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Notes
- 1.
On 3 November 1881 Bunsen wrote his English friend and former collaborator Henry Roscoe [1, 544]: “I was absent from [Heidelberg] on my anniversary day [the 50th anniversary of the date his doctoral degree was conferred, 17 October 1831], hoping in that way to escape all official notice, but on my return I found so many tokens of kind interest that I scarcely see how it will be possible for me to answer each one separately … and so I am beginning to feel very much exhausted after all I have been through.” On 9 January 1882 Kopp wrote Roscoe [2, 91], “We certainly had expected you at Bunsen’s celebration. B. had hidden himself away with a few selected friends in Jugenheim on the Bergstrasse [near Darmstadt] … B. bore the unavoidable with dignity and not without pleasure.”
- 2.
Bunsen’s surviving correspondence shows that he had made at least two previous trips to Naples on Easter holiday in company with Kopp, in 1875 and 1880; see Bunsen to Kolbe, 4 June 1875, ADM 3507, and Bunsen to Roscoe, 7 March 1880, ADM 1000.
- 3.
Bunsen mentioned Kopp’s Easter 1881 Italian holiday in letters to Roscoe of 5 and 12 March 1881, ADM 1002 and 1003.
- 4.
“Denkst Du daran, Genosse froher Stunden / Wie wir vereint die Musenstadt begrüsst”: a sentimental German student drinking song.
- 5.
The work he speaks of may be the same as that referred to in his letter to Wöhler of 15 October 1876, in which he writes that “das unchemische [?] Arbeiten, dem ich mich mit Liebe wieder einmal hingegeben habe, und das Experimentiren … ist mir ausgezeichnet bekommen. Es ist zunächst verschiedenes Krystallochemisches, was ich in Untersuchung habe …” (BBAW-W).
- 6.
A “Rattenkönig” is the purported accidental knotting of a number of rats together through their filthy tails.
- 7.
See the anecdote by Emile Meyerson cited toward the end of Section 1 of the introduction.
- 8.
“Verzage nicht, wenn Du einmal gefehlt hast, und Deine Reue sei eine schönere That”; Jean Paul Richter (1763–1825) was a German Romantic poet and novelist, known for his wisdom, humor, and aphoristic style.
- 9.
The reader may agree with the editor (as well as with many of Kopp’s contemporaries) that Kopp was not always successful in his simplifying endeavor. See the introduction to this volume for more on Kopp’s writing style.
- 10.
Meant is Bunsen’s traveling companion Georg Hermann Quincke (1834–1924), professor of physics at Heidelberg since 1875, and good friend of both Bunsen and Kopp.
- 11.
A sixteenth-century palatial home which in the nineteenth century was owned by the government, and used to house the Naples postal and telegraph offices.
- 12.
See Bunsen to Kopp, 22 April 1882, ADM 1008, which describes the trip with Quincke, just concluded. Bunsen did not mention Kopp’s present in this letter, nor (as far as I know) in any other surviving document.
- 13.
“Prof. Schr.” is not readily identifiable, but was probably not a travel companion. Wöhler could not guess his identity, either: Wöhler to Kopp, 1 April 1882, MPGA. He may have been one of the “seven permanent naturalists” [3, 86] on the staff of the Naples aquarium (see next footnote).
- 14.
Completed in 1874 under the direction of German zoologist Anton Dohrn (1840–1909), the Acquario di Napoli is currently the oldest aquarium in Europe. Karl Baedecker, writing in the same year Molecular-Welt was published [3, 85], regarded this aquarium, still then under the direction of Dohrn, as “perhaps the most interesting establishment of the kind in the world.”
- 15.
Presumably a sly reference to academia.
- 16.
“Aerarium” displays a Latin ending on a Greek root, which seemed incongruous to such a sophisticated classicist such as Kopp. Kopp used the word here with no reference to its meaning in classical Latin as “treasury.”
- 17.
Kopp is presumably referring here to the word “terrarium.”
- 18.
“Apotheker-Latein”: i.e., pretentious or incomprehensible formal or technical language.
- 19.
“Sieh da! sieh da! am Hochgericht / Tanzt um des Rades Spindel / Halb sichtbarlich bei Mondenlicht / Ein luftiges Gesindel.” From the ballad “Lenore,” by Gottfried Bürger (1748–94).
- 20.
This is the value calculated from theory by Rudolf Clausius [4], in his first paper on the kinetic theory of gases and of heat. This paragraph provides a striking characterization of kinetic theory, as understood in 1882—and as understood today—including vibrational and rotational modes of molecular motion.
- 21.
An Austrian country dance, characterized by graceful twining of the couple’s hands, held securely and continuously.
- 22.
“Notte e giorno faticar, per chi nulla sa gradir” (“Rest I’ve none by night or day, scanty fare and doubtful pay”): the beginning of Leporello’s opening aria from Mozart’s Don Giovanni.
- 23.
“Figaro here, Figaro there, Figaro up, Figaro down, faster and faster”: from Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia.
- 24.
An aromatic south Asian plant from which is derived an essential oil much used in perfumery. “Patchouli” comes from a Tamil word meaning “green”—just like “chlorine,” from the Greek.
- 25.
The liberal Fortschrittspartei, arguably the first modern political party in Germany, was formed in Prussia in 1861.
- 26.
Kopp knew that kinetic energy is proportional to mass times velocity squared, and kinetic-molecular theory as developed since 1857 suggested that average molecular energy was proportional to absolute temperature. So at the same constant temperature, mean (in modern science, root-mean-square) velocities of different molecules must be inversely proportional to the square roots of the respective masses.
- 27.
That ozone molecules consist of three atoms of oxygen was first proposed in the 1850s; by the 1860s a consensus began to form, and by the 1870s most chemists believed this—e.g., in [5, 234].
- 28.
