LOTHAR MEYER modern theories and pathways to periodicity.

201 Pages·2021·3.68 MB·English

Classic Texts in the Sciences
Gisela Boeck
Alan J. Rocke
Editors
Lothar Meyer
Modern Theories
and Pathways to
Periodicity

Classic Texts in the Sciences
SeriesEditors
JürgenJost
ArminStock
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Gisela Boeck (cid:129) Alan J. Rocke
Lothar Meyer
Modern Theories and Pathways
to Periodicity
GiselaBoeck AlanJ.Rocke
UniversitätRostock CaseWesternReserveUniversity
Rostock,Germany Cleveland,Ohio,USA
ISSN2365-9963 ISSN2365-9971 (electronic)
ClassicTextsintheSciences
ISBN978-3-030-78341-9 ISBN978-3-030-78342-6 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78342-6
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Preface
The periodic table of the elements has been called “nature’s Rosetta Stone,” “the most
compactandmeaningfulcompilationofknowledgethatmanhasyetdevised.”1Itissurely
thesingle mostrecognizable emblemofthescienceofchemistry. Today, thestructure of
theperiodictableisdescribedbymoderntheoriesofnuclearparticlesandconfigurationsof
valenceelectrons,buttheearlyhistoryofperiodicsystemslongpredatesthediscoveryof
subatomicstructure.FromtheverytimeofJohnDalton’sintroductionofatomictheoryinto
chemistryatthebeginningofthenineteenthcentury,manyscientistsexploredrelationships
between the atomic weights and the properties of the known elements. All such early
studieswerebasedsolelyonevidencefromclassicalchemistry—operationscarriedoutat
the laboratory bench, including reactions, distillations, recrystallizations, careful physical
measurements, etc., even bodily senses of sight, smell, and taste—for until well into the
twentiethcenturytherewerenocomplexmachinestolookmoredirectlyintotheworldof
atomsandmolecules.
Afteraneffectiveanddurablesystemofrelativeatomicweightsemergedaround1860,
efforts to understand these relationships and create systems of the elements were
consolidatedandfurther developed.Thefirstcomplete periodic system waspublished by
thebrilliantRussianchemistDmitriiIvanovichMendeleevin1869,andhequicklymoved
to improve his first imperfect version. But Mendeleev was not alone in such efforts;
discussions regarding the just apportionment of scientific credit for this major discovery
havecontinuedfromthatdaytothepresent.Mendeleev’schiefrivalintheintroductionand
earlydevelopmentoftheperiodicsystemoftheelementswastheGermanchemistLothar
Meyer.
In the following work we present English translations of three texts written by Lothar
Meyer.ThefirstoftheseisthecompletefirsteditionofMeyer’sgroundbreakingbook,Die
1R. M. Baum, “The Periodic Table of the Elements,” Chemical and Engineering News
81(8September2003),27;H.Shapley,OfStarsandMen:TheHumanResponsetoanExpanding
Universe(Boston:BeaconPress,1958),38–39;bothcitedinE.Scerri,ThePeriodicTable:AVery
ShortIntroduction,seconded.(OxfordUniversityPress,2019),xvii.
vii
viii Preface
modernen Theorien der Chemie und ihre Bedeutung für die chemische Statik (Breslau:
Maruschke & Berendt, 1864), which contains, among much else, partial periodic tables.
Theseconditemisthecrucialpaperinwhichhepublishedhisearliestcompleteandunified
periodic system, supplemented by his innovative and heuristically productive atomic
volumes line chart: “Die Natur der chemischen Elemente als Function ihrer
Atomgewichte,” Annalen der Chemie und Pharmacie suppl. vol. 7 (1870), 354–64. The
third item comprises those portions of the second edition of Die modernen Theorien der
Chemie (1872) which discuss material related to the periodic system of the elements
(pp. 289–312 and 338–51), along with his new introduction and new conclusion to the
secondedition(pp.VII–XVIand359–64).
Oureditioniscompletedbyadetailedintroductorycommentary,aswellassupplemen-
taryeditorialnotesthroughoutthetranslatedtexts.Asimultaneouslypublishedcompanion
