Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Frederick Seitz
revolution
Henry Cavendish: the catalyst for the chemical
References
#ref-list-1
http://rsnr.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/59/2/175.full.html
This article cites 2 articles, 1 of which can be accessed free
Email alerting service
here in the box at the top right-hand corner of the article or click
Receive free email alerts when new articles cite this article - sign up
http://rsnr.royalsocietypublishing.org/subscriptions go to: Notes Rec. R. Soc. To subscribe to
on August 18, 2014 rsnr.royalsocietypublishing.org Downloaded from on August 18, 2014 rsnr.royalsocietypublishing.org Downloaded from
HENRY CAVENDISH: THE CATALYST FOR THE CHEMICAL REVOLUTION
by
FREDERICK SEITZ
The Rockefeller University, New York, USA
EDITORS FOREWARD
Althouth it is not the usual practice to reprint articles from other journals in Notes and
Records, we present here, with permission, a biography of Henry Cavendish that appeared
recently in Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society
1
. The article was originally
dedicated to Glenn T. Seaborg (19121999) and concentrates particularly on Cavendishs
work in chemistry. In this biography Frederick Seitz has managed to give a perfect little
vignette of the life and work of Henry Cavendish that nevertheless brings out the importance
of the man and his work. For this reason, I thought it worth bringing to the attention of the
readers of Notes and Records. It is interesting to note that among the 52 Foreign Members of
the American Philosophical Society elected in the period 17701810, listed in appendix A, no
less than 37 were, or later became, Fellows of the Royal Society. At the end of this issue we
reproduce a selection of plates from Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society
illustrating some of Cavendishs work mentioned in this article. (Terry Quinn, February 2005).
Keywords: Henry Cavendish; biography; gases; American Philosophical Society
Whatever else may be said regarding the relative status of Henry Cavendish and Antoine
Lavoisier in connection with the great chemical revolution that nally occurred at the end of
the eighteenth century, I believe it is entirely proper to state that Lavoisier would not have
had as sound and convincing a basis on which to advance his theory of the chemical
elements at the time he did in 1789, had it not been for the exceedingly precise experimental
work of Cavendish on the gaseous elements, not least his revelation regarding the true
nature of water as a compound formed of hydrogen and oxygen rather than an element, as
had been believed for millennia. That discovery provided the special key needed to open the
door to a new world by giving Lavoisier the courage to dismiss atly the concept of
phlogiston and to proceed with a new basis for the structure of matter. Much of great
importance that Cavendish discovered would inevitably have come to light in the
next century with the development of electrolysis. But Lavoisier would not have been a
participant after 1794, when he was guillotined. The glory associated with the chemical
revolution would have gone to others. Lavoisiers reputation as the father of modern
chemistry depends signicantly on the work of Cavendish, a scientist of different
temperament but comparable stature.
175 q 2005 The Royal Society
COMPOSITION DE LEAU
Une experience faite par M. Macquer, en 1776 (Voir Les Memoires, pages 468 & 269), & quil
rapporte dans son Dictionnaire, pouvoit faire supconner quil se forme de leau dans la
combustion de lair inammable avec lair commun.
Au mois de Juin 1783, M. Lavoisier qui, dapre`s des vues fondees sur une theorie deja`
conrmee par beaucoup dexperiences, avoit prepare un appareil pour faire bruler dans des
vaisseaux clos lair inammable avec lair vital, trouva quil resultoit de cette combustion un
liquide qui netoit que de leau tre`spure, & dont le poids etoit sensiblement egal a` celui des deux
airs employes, Il apprit alors que M. Cavendish avoit retire de leau par la meme operation, & peu
de temps apre`s, M. Monge, alors a` Mezie`res, avoit, en employant un autre appareil, fait la meme
experience plus en grand, & en avoit deduit le meme resultat, mais dune manie`re plus precise
encore, & par consequent plus certaine. Cette experience prove que dans la combustion de lair
inammable & de lair vital, il se forme une quantite deau egal au poids de ces airs consideres
dans letat de purete, puisque la petite quantite dair dautre nature qui subsiste ensuite, comple`te
ce qui peut manquer au poids de leau. Rien ne se perd dans cette experience que la lumie`re & la
chaleur qui sechappent au travers du vaisseau.
Il etoit natural de conclure de cette experience, quil seroit possible de decomposer leau, & de
separer lair inammable de lair vital.
Lavoisier follows this with accounts of other experiments involving water, such as the
production of hydrogen by the interaction of water with iron lings (limaille de fer).
6 During the war with England, Napoleon forbade the import of many everyday commodities
usually supplied by English merchants, with the hope that this would help undermine the British
economy. Because sugar from the West Indies was included, the Continent was essentially
deprived of this important nutrient and sweetener. A pharmacist and amateur chemist in my
maternal grandmothers ancestral town of Halberstadt, Saxony, observed that the beets being
grown in the local area as animal fodder had a sweet taste. Exploration demonstrated that the
quantity of sugar in the beets was sufcient to justify extraction in view of wartime scarcity. The
local farmers quickly developed a mass production approach and the beet-sugar industry was
born. Later in the century one of the participants (Rudolph Spreckels) carried the beet technology
to California, where it formed the basis of a great corporation. Doubtless genetic versions of
the beets that contained higher levels of sugar than the originals were then available. When I
visited Saxony on a tour in 1997, after the fall of the iron curtain, I found that the extensive
cultivation of sugar beets had continued unabated.
7 The history of Romagnosis experiment has been the object of a detailed study by Sandro
Stringari and Robert R Wilson. Italian version: Studi Trentini di Scienze Storiche 80, sect. 1, no. 1
(2001); English version: Rendiconti Fis. Acc. Lincei, sect. 9, vol. 11 (2000): 115. The English
version contains a memorial to Robert Wilson.
F. Seitz 198
on August 18, 2014 rsnr.royalsocietypublishing.org Downloaded from
8 Henry Cavendish, Experiments to Determine the Density of the Earth, Philosophical
Transactions of the Royal Society of London 88 (1798):469526.
9 The Electrical Researches of the Honourable Henry Cavendish, F.R.S. Edited by J.C. Maxwell,
1879. Reprint: London: Frank Cass, 1967.
10 The Scientic Papers of the Honourable Henry Cavendish, F.R.S., vol. 1: The Electrical
Researches, ed. with notes by James Clerk Maxwell; rev, with notes by James Larmor
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1921), vol. 2: Chemical and Dynamical, ed. With
notes by Edward Thorpe; contributions by Charles Chree, Frank Watson Dyson, Archibald
Geikie, and Joseph Larmor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1921).
11 Brian Pippard, CavendishThe Family and the Laboratory, The Cambridge Review (March
1990), 15.
199 Henry Cavendish: the catalyst for the chemical revolution
on August 18, 2014 rsnr.royalsocietypublishing.org Downloaded from