A History of Chemistry (Moore) Quotes
Chemistry books, History of chemistry, Works about the history of science
Top Quotes
“Phlogiston theory”
“History of chemistry”
“Scientific Revolution”
“Historical View of the Progress of Chemistry by Sir Humphry Davy”
“VI completes the caustifying of the alkali by the action of magnesia.”
“[I]n later years, when Lavoisier had once shown the way, Black was among the first to adopt the new views.”
“[H]is work was done with little thought of fame, and much of the best of it remained entirely unknown till long after his death.”
“[A]lthough in middle life he inherited a fortune which made him one of the richest men in England, this had no influence upon his regular and frugal habits.”
“Archive.org
• A History of Chemistry (1918) by F. J. Moore”
“[T]he person addressed is the more mature student of chemistry, though it is believed that few portions of the book will present serious difficulties to the general reader.”
“Cavendish... accounted for his results in terms of the phlogiston theory... on the assumption of Priestley that oxygen was "dephlogisticated air," that portion... which unites with phlogiston on combustion.”
“With Joseph Black (1728-1799) we come to the eminent group of distinguished chemists whose work contributed so largely to the overthrow of the phlogiston theory... [T]hey themselves almost without exception remained blind to this, its most important significance.”
“[A]s we study how man's knowledge of nature has broadened and deepened with the years, we acquire a better understanding of the trend of thought in our own times, and of the exact bearing of each new discovery upon the old but ever recurring problems of the science.”
“The aim has been to emphasize only those facts and influences which have contributed to make the science what it is today... [T]he claim of a topic for consideration has been not its practical but its historical importance... [i.e.,] did it contribute a new fundamental idea.”
“About 1783, after the discovery of oxygen. Cavendish combined this gas with hydrogen by means of the electric spark, and so established the composition of water.”
“Such a result was utterly opposed to [previous] explanations... [i.e.,] when lime was heated in the kiln phlogiston entered into it making it fiery or caustic. Later when the quicklime was treated with mild alkali another transfer of phlogiston occurred and the latter became caustic in its turn.”
“Cavendish identified hydrogen with phlogiston, and this was entirely in the spirit of current views, for if a metal is a compound of a base with phlogiston then when the base unites with an acid to form a salt phlogiston must escape.”
“Black was long professor in Glasgow, and made some important discoveries in physics, developing independently the idea of specific heat and of latent heat, though his work was not formally published.”
“From II and III he concluded that the difference between magnesia alba and magnesia usta was the gas ("fixed air") liberated from the former by acids, and that it was the expulsion of the same gas which accounted for the loss of weight when magnesia alba was heated (I).”
“Little attention has been paid to questions of priority. A great discovery is usually preceded by a multitude of earlier observations, the sum total of which may even include all the fundamental facts involved. ...[F]rom the historical standpoint the discoverer of a great truth is usually the one through whose efforts it first becomes available to the [human] race.”