Elements of Chemistry (Dover Books on Chemistry) [Paperback]

Antoine Lavoisier (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0486646246 | ISBN-13: 978-0486646244 | Publication Date: June 1, 1984

Monumental classic by the founder of modern chemistry is essential for undergraduate students. First explicit statement of law of conservation of matter in chemical change; first modern list of chemical elements; more. Facsimile reprint of original (1790) Kerr translation. Introduction by Professor Douglas McKie.

Product Details

• Paperback: 539 pages
• Publisher: Dover Publications (June 1, 1984)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0486646246
• ISBN-13: 978-0486646244
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #783,352 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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This review is from: Elements of Chemistry (Dover Books on Chemistry) (Paperback)

The Christian Catholic Chemist, Antoine Lavoisier (1734 - 1794) was truly a revolutionary chemist and one of the first to come out completely from the ranks of Alchemy. Lavoisier continued to propagate and encourage for a systematic and uniform chemical language like precursors like Robert Boyle (1627-1691) had been asking for. Alchemical poetical language made chemistry very difficult and ambiguous. The only sad part of Lavoisier life was that it was cut off in the French Revolution when a radical journalist generated slander on Lavoisier that ended up in him being condemned to death. The presiding judge was said to have answered "The Republic has no need of scientists." to Lavoisier and so a great man was lost to chemistry.

This book is the first "Modern" chemistry text ever written which included the discoveries up to 1789, when it was published. Any chemist of today will be able to understand the vast majority of the terminology used here since Lavoisier's terminology is still used today.

Here are a few topics he introduces and discuses in detail:
Ways and methods of extracting oxygen and hydrogen gas and methods of identification of these elements, how it was found that water was a compound, not an element; how oxygen is what we breathe (he did experiments in breathing in other works), oxygen's place in combustion of gases, liquids, and solids like charcoal and oil, how he coined the names "oxygen" and "hydrogen".

Other stuff you find in the book is how he coined the terms "alcohol", "acid", the derivation of the composition of air ("about 1/3 of the air is oxygen...") and water, a plea to transition into modern nomenclature of elements and the first modern list of the elements found in the Periodic Table, coining the suffixes of "-ic" as in "Nitric Acid" and "-ous" as in "Phosphorous Acid" a system of identifying acids and their compositions, also there is the experiment with water and the furnace that proved that Mass was never created or destroyed (others before Lavoisier had noticed that no significant change in weight occurred in other reactions), but is instead conserved in a closed system (Law of Conservation of Mass), fermentation of alcohols, combustibility of of metals and acids, Oxidation, systematically coining the term "Alkali" for substances, Distillation Methods, Specific Gravity, concept of Specific Heats and lots more that Chemists will be familiar with. Many of the terms in this book had already been in use in the Middle Ages and Antiquity, but Lavoisier made their usage more organized and systematic.

First Part: Composition of the Atmosphere and Water; Combustion of Air, Oils, and Other Gases; Neutral Salts and Minerals like Lime, Law of Conservation of Mass; How Substances Change Phases from Liquids to Solids and Liquids to Gases etc.; and Many Other Topics Discussed Along with the Experimental Procedures to Getting Lavoisier's Results.

Second Part: First Modern List of Chemical Elements; Tables of Acids and Appeals to a Systematic Nomenclature of Acidic Substances; Combustion and Observations of Salts and Acids; Along with Procedures for Experimentation with these Acids and Salts; and Many Other Topics

Third Part: Thorough Discussion of the Instrument's used in Experimentation Along with Extra Commentary on Related Experiments Along with Methods For Attaining Specific Gravities, Separation of Gases and Liquids, Specific Heats, Weight Differences, Fermentation, Evaporation, Crystallization, Oxidation of Metals, Combustion, Formation of Water; How to use Calorimeters and Furnaces; Condensation of Gases; and Many Other Topics

Appendix: Length Unit Conversion Tables; Thermal Unit Conversion Tables; Weight Conversion Tables; Methods of Determining Absolute Gravity; Pressure Unit Conversion Tables; and More

Truly a major contribution to Modern Science and especially Chemistry, this book deserves a wide audience.

For further reading on historical chemistry writings by notable chemists please read The Laws Of Gases: Memoirs By Robert Boyle And E. H. Amagat (1899) and The Sceptical Chymist (Chemistry) both By Robert Boyle and Mendeleev on the Periodic Law: Selected Writings, 1869 - 1905 By Dmitri Mendeleev and The Modern Theory Of Solution: Memoirs By Pfeffer, Van't Hoff Arrhenius And Raoult (1899) with almost complete papers of Raoult, Arrhenius and read Foundations Of The Atomic Theory: Comprising Papers And Extracts By John Dalton, William Hyde Wollaston And Thomas Thomson, 1802-1808 (1911) and Foundations Of The Molecular Theory: Comprising Papers And Extracts.