The anonymous authors of the spoof Berichte der Durstigen Chemischen Gesellschaft, published in 1886 in Berlin, were surely alluding to this passage when they illustrated the famous benzene molecule formed of six monkeys. The fifth grasping “hand” (prehensile tail) of each carbon / monkey was portrayed as a “residual caudal valence.”
- 29.
“Hunc spiritum, incognitum bactenus, novo nomine Gas voco, qui nec vasis cogi, nec in corpus visibile reduci, nisi extincto prius semine, potest.” (“I call this spirit, hitherto unknown, by the new name of ‘Gas’, which can neither be retained in vessels, nor reduced to a visible form, unless the seed is first extinguished.”) Cited and translated in [6, 2:227].
- 30.
In knitting, the German instruction “schlage dreißig Augen auf” (literally, “open thirty eyes”) means “cast on thirty stitches” in English. Kopp is punning between knitting terms used by girls at (say) ten years of age, versus attracting the notice of the opposite sex at sixteen.
- 31.
The law of “effusion” of mixed gases states that at constant temperature and standard conditions the velocities of flow through a small hole in a thin plate into a vacuum are inversely proportional to the square roots of the densities (hence also of the molecular weights) of the gases. It was first determined, coined, and defined by Thomas Graham [7].
- 32.
This is “diffusion,” also defined and characterized mathematically by Grahem [8]. As Kopp correctly states, following Graham, the empirical result is the same as for effusion, though the modern understanding of the mechanism differs in the two cases. The process is described in the next paragraph.
- 33.
“Transpiration” can be a synonym of “perspiration” both in German and in English.
- 34.
Once again, Graham studied and named “transpiration” [9, 1:264–70, 900–22], which describes viscous flow of gases through holes which, by contrast to the previous cases, are not short—capillary tubes, for example. Mason and Kronstadt point out [10] that there has been much continuing confusion on this subject in the twentieth century; however, there is no confusion in Kopp’s treatment.
- 35.
In this somewhat obscure reference to the demography of German emigration, Kopp used the terms “Leichtere” und “Schwerere,” literally, those who are lighter and those who are heavier. He may have been referring to personal wealth.
- 36.
The idea that molecules of gases of different elements consist of differing numbers of atoms—oxygen gas molecules being diatomic, for instance, while mercury gas is monatomic—was crucial to the reform of chemical theory associated with Stanislao Cannizzaro at the Karlsruhe Conference in 1860.
- 37.
Kopp wrote these three words in English; it is a quotation from Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream: “But earthlier happy is the rose distill’d, / Than that which withering on the virgin thorn / Grows, lives and dies in single blessedness.”
- 38.
This hypothesis, the internal satisfaction of valence units, was only one of several suggestions invoked at this time to explain the apparent variability of valence—in this case, how normally divalent mercury atoms could behave in the gaseous state as if they had a valence of zero. The same hypothesis was used to account for how carbon atoms, normally tetravalent, could sometimes appear to be divalent, as in carbon monoxide—for which, see Kopp’s discussion below, on p. {18}.
- 39.
A Swabian village, near Stuttgart.
- 40.
“‘Ah, wen seh’ ich hier? Herr je! Mein Vetter, der Herr Cameralverwalter aus Bopfingen ist’s,’ jubelt ein Bempflinger dort, / Und der Bempflinger schüttelt des Bopfingers biedere Rechte / Und der Bopfinger auch schüttelt des Bempflingers Hand. / Und der Bempflinger drauf: ‘Du bist doch das alte fidele / Haus noch?’ Und Arm in Arm wallen die Vettern dahin.” These passages, from Vischer’s “An eine Quelle,” in Lyrische Gänge (1882), affectionately parody Swabian mannerisms; Bempflingen is near Stuttgart, and Bopfingen is closer to Nördlingen. Friedrich Theodor Vischer (1807–1887) was an essayist, philosopher, and poet at the University of Tübingen—and a native Swabian.
- 41.
Forming mercuric chloride, also called corrosive sublimate, a heavy white powder.
- 42.
“Angefeuert” means either inflamed or excited, “erröthend” means either turning red or blushing—once more punning across the inorganic / human boundary. Mercuric oxide is a heavy bright red powder.
- 43.
A dance movement in which a couple joined by inside hands steps forward.
- 44.
The reaction between hydrogen and chlorine only happens in the presence of ultraviolet light. Chlorine is of course (electro−) negative, and hydrogen chloride is acidic, i.e., sour.
- 45.
That is, tasks elliptically described here: working a steam engine, hydrolyzing fats, carrying out steam distillations, or steam-cleaning vessels of all kinds.
- 46.
Allemande à trois, getanzt von Alexander [u. seinen Schwestern] Therese und Victorine Casorti, für Pianoforte zu 2 und 4 Händen (ca. 1830), in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin. I was able to locate no better or fuller reference to Alexander Casorti and his sisters.
- 47.
Kopp refers here to chemical thermodynamics, in particular free energy changes across chemical reactions, a subject that was only in its earliest development in 1882.
- 48.
In magnis voluisse sat est: for great tasks, it suffices to have tried.
- 49.
Kopp is referring here to the kinetic theory of gases and of heat, as interpreted by the newer methods of statistical mechanics, a field that by 1882 was already well developed.
- 50.
Here Kopp refers to theories of chemical bonding within molecules.
- 51.
Kopp is referring to the opposing theoretical research traditions led respectively by Hermann Kolbe and by August Kekulé.
- 52.
Namely, Kopp’s close friendship with Kolbe, coupled with the latter’s well-known pathologically quarrelsome personality.
- 53.
The names methane, ethane, propane, butane, etc. for paraffinic hydrocarbons were first proposed by A. W. Hofmann in 1866 [11, 57–58n.].
- 54.