volume provides the full reprinted German texts of these three items, along with the
Germanversionofourcommentaryandnotes:GiselaBoeckandAlanRocke,eds.,Lothar
Meyer: Die modernen Theorien und Wege zum Periodensystem (Heidelberg: Springer
Spektrum,2021).
Forthisedition,wehaveadoptedcertainconventionsandpractices.Thepagenumbers
oftheoriginalpublicationsareinsertedintherelevantlocationsofthetranslatedtextsand
enclosed in curly brackets; accordingly, the commentary and footnotes also use curly
brackets for page references to these texts. Meyer’s footnote references to the chemical
literature of his day were often in a form that would be obscure to modern readers;
accordingly, all of his references have been carefully checked and silently completed
followingmodernbibliographicstandardsandconventions.Editorialfootnotesareprinted
in italic font and additional editorial insertions are enclosed in square brackets. German
texts in Sperrsatz (letter-spacing), as well as underlined words in handwritten correspon-
dence,havebeenrepresentedinEnglishbyuseofitalicfont;however,wehavenotapplied
typographicalemphasistopersonalnamesandnamesofelements,asMeyerdid.Wehave
chosen not to reproduce Meyer’s detailed table of contents, or his table of corrections in
proofonthelastpage;these,andafewadditionalobvioustypographicalerrors,havebeen
silently corrected. For Russian names and literature references, we follow the ALA-LC
Romanizationconventions,butwithoutligatureties.
Weusethefollowingshorttitlesforfivefrequentlycitedperiodicals:
Annalender ¼ [J.Liebigs]AnnalenderChemieundPharmacie
Chemie
Annalender ¼ [L.W.Gilberts]AnnalenderPhysik(until1824);or
Physik [J.C.Poggendorffs]AnnalenderPhysikundChemie(after1824)
Annalesde ¼ Annalesdechimieetdephysique
chimie
Comptes ¼ Comptesrendushebdomadairesdesséancesdel’AcadémiedesSciences
rendus deParis
(continued)
Preface ix
Jahresbericht ¼ Jahres-BerichtüberdieFortschrittederphysischenWissenschaften
(Tübingen:Laupp):AnnualreportseditedbyJacobBerzelius,1821–1848;
or
JahresberichtüberdieFortschrittederChemie(Giessen:Ricker):Annual
reportseditedbyHermannKopp,HeinrichWill,andothers,after1848
FortheirhelpfuladviceandencouragementtheeditorsexpresstheirgratitudetoNathan
Brooks, Pёtr Druzhinin, Gregory Girolami, Michael Gordin, Jürgen Jost, Vera Mainz,
GuillermoRestrepo,andEricScerri.Forkindassistanceduringarchivalvisits,furnishing
ofneededtexts,preparationofscans,andpermissiontopublishpassagesfromunpublished
letters we wish to thank the Archive of the Deutsches Museum in Munich, the Royal
Society of Chemistry in London, the Universitätsbibliothek der Technischen Universität
BergakademieFreiberg,theUniversitätsarchivderTechnischenUniversitätChemnitz,the
Universitätsbibliothek der Universität Tübingen, and the Abteilung Sondersammlungen
der Universitätsbibliothek Rostock. Finally, we thank Stephanie Wolf, Martina Mechler,
Sarah Annette Goob, and Sabrina Höcklin of Springer Spektrum and Birkhäuser for
generousassistanceattheirrespectivepress,andJürgenJostandArminStock, editorsof
the series Classic Texts in the Sciences (Klassische Texte der Wissenschaft), for their
invitationtopublishthisneweditionofLotharMeyer’searlyworks.
Rostock,Germany GiselaBoeck
Cleveland,Ohio,U.S.A. AlanJ.Rocke
Contents
Commentary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
LotharMeyer,ModernTheoriesofChemistryandtheirSignificance
forChemicalStatics,FirstEdition(1864),Complete. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
LotharMeyer,“TheNatureoftheChemicalElements,asaFunction
oftheirAtomicWeights”(1869–70). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
LotharMeyer,ModernTheoriesofChemistry,SecondEdition(1872),
Selections. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
PersonalNamesMentionedintheTextsorCommentary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
xi