[miller] 



IDEA IN CHEMICAL MECHANICS 



249 



weaker and weaker tools were coming into use, until the very recollection 

 of the method of Harcourt seems to have died out. 



If there were time, I sliould like to go into the reasons for this 

 gradual adoption lof the methods of guess and try, but there isn't. It is 

 conneoted, however, with Guldberg and Waage's application of the kinetic 

 theoiy to tiliis subject, which made men feel that they were likely to be 

 good guessers. They thought they had a sure tip. 



Tliis short line on the board^ represents ten years of active work, the 

 Zeitschrift fur physikalische Chemie was founded here, and Arrhenius' 

 theory of electrolytic dissociation was first applied to a kinetic problem 

 here. Dozens of reactions were studied from the kinetic point of view, 



all by method number four; and with the result that might be predicted. 

 If the case experimented with happened to be a simple one, the law was 

 guessed ; if not, it wasn't. And so, in addition to the reactions for which 

 the relations between rate and concentrations were ascertained, there 

 v/ere gradually being discovered a number of reactions for which these 

 relations could not be formulated. 



The first step upward was taken in 1895, by Dr. now Professor A. 

 A. Noyes.^ He reintroduced van't Hoff's method, method three ; quoted 

 van't HofFs arguments to show that it is superior to number four; and' 

 proved its superiority by recalculating Magnanini's measurements (Mag- 



1 Referring to diagram. 



»Zeit. phys. Chem., J8 119 (1895). 



