movement and figure, without losing analytical clarity and with the aim of extending the explanatory power of physics to natural phenomena difficult to approach by Cartesian mechanics.

     

"Inhale it and see?" The collaboration between Thomas Beddoes and James Watt in pneumatic medicine

The collaboration of Thomas Beddoes and James Watt in the development of pneumatic medicine--the treatment of disease by the breathing of airs--is well known but little understood. Its protagonists presented the venture as an empirical one, in which the efficacy of different airs was tested independently of theoretical considerations. Historians have generally accepted that claim at face value. We contend, on the contrary, that the divergent theoretical chemical commitments of Watt and Beddoes significantly shaped their different approaches to, and their interpretations and expectations of, the pneumatic project. In particular, Beddoes's broad adherence to Lavoisian chemistry gave him an oxygen-centred approach to pneumatic medicine, while Watt's ongoing belief in phlogistic chemistry inclined him to expect great things of "hydrocarbonate." In addition, we show that a close examination of Watt's experiments and writings in his collaboration with Beddoes reveals a great deal about Watt's chemistry of airs.     

Phosphorus. From elemental light to chemical element

Exactly 300 years ago in the city of Hamburg, a certain Hennig Brand, self-styled doctor medicinae, and chymist, discovered a strange substance in human urine, which was later called phosphorus (light bearer), a name then common to various luminous substances, and which created much excitement in the latter years of the 17th century on account of its properties. However, it was not Brand who profited from the discovery but others: Johann Daniel Krafft, Johann Kunckel, and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, men who knew only too well how to exploit the weaknesses of the discoverer. “Cold fire”, Brand's own name for the new substance, was originally regarded as elemental light or fire, and it was not until the conception of the antiphlogistic theory by Antoine Laurent Lavoisier that the proper position of phosphorus among the chemical elements was recognized. In fact, the element played a decisive role in the overthrow of the phlogiston doctrine, a little over one hundred years after its discovery and almost two hundred years ago.     

Lavoisier and Mendeleev on the Elements

Lavoisier defined an element as a chemicalsubstance that cannot be decomposed usingcurrent analytical methods. Mendeleev saw anelement as a substance composed of atoms of thesame atomic weight. These `definitions' doquite different things: Lavoisier'sdistinguishes the elements from the compounds,so that the elements may form the basis of acompositional nomenclature; Mendeleev's offersa criterion of sameness and difference forelemental substances, while Lavoisier's doesnot. In this paper I explore the historical andtheoretical background to each proposal.Lavoisier's and Mendeleev's explicitconceptions of elementhood differed from eachother, and from the official IUPAC definitionof `element' of the 1920s. However, Lavoisierand Mendeleev both subscribed to – andemployed – a deeper notion of a chemicalelement as the component of compound substancesthat (i) can survive chemical change, and (ii)explains the chemical behaviour of itscompounds.     

Chemistry and Logical Structures

The utility of the basic structures of modern mathematics for chemistry is discussed; general set theory, topology, and group theory are shown to pervade almost all static and dynamic aspects of chemistry. Chemical analogy, the systematic classification of molecules and a corresponding nomenclature system, conformational transformations, polyhedral rearrangements, and the relations between starting materials, transition complexes, and final products of chemical reactions are examples of where we apply the elements of modern mathematics to the solution of chemical problems.     

Anthropogenic ozone,acids and mutagens: Half a century of Pandora’S Nox

It has been four decades since the phenomenon of photochemical air pollution was first characterized and, in the same year, a tragic London smog episode caused 4,000 excess deaths. Since then, there has been a substantial increase in our understanding of the chemistry involved in both types of air pollution, and a recognition that there is a very close chemical interrelationship between them. In this overview, we provide a brief historical perspective on the atmospheric chemistry of photochemical smog and illustrate how fundamental studies on the gas-phase chemistry of uv-irradiated mixtures of volatile organic compounds (VOC) and oxides of nitrogen (NO_x in polluted laboratory and ambient air masses have contributed to our understanding of three environmental problems: the atmospheric formation of ozone, nitric acid and airborne mutagens. In particular, we demonstrate the central role played by nitrogen dioxide and the hydroxyl radical in each case. We also show how certain reactive toxic and acidic species, e.g., formaldehyde and nitrous and formic acids, have been characterized in smog chambers and ambient smog by long pathlength spectroscopic techniques. It is shown that by using the same methods they now have been identified unequivocally, along with NO₂, in certain common types of polluted indoor atmospheres ... and at much higher concentrations than outdoors. This has significant health implications for indoor HCHO and quite possibly the acids. We then trace the history of the direct mutagenicity of respirable particles in polluted ambient air and show how, through use of the Ames test in biologically-directed assays of products coupled with fundamental studies of gas-phase reactions of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) and NO_x in irradiated air, much of this activity can be accounted for in terms of the formation of nitro-PAH and oxygenated derivatives. Finally, we discuss the application of basic kinetic, mechanistic and analytical, experimental techniques and theoretical concepts to the development of a new set of “reactivity-based” regulatory controls on motor vehicle emissions of VOC’s. This novel regulatory approach applied by California’s Air Resources Board, which takes effect in 1994, illustrates the continuing need for fundamental research in the area of atmospheric chemistry and how it may be applied to “real world” environmental problems.     

