(under construction)
Things really picked up in the 1770s when it became known that the air in our atmosphere is a mixture, not a single substance. A few decades earlier, Joseph Black noticed carbon dioxide (CO2) from carbonate minerals, and later Joseph Priestley noticed and isolated CO2 when he lived near a brewery. Soon more and more gases were identified.
=================================================================
================================
For a long time I sympathized with Priestley for visiting France and passing along his discoveries to Lavoisier, who subsequently gave him zero credit. Later I learned that Priestley did something similar to Jan Ingenhousz. What a world. Genius at work, carry on.
================================
Electrochemistry – discovery of anions and cations. Working with Volta’s new battery 1807-8, Humphrey Davies discovered the Group 1 & 2 elements (Na, K, Mg, Ca) well before the Periodic Table existed. Michael Faraday made further advances.
===============================
Louis Pasteur – 30 years before his success with anthrax and rabies vaccinations, the chemist discerned that tartrate crystals can occur in two mirror image forms that rotate polarized light beams in different directions. In 1848 the 25 year old Pasteur stunned the aging inventor of the polarimeter (Biot), who had skeptically demanded meticulous proof of his claim. At that early stage, scientists had no clue what organic molecules looked like and how the atoms were connected. (This was 17 years before Kekule published on the benzene ring, inspired by his famous dream of a snake biting its own tail in 1865. Tetrahedral carbon was first proposed in 1874.) https://engines.egr.uh.edu/episode/604
============================
In Pasteur’s own words (click to enlarge, use the browser back arrow to return). Translated from the French.
================================
A bit about Cavendish. Wealthy, painfully shy, single-minded devotion to pioneering research. He made some amazing findings, given the limited tools available in those early days.
===============================
Dan Harring (54) 