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CHAPTEE VI 

 MOLECULAR FEEE PATHS 



61. Objections to the Kinetic Theory 



THE theory of gases developed in the foregoing investiga- 

 tions has been shown to be in agreement with experi- 

 mentally determined laws in a series of important points ; 

 Boyle's law and Dal ton's law respecting the pressure of 

 gases are necessary consequences of the theory, which 

 explains also the law of effusion and justifies important laws 

 of theoretical chemistry by furnishing Avogadro's law 

 with a convincing foundation. In spite of this, however, 

 its admissibility would lie open to justifiable doubts and 

 objections if we confined the investigation to the points so 

 far considered, and omitted to pursue the consequences of 

 our hypothesis in other directions also. 



As soon, indeed, as Kronig 1 and Clausius 2 had 

 roused the attention of the learned world in 1857 by their 

 first memoirs, many replies and objections were raised 

 against the hypothesis that combated the views hitherto 

 held. But the considerations that were urged against it, 

 far from refuting the theory against which they were 

 marshalled, have served but to promote its development 

 by causing Clausius to publish the important works in 

 which, by enlarging into a scientific system the funda- 

 mental conceptions of the theory that had frequently been 

 brought forward before his time, he made himself the real 

 founder of the kinetic theory of gases. 



The doubts put forward by Buys- Ballot, 3 Hoppe, 4 



1 Pogg. Ann. 1856, xcix. p. 315. 2 Ibid. 1857, c. p. 353. 



3 Ibid. 1858, ciii. p. 240. 4 Ibid. 1858, civ. p. 279. 