Louis Pasteur,Chemical Linguist: Founding the Language of Stereochemistry

Pasteur’s major discovery in chemistry was the recognition of molecular chirality, in 1848. He understood that his new science needed its own language, and introduced new terminology and nomenclature, thereby launching modern stereochemical language. He was eminently prepared for this task as a refined user of language, skills recognized by his election to the Académie française, the supreme institution for the protection and promotion of the French language. The terms chiral and chirality did not exist at the time and he adopted the French word dissymmétrie (dissymmetry) for the phenomenon of handedness. Although in his time almost nothing was known about molecular constitution and configuration, his insights allowed him to create useful language some of which is still used today in stereochemistry, e. g., racemic for the 1 : 1 mixture of the two enantiomers, and the use of the prefixes levo‐ and dextro‐ in the names of optically active substances. On the other hand, the limitations in the knowledge of organic chemistry at the time prevented him from creating some needed terms, e. g., for the phenomenon of diastereoisomerism. He also failed to adopt the enantio terminology introduced in the 1850s by German mineralogist Carl Friedrich Naumann. Analysis of Pasteur’s linguistic innovations is of interest from the point of view of the history of chemistry and is also useful in throwing light on the fundamental nature of the concepts of stereochemistry. Such understanding has acquired a new relevance due to the considerable misuse and misunderstanding of this language seen in the literature today.     

Mechanistic Explanation versus Deductive-Nomological Explanation

This paper discusses the important paper by Paul Thagard on the pathway version of mechanistic explanation that is currently used in chemical explanation. The author claims that this method of explanation has a respectable pedigree and can be traced back to the Chemical Revolution in the arguments used by the Lavoisier School in their theoretical duels with Richard Kirwan, the proponent of a revised phlogistonian theory. Kirwan believed that complex chemical reactions could be explained by recourse to affinity tables that catalogued the attraction that various simple bodies possessed towards each other. To explain was in effect to make a delayed prediction, it is not enough just to show how a phenomenon fits into the discernible patterns of the world. Lavoisier, Fourcroy and their colleagues used pathway reasoning, although disguising this fact by suggesting that affinities varied when subjected to n-body situations.     

Viewing chemistry through its ways of classifying

The focus of this contribution lies on eighteenth-century chemistry up to Lavoisier’s anti-phlogistic chemical system. Some main features of chemistry in this period will be examined by discussing classificatory practices and the understanding of the substances these practices imply. In particular, the question will be discussed of whether these practices can be regarded as natural historical practices and, hence, whether chemistry itself was a special natural history (part I). Furthermore, discussion of the famous Methode de nomenclature chimique (1787) raises the question of what modes of classification tell us about chemists’ understanding of the substances they deal with (part II). Finally, in investigating what taxonomic orders reveal about deep structures of chemists’ understanding of the world of substances, the contribution will examine the question of whether Lavoisier’s anti-phlogistic chemical system was a revolution on the level of a deep structure or a revision within the untouched frame of such a structure (part III).     

Research strategies in click chemistry: Measuring its cognitive contents and knowledge flow

The issue about how outstanding scientists obtained innovative findings has drawn the interest of researchers in science, policy and scientometrics. Here, we attempt to address this question by using computational methods to measure the cognitive content and concepts of K. Barry Sharpless’ research and estimate the knowledge flow of his click chemistry to other fields. First, we traced Sharpless' conceptual journey over time through topic modeling approach, mapping and clustering of the epistemic network from distant reading his publications. We find that connectivity and functions, the core features of click chemistry, are embodied in his constant search for simplicity. What makes simplicity possible is his continuous work with collaborators on reactivity and reaction mechanisms. Moreover, citation and link analysis show that click chemistry had a much richer impact on other research fields than what is generally acknowledged, and drew solutions to significant and practical questions back to chemistry from biology. Together with these findings, we propose that the click chemistry philosophy follows the way that values nature's principle. Chemistry has a clear-cut epistemic domain in modeling Nature. Thus, click chemistry as a concept on doing science beyond a connective technology goes across the boundaries between disciplines and impacts many other fields.     