An important qualification in this context. See Kopp’s next paragraph for a clearer statement of the same idea.
- 55.
These two paragraphs on pp. {18–20} describe the theory of Kolbe, developed from 1857 until his death in 1884, which asserts that carbon compounds are formed from radicals consisting of carbon atoms that are assigned strictly hierarchical or ranked relationships. For a particularly clear statement of this notion, along with an unfavourable comparison to that of his opponents, see Kolbe [12]; also Rocke [13, 166–69, 174–80]. Here Kopp uses the metaphors of hierarchical organization in a business or a family; Kolbe had used metaphors of hierarchy in an autocratic state or a military unit [12] [14].
- 56.
This paragraph characterizes the viewpoint of the structural theorists, led by August Kekulé. In this theory carbon atoms form chains consisting of links (carbon atoms) that in principle are equal in chemical importance. This theory was also developed from 1857, but unlike Kolbe’s theory it steadily gained adherents, until by 1882 it was clearly the dominant view, especially in Germany and England. The locus classicus for this theory is Kekulé’s Lehrbuch der organischen Chemie (Erlangen: Enke), published in parts from 1859 until 1887, but never fully completed.
- 57.
I have not been able to trace this saying to Bishop George Berkeley (1685–1753).
- 58.
On 25 May 1882 the physicist and philosopher Ernst Mach spoke on “Die ökonomische Natur der physikalischen Forschung” at the Kaiserliche Akademie der Wissenschaften in Vienna; it was on this occasion that he coined his soon-famous expression Denkökonomie as the principal virtue of successful physical theories. See his [15, 186–213]. It is intriguing to consider whether he may have been stimulated by this similar notion in Kopp’s book, whose second printing had just appeared in bookshops. Mach also used another metaphor: theories were like the leaves of a deciduous tree, which allow the tree to flourish and grow for a season, but then wither and fall off. This also is similar to Kopp’s metaphor of theories as flowers that bloom and then die.
- 59.
Especially after 1870, Kolbe repeatedly proclaimed, publicly as well as privately, that the structural theory of Kekulé and associates was not only scientifically worthless but harmful, deeply misleading and even corrupting of younger chemists. For his part, Archibald Scott Couper, independent co-proposer of structure theory, opined in his theoretical paper [16] that the earlier ideas of Charles Gerhardt were “a blunder,” “false,” “pernicious,” “absurd,” even “vicious.” One of many reasons for Kekulé’s greater success was the fact that he was rhetorically kinder to his predecessors.
- 60.
“Keimt ein Glaube neu, / Wird oft Lieb’ und Treu / Wie ein böses Unkraut ausgerauft.” From “Die Braut von Korinth,” by Goethe (1798).
- 61.
“Aus dieser so verschiednen Art, / An die sich beid im Singen zänklich banden, / Aus dem verwahrt und dem bewahrt / War Spott, Verachtung, Hass und Rach und Wuth entstanden. / Die Wächter, hör ich viele schrein, / Verfolgten sich um solche Kleinigkeiten? / Das mussten grosse Narren sein. / Ihr Herren! Stellt die Reden ein, / Ihr könntet sonst unglücklich sein! / Wisst ihr denn nichts von so viel grossen Leuten, / Die in gelehrten Streitigkeiten / Um Silben, die gleich viel bedeuten, / Sich mit der grössten Wuth entzweien?” From “Die beiden Wächter” by Christian Fürchtegott Gellert (1715–1769).
- 62.
This entire paragraph is of course written in gentle irony. It is likely it was chiefly intended as a tactful piece of advice, or even a subtle rebuke, directed to Kopp’s obstreperous friend, Kolbe.
- 63.
Salvo meliori: with due respect for a better opinion.
- 64.
Referred to here is the electrochemical-dualist theory of Jacob Berzelius. From these ideas came the concept of radicals within chemical compounds, which were considered to be parts of molecules that function integrally across chemical reactions.
- 65.
There is considerable justice in this observation. Kolbe gradually eliminated so much of the purely electrochemical portion of the Berzelian theory, and added so many new features in response to valence and type theory, that his model for molecular constitutions really did become a new theoretical entity.
- 66.
Antiqua probo: approval of the old, i.e., the default assumption that older is ipso facto superior.
- 67.
Suum cuique: to each his own. In other words, Kopp is suggesting that there are no objective or empirical standards for assigning Kolbe’s various ranks to the various carbon atoms of an organic compound—a point made at greater length in the immediately following paragraph.
- 68.
Not identified.
- 69.
Kolbe’s early public triumphs from the years 1859–64 were the confirmed predictions of the structures of malic and tartaric acids, and of the existence of isopropyl and tertiary butyl alcohols. But in the later 1860s and 1870s he made dozens of further predictions on the basis of his theory of hierarchical carbon radicals, asserting the probable existence of innumerable isomers that were never found. It was primarily for this reason that his theory lost ground against that of the structuralists such as Kekulé, which successfully predicted the non-existence of some of these same isomers. For details, see Rocke [17:218–30, 338–39].
- 70.
Kopp refers here to the theory of types of Dumas, Laurent, and Gerhardt (1838–56), which led to conceptions of atomic valence as developed by such figures as Williamson, Odling, Wurtz, Frankland, and Kekulé (1850–58).
- 71.
The reader will have noticed how very seldom Kopp included any names at all in his book. This was yet another technique to step softly through the minefields of polarized opinion.
- 72.
A charge frequently made by Kolbe against structural ideas.
- 73.
Another claim against Kekulé’s ideas, made especially by Kolbe.
- 74.
See below, pp. {45–51}.
- 75.
