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National Resources Planning Board 



part of the country's industrial equipment. From it 

 comes the knowledge that leads not only to improved 

 methods and materials but also to entirely new proc- 

 esses and products and occasionally to new industries. 



Progress In Chemistry and Physics 

 in the Nineteenth Century 



Scientists of the nineteenth century, building upon 

 the solid foundation laid by those of the seventeenth 

 and eighteenth centuries, uncovered and explained 

 secrets of nature which, when applied to industry, were 

 to alter completely the details of man's existence. 

 Inquiring minds were active in many subjects, but a 

 brief mention of a few men working in chemistry and 

 physics is suflicicnt to show how important this period 

 was for the future development of numerous great 

 industries. 



In 1801 Thomas Young brought before the Royal 

 Society in London "the first convincing proof . . . that 

 Ught is not a corporeal entity, but a mere pulsation in 

 the substance of an all-pervading ether." It was in 

 1801 also that Sir Humphrey Davy, as lecturer and 

 professor of chemistry at the newly established llo5'al 

 Institution in London, was carrying on the experiments 

 in electrochemistry by which he was able to isolate 

 potassium and sodium and to prove that substances 

 formerly considered elementary were really compounds. 

 At the same time John Dalton was formulating his 

 atomic theory, which, when first presented in 1803 

 before the Literary and Philosophical Society of 

 Manchester, made little impression.' 



The atomic theory was soon to receive some support, 

 however, from the work of a French chemist, Gay- 

 Lussac, who, in publishing his observations, brought 

 out "the remarkable fact that gases, under the same 

 conditions of temperature and pressure, combine 

 always in definite numerical proportions as to volume." ^ 

 An Italian, Amadeo Avogadro, quickly supplied the 

 explanation of Gay-Lussac's observations in terms of 

 the atomic theory, but because of the slow acceptance 

 of the theory itself, Avogadro's law was neglected by 

 chemists for a whole generation. Johan Jakob Berze- 

 lius, a Swedish chemist, however, put the theory to 

 test in his laboratory by determining the combining 

 weights of the different elements, and in 1818 he 

 published his first table of atomic weights. 



Ten j'ears later the barrier between animate and 

 inanimate nature was destroyed when a young German 

 chemist, Friedrich Wohlcr, succeeded in synthesizing 

 urea in his laboratory; and in 1831 Michael Faraday, 

 Davy's prot6g6 and successor at the Royal Institution, 

 opened the whole field of electricity and magnetism for 



cultivation by such men as Hermann von Ilelmholtz, 

 Clerk Maxwell, and lleinrich Hertz. 



Perhaps the greatest of all the chemists of the period 

 was Justus von Liebig, whose laboratory, established 

 at Giessen in 1824 for research in organic chemistry 

 and agricultural chemistry, became the training school 

 for young chemists from all countries. AVhen called to 

 Munich in 1852, he developed there a still larger labora- 

 tory to which came a steady stream of applicants 

 seeking the privilege of studying and working with the 

 renowned teacher; among them were the Americans, 

 Eben Horsford, J. Lawrence Smith, Frederick A. 

 Gcnth, AVolcott Gibbs, and C. M. Wetherill. 



Just before the middle of the century Louis Pasteur 

 began the work which was to mean so much first to 

 French industry and later to all mankind. Three 

 advances of far-reaching importance came toward the 

 end of the century, when J. J. Thomson isolated the 

 electron and measured its charge and mass; when 

 Rontgen discovered X-rays; and Becquerel observed 

 the first indications of radioactivity. 



Two scientists in the United States also made dis- 

 tinct contributions to scientific theory. The first was 

 Josiah Willard Gibbs, who in 1876 presented his phase- 

 rule, one of the most important additions to the theory 

 of chemistry made by an American. Partly because 

 it was not sufficiently brought to the attention of chemists 

 and partly because its mathematical presentation was 

 not at first understood, a decade passed before it was 

 applied. The second was Joseph Henry who, although 

 preceded by Faraday in the announcement of the 

 theory of current induction, was the first to announce 

 the phenomenon of self-induction. 



Foundation of Schools of Science 

 and Technology 



The reservoir of scientific knowledge was filling, and, 

 as it filled, many men turned their thoughts to means 

 by which this knowledge could be utilized. As in the 

 discovery of new facts, so also in the application of 

 them, the countries of Europe quite naturally preceded 

 the United States. Special schools were founded where 

 students could learn not only scientific theories but 

 also their application to industry. Germany, France, 

 and, to some extent, England had recognized that 

 "the greatest warfare of the nineteenth century is in- 

 dustrial warfare — the struggle between great nations 

 for supremacy in the various industries, and for the 

 control of the various markets."^ 



Many of the early technical schools gre\v out of the 

 industrial demands of the locaUty in which they were 

 established. The silver mines of Freiberg, for example, 

 led to the founding in 1765 of a famous School of Mines, 



' Williams, Henry Smith The story o( nineteenth-century science. New York, 

 London, Harper and Bro., 1900, p. 255. 

 I The story of nlnctccnth-century science, pp. 256-257. See footnote 1. 



■ White, Andrew D. Scientific and industrial education in the United Mates 

 Popular Science Monthty. 6, 172 (1874) 