“Just as the Structural Formula Does”: Names,Diagrams, and the Structure of Organic Chemistry at the 1892 Geneva Nomenclature Congress

At the Geneva Nomenclature Congress of 1892, some of the foremost organic chemists of the late nineteenth century crafted a novel relationship between chemical substances, chemical diagrams, and chemical names that has shaped practices of chemical representation ever since. During the 1880s, the French chemist Charles Friedel organised the nomenclature reform effort that culminated in the Geneva Congress; in the disorderly nomenclature of German synthetic chemistry, Friedel saw an opportunity to advance French national interests and his own pedagogical goals. Friedel and a group of close colleagues reconceived nomenclature as a unified field, in which all chemical names ought to relate clearly to one another and to the structure of the compounds they represented. The German chemist Adolf von Baeyer went a step farther, arguing for names that precisely and uniquely corresponded to the structural formula of each compound, tailored for use in chemical dictionaries and handbooks. Baeyer's vision prevailed at the Geneva Congress, which consequently codified rules for rigorously mapping structural formulas into names, resulting in names that faithfully represented the features of these diagrams but not always the chemical behaviour of the compounds themselves. This approach ultimately limited both the number of chemical compounds that the Geneva rules were able to encompass and the breadth of their application. However, the relationship between diagram and name established at the Geneva Congress became the foundation not only of subsequent systems of chemical nomenclature but of methods of organising information that have supported the modern chemical sciences.     

Overreact,an in silico lab: Automative quantum chemical microkinetic simulations for complex chemical reactions

Today's demand for precisely predicting chemical reactions from first principles requires research to go beyond Gibbs' free energy diagrams and consider other effects such as concentrations and quantum tunneling. The present work introduces overreact, a novel Python package for propagating chemical reactions over time using data from computational chemistry only. The overreact code infers all differential equations and parameters from a simple input that consists of a set of chemical equations and quantum chemistry package outputs for each chemical species. We evaluate some applications from the literature: gas-phase eclipsed-staggered isomerization of ethane, gas-phase umbrella inversion of ammonia, gas-phase degradation of methane by chlorine radical, and three solvation-phase reactions. Furthermore, we comment on a simple solvation-phase acid–base equilibrium. We show how it is possible to achieve reaction profiles and information matching experiments.     

Berthelot’s Pathway from Synthesis to Thermochemistry

Why did Marcellin Berthelot turn away from his successful research in organic synthesis around 1864 to devote himself to the difficult and uncertain path of thermochemistry? Jean Jacques and others have argued that Berthelot’s shift can be seen as a result of his flawed understanding of the emerging atomistically based theories of structural chemistry; a sense that he was being left behind by this field, it is maintained, led him to try something different. In contrast, I will argue that thermochemistry was a logical progression of Berthelot’s overarching desire to predict chemical action, a great challenge in the middle of the nineteenth century. Berthelot hoped and expected that synthesis and chemical industry would transform the conditions of our existence. He asked such questions as: What substances can we expect to create? From which reagents? And most important: how can we tell in advance whether a particular chemical reaction will occur?     

Measurement of the amount of information contained in a chemical equation (Preliminary estimation)

The entropy of chemical language was estimated basing on Shannon’s theory of information. The alphabet of the language was defined. It contains 110 symbols of chemical elements, indices, coefficients, brackets, condition signs, and some other (a total of 166 symbols). The probabilities of the symbols were calculated using a higher school chemistry textbook. The upper bound of entropy of chemical language was estimated at 4.55 bits per symbol. The table of frequencies and self-information for the language was given, and the way to calculate the amount of information was shown.     

A new general algorithmic method in reaction syntheses using linear algebra

We discuss here a new general linear algebraic method (both model and algorithm) for describing and generating (among others) minimal reactions and also minimal mechanisms in stoichiometry, or dimensionless groups in physics as well. (Further applications in process network syntheses will be discussed in .) With some minor modifications of the input this method can be extended for several related questions: for generating direct and overall reactions, direct (steady state) mechanisms, for finding the possible resulting (overall) reactions among all possible mechanisms, etc.Computational results in section 4 show the speed of our algorithm.We give also mathematical background and results in sections 3, 5 and 6. However, we do not restrict ourselves to mathematics only, we also talk on the language of chemistry, too.The theoretical results in sections 3.2, 3.3, 5 and the computational examples in section 4 are completely new, further theoretical results will appear in and in .