See above, n. 70. For instance, Kolbe confidently and publicly expected to find a second distinct substance isomeric with benzoic acid, and a second distinct substance isomeric with phenol. He searched assiduously for these compounds for years, but never found them. Kekulé’s benzene theory predicted that they are impossible (that is, Kekulé claimed on the basis of his theory that there can be but one benzoic acid, and one phenol). See [17, 292–96, 301–5]. Here Kopp is subtly but clearly indicating his belief that the latter theory is empirically superior.
- 76.
Kopp is referring here to the early work on stereochemistry of J. H. van’t Hoff, and its enthusiastic reception by Johannes Wislicenus [18]. Although van’t Hoff’s first obscurely published paper on this subject appeared as early as 1874, the hypothesis did not begin to gain extensive notice until 1877. Very little public response was apparent between that time and the publication of Molecular-Welt, so this favourable early notice by Kopp is a significant statement for its day.
- 77.
A reference to mystery cults, Freemasonry, or Rosicrucians.
- 78.
See Introduction for a discussion of Kopp’s “very serious book [manuscript]”, which never appeared in print.
- 79.
I.e., Kekulé’s structure theory.
- 80.
A nonce-word in Italian: a hot-house, spa, or steam room. In ancient Latin, a caldarium was a hot bath- or steam-room in a Roman bath, heated by a hypocaust.
- 81.
Wood alcohol or methanol, CH3OH.
- 82.
An archaic name for (ethyl) alcohol, CH3CH2OH.
- 83.
The term “chain” (German “Kette”) was first used to refer to a connected group of carbon atoms by Kekulé, in his first paper on benzene theory in 1865. However, the concept behind the coinage, namely a line of linked carbon atoms, each of which had roughly equal chemical significance, was implicit in his “theory of atomicity of the elements,” published in 1858.
- 84.
Karl Baedeker [3, 85], awarded the Naples aquarium two stars, his highest commendation at that time; of course he did not mention the fictional aerarium.
- 85.
Gas molecules of organic acids show more marked deviation from ideal gas behavior than most other molecules, because of hydrogen bonding and intramolecular polarities. These substances approach more closely to ideal gas behavior as temperature rises.
- 86.
Formic acid, in both modern and Koppian terms, is HCO2H; acetic acid is CH3CO2H.
- 87.
This word was first coined by Leopold Gmelin in 1848 [19, 4:161], but it took many years for the term to be routinely used for the chemical combination of an organic acid with an alcohol, in preference to the earlier “ether.” Esther is of course the eponymous heroine of the Book of Esther in the Hebrew Bible, a popular subject of old master paintings.
- 88.
The ester formed from the reaction of wood alcohol with formic acid; in modern terms, methyl formate.
- 89.
Presumably that of Eilhard Mitscherlich [20, 1:271].
- 90.
Presumably that of Leopold Gmelin [19].
- 91.
In modern terms, beryllium acetate (Süsserde was an old German term for beryllia earth).
- 92.
Methyl formate, the volatilized substance in balloon no. 1, is HCO2CH3; it is an isomer of acetic acid, and this is Kopp’s didactic point in this paragraph.
- 93.
“Aromatic Department,” where compounds in the benzene family are exhibited.
- 94.
In 1855 A. W. Hofmann introduced the term “aromatic” to refer not to the olfactory sense, but rather to denote a chemical family of substances derived from benzene—only some of whose derivatives have notable aromas. By 1866 the term had become well established in the chemical community.
- 95.
Kopp is referring to dry cleaning (chemische Reinigung in contemporary German), which can be done using benzene. These references are obscure, and perhaps relate to earlier travels of Kopp and Bunsen in common.
- 96.
Kopp is describing Kekulé’s cyclical formula for benzene, C6H6, first proposed in 1865, and by 1882 by far the most widely accepted formula for this important compound. He may also be referring to Kekulé’s theory, announced in 1872, that the single and double bonds around the ring may be rapidly alternating.
- 97.
The molecular weight of benzene is 78, that of chlorine gas 73.
- 98.
Another intentionally disarming comment, directed no doubt primarily to Kolbe; but Kopp wrote truly when he noted that he had a lifelong aversion to fully committing himself to theoretical ideas. See Rocke [21].
- 99.
That is, the reason for Kopp’s attraction to horses has to do not just with his own intrinsic interest in horses, but also with his association of them with Wöhler. I have not succeeded in tracing this reference to the poet Ludwig Uhland (1787–1862). The phrasing is confusing, and upon first reading it confused Wöhler as well, who was clearly intended here, and who wrote Kopp to say that he could not understand how or why the reference applied to him. “Doch ich nehme an, daß ich zu dumm dazu bin.” Wöhler to Kopp, 11 April 1882, MPG Archiv.
- 100.
Wöhler would have been in his early teens in the period referred to here, ca. 1813; Wöhler’s father was a veterinarian, stablemaster, and estate manager for Georg I, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen. Wöhler was surprised in reading this passage, for he had not remembered ever telling Kopp about the incident. However, the story must have been true, for he praised Kopp’s “unermeßliches Gedächtniß” in recalling it; Wöhler to Kopp, 11 April 1882, MPG Archiv.
- 101.
The Archive of the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften preserves 576 letters exchanged between Kopp and Wöhler, and there are 67 more letters from Wöhler to Kopp preserved at the MPG Archiv. This is by no means all the correspondence between them that once must have existed.
- 102.
Wöhler was extremely averse to speculative ideas in general, and especially when they evoked controversy.
- 103.
Namely, methyl formate; see above, n. 89.
- 104.
This is Kolbe’s view, that organic compounds consist of a hierarchical series of carbon radicals. What Kopp is describing is a metaphorical representation of Kolbe’s formulations of methyl formate, acetic acid, and propionic acid. The acrobat or strongman lying on his back in the arena represents Kolbe’s “fundamental carbon radical” (“Stammradikal” or “Grundradikal”), the foundation of the respective molecule.
- 105.
