I’ve been told about the following quote, which I’m considering using
in an article I’m writing on computational chemistry:
"We are not far from the time where most of chemistry will be
submitted to computing". – Gay-Lussac, French physicist, 1808.
Does anyone know of the source or context for this quote — or can
point me in the direction of a book/article (a la Scientific
American?) that might tell me about Gay-Lussac’s motivation for
saying it? I’d also like to verify the accuracy of the quote (i.e. is
this what Gay-Lussac actually said or wrote?)
Our library has found for me that in 1808 Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac
(1778-1850) discovered that is famous law: "When two gases are
combined to form a third, the volumes are in the ratio of simple
integers. The implication was that the ratio of gas volumes is the
same as the ratio of atoms involved, meaning that equal volumes of
gases contain equal numbers of atoms. He used his results to
calculate formulas for compounds and atomic weights."
I’m interested in what might have been Gay-Lussac’s scope of
expectation of his ability to be able soon to calculate "most of
chemistry." Was he thinking about being able soon to predict merely
the molecular weights of atoms, molecules and compounds … or such
difficult results as the kinetics and products of complex chemical
reactions?
If his expectations were well-known and/or obviously limited, were
they in fact realized within a reasonable time? Or is this quote as
it appears now: a good example of a grandly naive expert’s prediction
that turned out to be spectacularly wrong. (Examples: Goddard’s
statement that ballistic missiles could not be guided to hit and
distant target accurately; the Atomic Energy Commission official’s
prediction that electricity generated by nuclear power plants would be
too cheap to bother metering its consumption.) Was this quote widely
known among Gay-Lussac’s contemporaries and did it spark any debate,
praise, ridicule …?
I’ve attempted to post this to the physics and chemistry newsgroups.
Are there any others (particularly any that concentrate in the history
of science) that I might also try?
Many thanks,
– Mike
- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -
miker…@almaden.ibm.com (Mike Ross) writes:
>I’ve been told about the following quote, which I’m considering using
>in an article I’m writing on computational chemistry:
> "We are not far from the time where most of chemistry will be
> submitted to computing". – Gay-Lussac, French physicist, 1808.
>Our library has found for me that in 1808 Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac
>(1778-1850) discovered that is famous law: "When two gases are
>combined to form a third, the volumes are in the ratio of simple
>integers. The implication was that the ratio of gas volumes is the
>same as the ratio of atoms involved, meaning that equal volumes of
>gases contain equal numbers of atoms. He used his results to
>calculate formulas for compounds and atomic weights."
>I’m interested in what might have been Gay-Lussac’s scope of
>expectation of his ability to be able soon to calculate "most of
>chemistry." Was he thinking about being able soon to predict merely
>the molecular weights of atoms, molecules and compounds … or such
>difficult results as the kinetics and products of complex chemical
>reactions?
I don’t think Gay-Lussac had the concept of molecular weight in 1808.
That concept depends on the idea put forward by Avogadro (1811) and
Ampere (1814) of a simple relationship between the volume of a gas
and the number of molecules.
>If his expectations were well-known and/or obviously limited, were
>they in fact realized within a reasonable time? Or is this quote as
>it appears now: a good example of a grandly naive expert’s prediction
>that turned out to be spectacularly wrong.
According to R. Taton’s book, Science in the Nineteenth Century:
"… advances in measuring technique soon brought to light very
marked differences between the theoretical laws and the real behavior
of gases. It appeared that Boyle’s law and Gay-Lussac’s applied only
to the perfect gaseous state, from which real gases deviate the more
strongly the higher their temperature and the lower their pressure."
(page 239).
>I’ve attempted to post this to the physics and chemistry newsgroups.
>Are there any others (particularly any that concentrate in the history
>of science) that I might also try?
Last time I checked there was no newsgroup for history of science.
Maybe somebody will start one. (I would subscribe.)
–
Ben Carter internet address: b…@netcom.com
In article <19940103.155417….@almaden.ibm.com>, inote writes…
> "We are not far from the time where most of chemistry will be
> submitted to computing". – Gay-Lussac, French physicist, 1808.
>I’m interested in what might have been Gay-Lussac’s scope of
>expectation of his ability to be able soon to calculate "most of
>chemistry." Was he thinking about being able soon to predict merely
>the molecular weights of atoms, molecules and compounds … or such
>difficult results as the kinetics and products of complex chemical
>reactions?
