Excerpt from The Mechanisms of Pyrolysis, Oxidation, and Burning of Organic Materials Key words: Alchemy; free radicals; genesis; phlogiston; valency. Among the sciences chemistry made a late start. Even at the end of the 1700's when its sister sciences - mathematics, physics and biology - had attained a modest degree of maturity, chemical transformations were explained on the basis of the mythical phlogiston. How could this have occurred? Except for medicine, chemistry is the most applicable of all the sciences and from ...
Read More
Excerpt from The Mechanisms of Pyrolysis, Oxidation, and Burning of Organic Materials Key words: Alchemy; free radicals; genesis; phlogiston; valency. Among the sciences chemistry made a late start. Even at the end of the 1700's when its sister sciences - mathematics, physics and biology - had attained a modest degree of maturity, chemical transformations were explained on the basis of the mythical phlogiston. How could this have occurred? Except for medicine, chemistry is the most applicable of all the sciences and from this standpoint it might be supposed that its development would come about sooner than that of the other sciences. Doubtless in prehistoric days many chemical discoveries were made independently in different parts of the world and kept as closely guarded family secrets. Thus, the reduction of ores in fires, the formation of glass by fusion of pot-ashes with sand and the production of crude soap by hydrolysis of fats by hot aqueous potash solutions are all examples of discoveries that may well have been made before the dawn of history. Although chemical history does not commence with Greek science, the Greeks really determined the early history of chemistry and unwittingly set it off in a'wrong direction. We can detect three main lines of chemical thought among Greek philosophers. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at ... This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
Read Less