Pierre Corty founded the Circus Corty in 1853. By the time of Kopp’s book it was one of the largest circus companies in Europe.
- 106.
Ernst Renz founded this German circus company in 1842.
- 107.
Aibling is about fifty kilometers southeast of Munich.
- 108.
This is yet another indirect reference to Kolbe’s extreme unpleasantness regarding alternative theories of the constitutions of molecules.
- 109.
I.e., methyl chloride.
- 110.
Charles Gerhardt is meant, who introduced the concept in 1839 (the French word is “résidu,” the German word “Rest”). See [6,4:417]. In common parlance, both “résidu” and “Rest” can mean remnants, or even leftover discards from a meal (as alluded to in the next sentence).
- 111.
See above, notes 56, 70, and 105, with associated material.
- 112.
Dismissive rejoinder of the Austrian minister of state Anton von Schmerling (1805–1893) after the promulgation of the liberal 1862 constitution which he had championed, when Hungarian nobles, offended by Schmerling’s obstinacy as well as by his liberalism, refused to send delegates to the new parliament.
- 113.
“Brüder reicht die Hand zum Bunde.” Originally a Latin poem used in Masonic ritual, Germanized by Johann Gottfried Hientzsch (1787–1856) and put to a Masonic melody putatively composed by Mozart, the same tune is now used with different lyrics in the Austrian national anthem.
- 114.
Expulsion order.
- 115.
I.e., hydrogen cyanide, which is highly poisonous.
- 116.
Cyanogen, (CN)2.
- 117.
Cyanogen is still sometimes referred to as a pseudo-halogen.
- 118.
Kopp is describing olefin addition reactions. The earliest to be discovered was the combination of chlorine gas with ethylene gas, which produces the oily liquid ethylene chloride. This reaction was discovered in 1794 by four Dutch chemists (J. R. Deiman, A. P. van Troostwijk, A. Lauwerenburgh, and N. Bondt). These men with the difficult names soon became known for short as “the Dutch chemists,” ethylene chloride as “the Dutch oil,” ethylene as “olefiant (oil-forming) gas,” and organic substances akin to ethylene as “olefins” (oil-forming substances).
- 119.
“… welche im Deutschen etwa Réunions des esprits lauten würde.” It is another inside joke.
- 120.
“Sie tanzen fort, bald wie auf Flügeln des Nords / Den Strom hinunter gestürmt, / Bald wie gewehet von dem sanften Weste.” From the 1767 poem “Die Kunst Tialfs, von Wittekinds Barden,” an ode to Nordic mythology by Friedrich Gottlob Klopstock (1724–1803).
- 121.
An apparent allusion to the hypothesis of subatomic particles, for which at this time there was almost no direct evidence. But in letters to Liebig and to Wöhler in 1863, Kopp had engaged in such speculations (Kopp to Liebig, 23 May 1863, BSB; Kopp to Wöhler, 24 May 1863, BBAW-W).
- 122.
“[Sie] hat noch nicht das Schneider-Gewicht”; old German colloquialism for light in body weight (literally, 100 Pfund).
- 123.
All of these are word plays referring to the methyl radical, the lightest in the paraffin (alkyl) family. “Porphyrogenic” = born to the purple = of royal blood. “Pyrogenic” and “wooden” both refer to the production of methyl (“wood”) alcohol by the destructive distillation of wood. This was first obtained, and named from Greek roots, by Dumas and Peligot in 1834: methyl = methy + hyle (“spirit” + “wood”).
- 124.
The methyl radical has one carbon atom. Ethyl radicals (named by Liebig in 1833 from the Greek and German word “aether” plus Greek “hyle”) have two. Amyl radicals (“amilène” was coined by Auguste Cahours in 1840, to designate a substance from potato starch after fermentation and distillation) have five.
- 125.
“Alkyl” was coined without fanfare by Johannes Wislicenus, professor at Würzburg; an early use (perhaps not the first) is in his 1882 article [22, 244]. The word was derived from the first three letters of “Alkoholradicale” combined with the suffix -yl; it was (and is) a generic term for any of those radicals who bear the “first names” methyl, ethyl, propyl, butyl, amyl, etc.
- 126.
A double entendre on the chemical word “type,” introduced by Dumas in 1839.
- 127.
This nonce word was Auguste Laurent’s coinage [23, 354–55] (apparently from the Greek for “good radical”). He meant it derisorily, to designate the sorts of imaginary pieces of molecules being proposed by his opponents, the advocates of electrochemical-dualist radical theory. Laurent’s ideas were much ridiculed in the 1840 s and early 1850 s, but his true significance was ultimately recognized.
- 128.
The term “hydroxide” emerged first in the 1860s. See Roscoe to Kopp, 29 January 1867, MPGA.
- 129.
The poisonous methyl alcohol was (and still is) used by governments to denature ethyl alcohol, in order to allow manufacture and sale of the latter for chemical purposes without beverage taxes.
- 130.
This sentence contains several puns or double entendres. “Ethylie” stands in for ethyl (i.e., grain) alcohol. “Bad odor” = bad reputation, in both languages; several compounds of amyl do have disgusting aromas. Amyl compounds are also constituents of fusel oil, a mixture of undesirable but unavoidable naturally occurring contaminants in grain alcohol, which many believed (and believe) cause hangovers.
- 131.
There are apparent allusions in this sentence which defeat my efforts to interpret. Is Kopp just having some deliberately mystifying fun with his readers here?
- 132.
No one is obliged to do more than he is able.
- 133.
There is no obligation to do the impossible.
- 134.
All three of these Latin expressions signify: he who has nothing, gives nothing.
- 135.
Revelations 3:11.
- 136.
I have not been able to trace this reference.
- 137.
Italian: Certainly!.
- 138.
Surely Bunsen is meant here.
- 139.
