MATHEMATICS AND CHEMISTRY 



405 



Examination shows, however, that any assumption as to the 

 number of molecules of iodine L combined with one of 

 potassium iodide KI leads to exactly as good a constant. By 

 assuming, for instance, that the compound KI 5 is formed, the 

 values in this column are halved and consequently those in the 

 fourth also, the constancy of the ratio remaining unaffected. 

 Though their investigation showed that the concentration of the 

 combined iodine was proportional to that of the potassium 

 iodide, it proved nothing with regard to its state of combination. 

 It merely showed that at that temperature, for every additional 

 two molecules of iodide KI, an additional molecule of iodine 

 L> was dissolved. 



It is this abuse of mathematics in discussions on chemical 

 theory that has done and is still doing so much harm to the 

 advancement of chemical science. We still have " proofs " 

 which are proofs only on a host of doubtful assumptions, as 

 well as frequent omissions. Mathematics is too often used in 

 such a way as to obscure the truth by the unnecessary com- 

 plication of simple interactions or by imposing a spurious 

 simplicity on changes which are undoubtedly more complex than 

 is assumed. The errors are not, as a rule, strictly speaking- 

 mathematical but errors in the application of mathematics. They 

 are due to defective reasoning with the defects plastered over 

 and obscured by a thick coating of mathematics ; remove this 

 plaster and we find probably that some of the facts are missing. 

 We are reminded of the puzzles in which a number of blocks 

 of different shapes are to be arranged into a square, using all 

 the blocks. It is easy enough to form a square by omitting one 

 or two pieces, perhaps insignificantly small ones ; but this is a 

 wrong solution, generally fundamentally wrong. So it is with 