He wasn’t talking about computational chemistry, as we know it today, i.e.,
ab initio calculation of electronic orbitals and even chemical properties from
the rules of quantum mechanics. He was talking about what we now call
"stoichiometry." Stoichiometry is the study of the ratios in which
different substances combine to produce reaction products. Guy-Lussac
discovered the basic regularity which underlies this part of chemistry.
-Scott
——————–
Scott I. Chase "It is not a simple life to be a single cell,
SICH…@CSA2.LBL.GOV although I have no right to say so, having
been a single cell so long ago myself that I
have no memory at all of that stage of my
life." – Lewis Thomas
- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -
In article <19940103.155417….@almaden.ibm.com> inote writes:
>I’ve been told about the following quote, which I’m considering using
>in an article I’m writing on computational chemistry:
> "We are not far from the time where most of chemistry will be
> submitted to computing". – Gay-Lussac, French physicist, 1808.
>Does anyone know of the source or context for this quote — or can
>point me in the direction of a book/article (a la Scientific
>American?) that might tell me about Gay-Lussac’s motivation for
>saying it? I’d also like to verify the accuracy of the quote (i.e. is
>this what Gay-Lussac actually said or wrote?)
>Our library has found for me that in 1808 Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac
>(1778-1850) discovered that is famous law: "When two gases are
>combined to form a third, the volumes are in the ratio of simple
>integers. The implication was that the ratio of gas volumes is the
>same as the ratio of atoms involved, meaning that equal volumes of
>gases contain equal numbers of atoms. He used his results to
>calculate formulas for compounds and atomic weights."
>I’m interested in what might have been Gay-Lussac’s scope of
>expectation of his ability to be able soon to calculate "most of
>chemistry." Was he thinking about being able soon to predict merely
The quote you seek is:
"At least, it is my intention to make known some new properties in
gases, the effects of which are regular, by showing that these substances
combine amongst themslves in very simple proportions, and that the
contraction of volume which they experience on combination
also follows a regular law.
I hope by this means to give a proof of an idea advanced by
several very distinguished chemists – that we are perhaps not far
removed from the time when we shall be able to submit the bulk of
chemical phenomena to calculation."
– Read before the Philomathic Society, Dec. 31, 1808
printed in "Memoirs de la Societe d’Arcueil, II.(1809), 207-234
The title of the paper is "Memoir on the Combination of
Gaseous Substances With Each Other"
I stumbled across it a few years ago in our library and excerpted it
for a laboratory exercise for a p-chem lab on computing. I have only the
first two pages of it on hand, but the paper is an attempt to establish
the law of definite proportions, i.e. that water is always H2O, not
not H2.3O or something else. He used gases reasoning that the volume
was directly proportional to the number of molecules, which he noted was
not the case for solids and liquids.
By the way, I did not find the original paper. I saw it in a book which
was a little historical sketch on the debate, published I think in 1898.
Sorry, but I can’t remember the title of the book. It also had papers
by Dalton and Avagadro, I think.
Mike Savina
Department of Chemistry
The University of Michigan
msav…@chem.lsa.umich.edu
In a previous article, b…@netcom.com (Benjamin P. Carter) says:
>Last time I checked there was no newsgroup for history of science.
>Maybe somebody will start one. (I would subscribe.)
>–
> Ben Carter internet address: b…@netcom.com
So would I.
Michael Holliday (Ottawa, Canada)
Internet: ac…@freenet.carleton.ca
—
I’d be happy to have a newsgroup on the history of science? Does anybody
know if Abbo of Fleury was trained by Gebhard? Did he learn the arabic
numbers from Gebhard?
In article <19940103.155417….@almaden.ibm.com> miker…@almaden.ibm.com (Mike Ross) writes:
>I’ve been told about the following quote, which I’m considering using
>in an article I’m writing on computational chemistry:
> "We are not far from the time where most of chemistry will be
> submitted to computing". – Gay-Lussac, French physicist, 1808.
>Does anyone know of the source or context for this quote — or can
>point me in the direction of a book/article (a la Scientific
>American?) that might tell me about Gay-Lussac’s motivation for
>saying it? I’d also like to verify the accuracy of the quote (i.e. is
>this what Gay-Lussac actually said or wrote?)
This is more or less the same as the quote in the prologue of Hehre, Radom,
Schleyer and Poples’ book "ab inition Molecular Orbital Theory".