The modern name for this substance, stable at low temperatures, is dimethyl oxonium chloride, an addition product of dimethyl ether and hydrogen chloride. A contraction occurs vis à vis the sum of the gaseous volumes of the two reactants, since the reaction reduces the total number of molecules by half.
- 140.
This sentence, and the paragraph that follows, raises the issue of the variability of valence, a subject much discussed in the 1860s, 1870, and 1880s. Kekulé, for one, attempted to maintain a doctrine of strictly constant valence, using such auxiliary hypotheses as “molecular compounds” (such as the substance treated in the immediately preceding paragraph), whose pieces he conceived were held in a molecular union not by valence bonds, but by attractive physical forces. Others, such as Wurtz, Williamson, and Frankland, explained the same compounds by suggesting that the valence of certain atoms could vary. For a good discussion, see Russell [24,171–223].
- 141.
Kopp’s point is that to admit variability of valence in principle suggests opening the door to a potentially indefinite number of possible structures, even for otherwise simple molecules. Molecular chemical theory would then become (in the view of some) both unwieldy and uncertain. This is undoubtedly the motivation for defenders of constant valence to maintain that doctrine, even in the face of numerous apparent exceptions to the valence rules.
- 142.
I.e., that there should be a rational division of work in order always to provide the most appropriate jobs to the most appropriate people, as advocated by the utopian socialist Charles Fourier (1772–1837).
- 143.
See note 142.
- 144.
I.e., long-term viability.
- 145.
Once again we have a deliberate self-parody, pointing to Kopp’s tendency to obfuscate and delay giving a forthright judgment. The next sentence suggests Bunsen politely interrupting, asking Kopp please to get to the point.
- 146.
Sic, for Mauschel Nudel, a.k.a. Isaac Moses, a.k.a. Moyses Hoedt, a notorious Frankfurt criminal at the beginning of the nineteenth century. In the middle of the 1820s Kopp would have been a boy of seven or eight years of age.
- 147.
“Eine chemische Zerlegung der Sünde.” The critic was Wilhelm Grimm, describing Goethe’s 1809 novel Die Wahlverwandtschaften (elective affinities), in which a chemical metaphor is overlaid upon a complicated love story.
- 148.
In 1811, Bernard Courtois (1777–1838), a Paris saltpeter manufacturer, discovered iodine in the mother-liquor prepared from the ashes of saltwater plants, but he does not seem to have regarded the substance as a new element [25].
- 149.
These were Humphry Davy, Nicolas Clément, Charles-Bernard Desormes, and Gay-Lussac. Gay-Lussac had named the new substance “iode” (from the Greek for violet), carefully chosen so as not to suggest anything about the composition of the substance. In December 1813 Davy and Gay-Lussac each concluded, probably independently of each other, that iodine was elemental. Unluckily, each suspected the other had stolen his idea and sought to publish first. A good summary of this affair is in Partington [6 4:85–90].
- 150.
Of English, French, Spanish, Italian, and German, only in English is a suffix added to the roots chlor-, iod-, brom-, and fluor-, to make chlorine, iodine, bromine, and fluorine. This pattern was begun in 1810 by Humphry Davy, when he first suggested naming “oxymuriatic gas” by the neologism “chlorine,” whereas Gay-Lussac, adopting both Davy’s view of its elementarity and the neologism, preferred “chlore” in French. When Courtois’s discovery was promulgated, Gay-Lussac chose the parallel French “iode,” whereas Davy in 1814 (opining that “ione” in English “would lead to confusion”) preferred “iodine.”
- 151.
“Kennst Du das Veilchen, die Blüthe des Mai’s? / Sittsamkeit gab ihm den köstlichen Preis! / Nur von dem Auge der Demuth gesehn, / Blüht es verborgen, doch duftet es schön.” From Christian Schreiber (1781–1857), “Die Sprache der Blumen” (1805).
- 152.
Miguel de Cervantes, Novelas exemplares, en esta nueva imprecion (Antwerp: Bousquet, 1743), the first of whose short stories was “La Gitanilla” (the Gypsy Girl, 1613); Jacques Charles Brunet (1780–1867) was a famous French bibliographer. The Spanish phrase means “a small mark, in the form of a white spot with which she had been born.”
- 153.
“… that the two last toes of the right foot were connected together in the middle by a little bit of flesh.”
- 154.
“Walter der verlorene Sohn” (ca. 1790), by Johann Friedrich Schlotterbeck (1765–1840). Considering its outrageously digressive character, this entire paragraph can only be viewed as a deliberate self-parody.
- 155.
The chemistry of iodine was well studied by Gay-Lussac in 1814. Its monovalent character was recognized upon the introduction of ideas on valence in the 1850s.
- 156.
Hebrew and Yiddish word for matchmaker. Platinum sponge (“Herr Platinschwamm”) catalyzes the reaction between hydrogen and iodine to form hydrogen iodide.
- 157.
A more convenient way to make hydrogen iodide is to react iodine with hydrogen sulfide.
- 158.
“Der kleine Hydriot,” by Wilhelm Müller (1794–1827). A Hydriot is a resident of Hydra, an island in the Aegean.
- 159.
Restitution to the original state.
- 160.
“Zur Linken wende du dich, ich will / Zu der Rechten hin halbkreisend mich drehn; / Nimm den Schwung, wie du mich ihn nehmen siehst: / Also! Nun fleug schnell mir vorbey!” From “Der Eislauf” (1764), by Friedrich Gottlob Klopstock (1724–1803).
- 161.
“Geh’ nur hin, du Flattersinn! / Denke nicht mehr dran, / Wenn ich einstmals Wittwer bin / Frage wieder an.” From an old German folk song. The May-Market in Mannheim is a large regional fair, held annually since the early seventeenth century.
- 162.
