Contemporary chemistry : a survey of the present state, methods and tendencies of chemical science / [E.E. Fournier d'Albe].

  • Edmund Edward Fournier d'Albe
Date:
1911
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: Contemporary chemistry : a survey of the present state, methods and tendencies of chemical science / [E.E. Fournier d'Albe]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    “ It is really impossible,” says Sir William Ramsay, “ to manipulate quantities of the order of a few tenths of a milligram.” * Yet a tenth of a milligram, even of the heaviest element, contains at least half a trillion (0*5 x 1018) atoms. As chemistry, properly so called, deals only with tangible substances, which can be “ manipulated,” it follows that all purely chemical methods work with aggregates of units numbering over a million times the number of in- dividuals in the whole human race. The populations of Australasia, America, Africa, Europe, and Asia form approxi- mately a geometrical progression of the form 1, 2, 4, 8, 16. Imagine the teeming millions of China and India, the hordes of Africa, and the civilised populations of Europe and America lumped together and multiplied a millionfold— men, women, and children, and the whole aggregate subjected to some supra-chemical analysis. What would be the result ? The “ substance ” would turn out to be an “ element.” No amount of interaction with other masses of a different species would split it up into two or more independent sub- stances. Hence the efforts of the supra-chemist would be necessarily confined to an investigation of its physical properties, and its ultimate structure. And, firstly, there would be the three states of aggre- gation. In the “ liquid ” state of humanity the “ atoms ” would constantly remain within each other’s sphere of influence, within hail or signalling distance. They would exhibit a good deal of cohesion and of what we have lately come to call “ steric hindrance.” When scattered beyond that distance the human units or atoms would act more or less independently, but always retain a tendency to form binary groups or higher “ molecular ” associations. A * Presidential Address to the Chemical Society, 1909. Pie has since then brought a balance into use which is capable of weighing a 500,000th of a milligram. See p. 101 below.
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