There the source is given as "Adolphe Quetelet"…
hope this helped a bit
so long
Wolfgang
—
"Fussnote unter einem riesigen Werbeplakat mit "intel inside":
— Wir haben das Problem eingekreist." (Andreas Kromke)
Wolfgang Sachs, Neckarstr. 25, D-64390 Erzhausen, Germany
Voice: +49 6150 82882 Domain: Wolfg…@atkins.swb.{de | sub.org}
In <5599.0501941…@atkins.swb.de> Wolfgang Sachs writes:
- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -
>In article <19940103.155417….@almaden.ibm.com> miker…@almaden.ibm.com (Mike Ross) writes:
>>I’ve been told about the following quote, which I’m considering using
>>in an article I’m writing on computational chemistry:
>> "We are not far from the time where most of chemistry will be
>> submitted to computing". – Gay-Lussac, French physicist, 1808.
>>Does anyone know of the source or context for this quote — or can
>>point me in the direction of a book/article (a la Scientific
>>American?) that might tell me about Gay-Lussac’s motivation for
>>saying it? I’d also like to verify the accuracy of the quote (i.e. is
>>this what Gay-Lussac actually said or wrote?)
>This is more or less the same as the quote in the prologue of Hehre, Radom,
>Schleyer and Poples’ book "ab inition Molecular Orbital Theory".
>There the source is given as "Adolphe Quetelet"…
Thanks to "RCFORT" in Maine, I was directed to this book and found the
complete Gay-Lussac quote in the Epilogue (p.523). The citation was
"Memoires de la Societe d’Aroueil, 2, 207 (1888), which is apparently a
historical treatment, since G-L died in 1850. An earlier citation has
also been suggested, but not confirmed. A friend of mine in Paris is
going to do some legwork for me in some libraries there.
I have found the Prolouge and Epilogue of this book, however, to be VERY
ehlpful. In addition to quotes from Quetelet and Gay-Lussac, there are
other historical gems from Dirac and Compte which complete a wide range
of views and expectations for the role of computations in the conduct of
chemistry research.
– Mike
So would I.In article <CJ6K12….@freenet.carleton.ca>,
- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -
ac…@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Michael Holliday) wrote:
> In a previous article, b…@netcom.com (Benjamin P. Carter) says:
> >Last time I checked there was no newsgroup for history of science.
> >Maybe somebody will start one. (I would subscribe.)
> >–
> > Ben Carter internet address: b…@netcom.com
> So would I.
> Michael Holliday (Ottawa, Canada)
> Internet: ac…@freenet.carleton.ca
> —
–
Joseph Bellina (jbell…@saintmarys.edu)
Saint Mary’s College
Notre Dame, IN 46556
So would I, too!
Robin English, Rhodes University ro…@ruchem.ru.ac.za
- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -
In article <19940103.155417….@almaden.ibm.com>, miker…@almaden.ibm.com (Mike Ross) writes:
> I’ve been told about the following quote, which I’m considering using
> in an article I’m writing on computational chemistry:
> "We are not far from the time where most of chemistry will be
> submitted to computing". – Gay-Lussac, French physicist, 1808.
> Does anyone know of the source or context for this quote — or can
> point me in the direction of a book/article (a la Scientific
> American?) that might tell me about Gay-Lussac’s motivation for
> saying it? I’d also like to verify the accuracy of the quote (i.e. is
> this what Gay-Lussac actually said …
> If his expectations were well-known and/or obviously limited, were
> they in fact realized within a reasonable time? Or is this quote as
> it appears now: a good example of a grandly naive expert’s prediction
> that turned out to be spectacularly wrong. (Examples: Goddard’s
> statement that ballistic missiles could not be guided to hit and
> distant target accurately; the Atomic Energy Commission official’s
> prediction that electricity generated by nuclear power plants would be
> too cheap to bother metering its consumption.) Was this quote widely
> known among Gay-Lussac’s contemporaries and did it spark any debate,
> praise, ridicule …?
> I’ve attempted to post this to the physics and chemistry newsgroups.
> Are there any others (particularly any that concentrate in the history
> of science) that I might also try?
> Many thanks,
> — Mike>
I found the quote as quoted in "harvard Case Histories in Experimental
Science, Vol 1, James B. Conant, The Atomic Molecular Theory, p. 253, further
references there to the original literature.
Walter