Kopp’s description of dynamic reaction equilibria in this and the next paragraph must be seen in the context of developing understanding of the subject in 1882. This was still early in the history of the subject, but Kopp could use the work of Alexander Williamson, Ludwig Wilhelmy, Marcellin Berthelot & Léon Péan de Saint-Gilles, Augustus George Vernon-Harcourt, C. M. Guldberg & Peter Waage, and Leopold Pfaundler. Within just a handful of years after the publication of Molecular-Welt, the subject was enormously advanced by van’t Hoff, Arrhenius, and Ostwald. That said, Kopp’s qualitative descriptions are remarkably consistent with later understanding of the influence of temperature on competing equilibrium reactions.
- 163.
“Maulspitzen hilft da Nichts, gepfiffen muss sein.” German saying; literally: it doesn’t do any good just to purse one’s lips, one must whistle.
- 164.
“Wir winden dir den Jungfernkranz / Mit Veilchenblauer Seide / … / Lavendel, Myrt’ und Thymian / Das wächst in meinem Garten / … / Schöner grüner Jungfernkranz / Mit Veilchenblauer Seide.” (We bind the bridal wreath for you / With violet silk / … / Lavender, myrtle and thyme / Grow in my garden / … / Lovely green bridal wreath / With violet silk.) From Carl Maria von Weber’s opera Der Freischütz (1821).
- 165.
I have not been able to identify this Latin verse.
- 166.
“Freundschaft ist ein Knotenstock auf Reisen, / Lieb’ ein Stäbchen zum Spazierengehn?” From Adelbert von Chamisso (1781–1838), “Das Lied von der Freundschaft.”
- 167.
The Franciscan monastery still stands, though Cimiez is now a neighborhood of Nice. “E.P.” is not identified; possibly Eugène Péligot (1811–1890)?
- 168.
“Wo sich Brüder, fest umwunden, / Von der Freundschaft Rosenband / Und durch Brudersinn verbunden, / Traulich reichen Hand in Hand.” From “Wo zur frohen Feierstunde,” an old German folk song popular among university students.
- 169.
“Wohlthätig is des Feuers Macht, wenn sie der Mensch bezähmt bewacht.” From Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805), “Das Lied von der Glocke” (1799).
- 170.
Divergence of real gases from ideal gas behavior is greatest at low temperature, least at high.
- 171.
Since mean molecular kinetic energy, which is proportional to mass times velocity squared, increases in direct proportion to absolute temperature, molecular velocity is proportional to the square root of temperature. These three Celsius temperatures correspond to 273°, 613°, and 1093° degrees on the absolute scale, whose square roots are as 1:1½:2.
- 172.
Ordinary soda-lime glass begins to soften around 700° C., borosilicate glass around 820°.
- 173.
Nor do we know much more about this subject today.
- 174.
From Pliny the Elder’s Historia naturalis, ca. 79 C.E.
- 175.
These innovations were introduced by Perrot and V. Wiesnegg, Paris instrument makers, in the 1870s.
- 176.
“Verdenk’ mir’s nicht, dass ich Dich meide, / Und sprich mich frei von jeder Pflicht.” From an old German folk song. The Odenwald is a range of low well-wooded mountains southeast of Darmstadt and northeast of Heidelberg, mostly in Hesse.
- 177.
“Hoffnung ist ein langes Seil, an dem sich schon Mancher zum Narren gezogen hat.” Similar to the German proverb, “Hoffnung ist ein langes Seil, an dem sich viele zum Tode ziehen” (hope is a long rope on which many pull themselves to [their] death).
- 178.
In 1825, Antoine-Jérôme Balard (1802–1876) discovered bromine, a new liquid element, from seaweed ash; Gay-Lussac named it “brome” (German “Brom”), from the Greek word for “stench,” after its foul smell. The English immediately added the –ine suffix, parallel to chlorine and iodine. Fluorine had already been hypothesized, though not yet actually isolated in elemental form. It now became fully clear that these four elements formed a natural family, like the metals; Berzelius named them “halogens,” which means “salt-forming” elements.
- 179.
Kopp’s nonce term is “Molecülen-Staat,” meaning a polity or state (Staat) consisting of a collection of molecules. Of course, the English word “state” can mean not only “polity” but also “state of matter.” This circumstance creates a double entendre in English that is not present in the German, for “Staat” can only refer to a political organization. Germans use a different word for “state of matter,” namely “Zustand.”
- 180.
Kopp’s word here is “Verfassung,” which means “constitution” in the sense of the fundamental law of a polity (or, metaphorically, one’s general condition of health). “Verfassung” would not normally be used to designate the structure or internal composition of a body; that meaning is conveyed by a different German word, namely “Konstitution” (which, perversely, can also mean Verfassung, the legal framework of a country). In English, “constitution” can mean either internal structure, or basic law. Consequently, once more we have better puns here in English than in Kopp’s German.
- 181.
I have translated Kopp’s term “lebendige Kraft” by “vis viva,” for the latter Latin expression has the same technical as well as literal meaning as the former German term. The technical meaning is kinetic energy (proportional to mass times the square of velocity). The literal meaning is “living force,” so it is an intentional double entendre.
- 182.
In 1871 Kolbe and Erlenmeyer had used a similar metaphor, but applied it to organic molecules in condensed phases, rather than to gas molecules. Kolbe [12, 128–29] analogized the atoms in these molecules to “a well-organized constitutional state, with one sovereign and a number of subordinate members …” Erlenmeyer disagreed [26, 32–33]; the atoms in such molecules “find themselves in a condition of mutual dependency … every elementary atom has a seat and a vote whenever the chemical fate of the state is to be decided …”
- 183.
On p. {64}.
- 184.
This is the fundamental hypothesis of Avogadro, proposed in 1811, but not generally accepted as a scientific principle until ca. 1860.
- 185.
