Book Id: 36063 Essai de statique chimique. 2v. Arms of French King on upper covers. Very fine. C. L. Berthollet.
Essai de statique chimique. 2v. Arms of French King on upper covers. Very fine

Essai de statique chimique. 2v. Arms of French King on upper covers. Very fine

Publisher Information: Paris: Firmin Didot, 1803.

From a Royal Library

Berthollet, Claude Louis (1748-1822). Essai de statique chimique. 2 vols., 8vo. viii, 543 [1]; viii, 555 [1, errata]pp. Paris: Firmin Didot, 1803. 197 x 125 mm. Tree sheep, gilt spines, French royal arms in gilt on front covers. Occasional scattered foxing, but fine otherwise.

First edition. Berthollet attempted to provide chemistry with an adequate theoretical foundation so that its experimental results could be analyzed on the basis of theoretical first principles. He gave a thorough critique of the contemporary oversimplified concept of the law of chemical affinity, which had not yet been properly examined; Berthollet's main contribution to the development of this concept was his proof that chemical affinity was relative, varying with the physical conditions-quantity, temperature, solubility, pressure, physical state-accompanying a chemical experiment. He introduced the highly important concept of "chemical mass"-relative affinity combined with the mass of reactants in a chemical combination-to give the total force with which a given quantity of a substance reacted with another. He was probably the first chemist to perform an exhaustive investigation of how physical conditions affect chemical reactions, creating a molecular model of matter to explain the effects of temperature and density on chemical reactions. DSB. Norman 221. Duveen, p. 75. Smeaton, "Berthollet's Essai de statique chimique and its translations," Ambix 24 (1977), pp. 149-158; "Berthollet's Essai de statique chimique: A supplementary note," Ambix 25 (1978), pp. 211-212.

Book Id: 36063

Price: $2,500.00

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