Jöns Jacob Berzelius’ Pursuit of Atomic Weights The Swedish scientist Berzelius was one of the few scientists who strongly believed in the idea of atomic weights, and thought that knowing as much as possible about their weights was vitally important. When he heard of Dalton’s theory, he set about the gargantuan task of measuring the atomic weight of every single known element – without any proof that Dalton’s atoms actually existed. This was even more challenging than it first seems once you consider the fact that very little of the chemical glassware necessary for such precise measurements had been invented. Berzelius had to manufacture much of it himself. Berzelius’ experiences with glass-blowing had an additional bonus, in 1824 he discovered that one of the constituents of glass was a new element – *silicon *. Having already discovered three other elements prior to silicon: thorium , cerium andselenium , Berzelius spent the next ten years obsessively measuring more than two thousand chemical compounds in pursuit of accurate atomic weights for the elements. Eventually Berzelius had remarkably accurate atomic weights for 45 elements; his value for chlorine was accurate to within 0.2% of the value we know today. However, by the time Berzelius had produced his results, other scientists were now measuring atomic weights – and getting conflicting results. In fact, scientists were looking for all sorts of patterns throughout the elements. _______________ en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemistry:_A_Volatile_History
Posted on: Mon, 14 Jul 2014 14:16:19 +0000
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