"01 ) 
accurately known, and then the C and so the K is calculated with 
the values found in this way from equation (1) for a number of 
reactions. These values sometimes harmonize remarkably well with 
those found experimentally. 
2. This agreement is really so close that it can hardly be ascribed 
to “chance”. On the other hand the most serious objections rise to 
the reasoning on which the calculation is based. For the maximum 
work A is nothing but the difference in free energy before and after 
the reaction A=w,—y,; in the same way E=—=e,—e,, and 
accordingly these quantities are connected through the equation: 
JA 
Ee ee Gy 
(37), 
or, in G1BBs’s terminology : 
(ur Y.) (es = = i (he 1). 
So Nernst’s “theorem of heat” states that at the absolute zero not 
only the second member becomes zero for condensed systems, but 
also its differential quotient with respect to 7’ for constant volume, i.e 
p (9 a=) 
oa io Ae ee ee eee 
Now for a temperature 7’ and a volume v so great that we may 
consider the contents as a rarefied gas, the entropy of a mixture of 
nm components, of which resp. r, r‚ rv, molecular quantities are present is 
En 
. 
ICr00 
a 
3 1 = Ei) MR log (b] +f A 
dT + 2vH + {Rp log v 
in which #/ is the constant of entropy for every substance at the 
temperature 1 and the volume I. The latter must be supposed so 
great that the gas laws are applicable. 
If this mixture is compressed to a volume v,, the entropy will 
amount to: 
, 
n=f de i), Al Zn dI+2vH+ SRvlogy . (3) 
We cannot determine the value of the first integral, until the 
equation of state of the mixture is known. We shall, therefore, begin 
by putting an imaginary case, chosen as simple as possible, and 
demonstrate that at least for this case the “theorem of heat” cannot 
apply. And this not so much because we consider this case in itself 
as decisive against the theorem of heat (for we should first have to 
show that such a case really occurs in nature), but because this 