Again, in this sentence we thrice use the English word “state,” but in Kopp’s German the first and third occurrences are “Staat,” the second “Zustand.”
- 186.
I have not been able to trace this reference.
- 187.
This is a description of the deviation from ideal gas law properties, as exhibited in the behavior of real gases.
- 188.
Tenets of the classical kinetic gas theory include the assumptions that molecules are perfectly elastic, and that that any forces between molecules act only at extremely close range.
- 189.
“Die Freiheit ist das in das Allgemeine / Als individuum aufgenommen sein.” From “Spiessbürgers Freiheitslieder” (1843) by left revolutionary poet Georg Herwegh (1817–1875). “Bertrands Abschied” was the Germanized version of a patriotic tune by Friedrich Glück (1793–1840), portraying the leave-taking of Napoleon and his general Henri Bertrand on their way to St. Helena. The “certain philosophical school” referred to by Kopp was the leftist movement among Prussian intellectuals known as the “young Hegelians,” which reached a high point about 1840.
- 190.
Divergence of real gases from ideal gas behavior is greatest at low temperature and / or high pressure, least at high temperature and / or low pressure.
- 191.
Kopp’s word is “faul,” which means not only lazy or indolent, but can also mean foul, bad or rotten—an intentional double meaning, for humorous effect.
- 192.
A critical state or critical point specifies the physical conditions of a multi-phase system under which the phase boundaries cease to exist. Kopp is of course making another double entendre.
- 193.
Kopp’s little witticism refers to the circumstance that the German word “Verflüchtigung” (volatilization) sounds much like “Verfluchung” (curse).
- 194.
“Sylphen- bez.-w. Sylphiden-Leben.” The word “sylph” was a (probably arbitrary) coinage by Paracelsus to denote an airy spirit.
- 195.
The agricultural experiment station (Versuchsstation) movement began, under the influence of Justus Liebig, with the establishment of a station at Möckern, near Leipzig, in 1851. By the time Kopp was writing there were over two dozen such stations in Germany, and the movement had already spread to the United States. The quip about mistreatment is a lurid but obviously innocently coincidental foreshadowing of the Nazi period.
- 196.
“Abandon all hope, ye who enter in.” From Canto III, line 9 of Dante’s Commedia divina.
- 197.
Here and in the following discussion, Kopp uses the phrase “gas molecules” to indicate not necessarily molecules in the physical state of a gas, but rather the kind of molecule that is normally present in the gaseous state, but that may also find itself in (e.g.) a liquid phase. For instance, in the case of hydrogen chloride (taken up in the next paragraph) the gas molecule is HCl, but the form of the hydrogen chloride molecule in aqueous solution, Kopp recognizes, may or may not be HCl itself; it could well be some combination of HCl with H2O.
- 198.
See Kopp’s discussion of molecular compounds above, pp. {46–51}.
- 199.
For example, is the hydrogen chloride molecule in liquid HCl—that which is created by liquefaction of gaseous HCl—the same as the hydrogen chloride molecule in aqueous solution?
- 200.
Kopp is reading a sign in the annex, informing visitors of the subject of the exhibit. Electrotherapy, or medical galvanism, was avidly pursued in the nineteenth century [27].
- 201.
“[A]uch … in exquisiten Fällen”: in German as well as English, “exquisite” is an obsolete and obscure medical term, meaning true or genuine, as opposed to spurious malingering.
- 202.
An island in the Gulf of Naples, about thirty kilometers from the mainland.
- 203.
Comte César Mattei, Electro-homéopathie, principes d’une science nouvelle (1879). Cesare Mattei was Italian, from Bologna; his electro-homeopathic institute was established in Geneva.
- 204.
The deliberate irony of the last phrase only makes sense when attached to the original German sentence, which is perfectly grammatical but highly convoluted: “Diese Zersetzung ist nicht immer eine unmittelbar die zu ihr gelangenden Verbindungen treffende, nicht eine für die Verbindung, deren Elemente zum Vorschein kommen, mit schlechthinniger Sofortigkeit vor sich gehende, wie man wohl in einer Zeit sagte, in welcher man auf präcise Sprachweise mehr Werth legte als jetzt.”
- 205.
Einige Betreffnisse und Erlebungen Martin Ernsts von Schlieffen (1830). As Kopp remarks, Schlieffen (1732–1825) was a Hessian military and political figure, and also a writer. The archaic German expressions in parentheses were given by Kopp in quotation marks; I translate “Staats-Minister” as Prime Minister.
- 206.
Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart (1739–1791), “Die Fürstengruft” (1774, published 1780), an extended attack on tyrannical rule.
- 207.
This monumentally grotesque sentence is another self-parody, as is revealed in the short paragraph that immediately follows. Here Kopp refers to the mercenary Hessian troops who fought on the British side in the American Revolutionary War. Landgraf (Count) Friedrich II (1720–1785) was the head of state of Hesse-Kassel (also known as Kurhessen or Electoral Hesse)—Kopp’s homeland.
- 208.
This was the prevailing understanding of the role of sulphuric acid in promoting hydrolysis of water, at least since Faraday’s work on electrolysis of 1834. It was thought that when the current starts, the electricity first splits H2SO4 molecules into H2 + SO4, then SO4 → SO2 + O2, with the elementary gases bubbling out of solution on each side. The acid is then regenerated when the SO2 radical unites with two ambient water molecules, liberating a second molecule of hydrogen gas in the process. The overall process is thus H2SO4 + 2H2O → 2H2 + O2 + H2SO4. In a Ph.D. dissertation submitted in 1884, Svante Arrhenius proposed, on the contrary, that the electrolytic current does not in fact initiate the dissociation; rather, electrically charged ions are permanently present in solution, and participate in the reactions as such. Arrhenius’s theory of electrolytic dissociation appeared in the Zeitschrift für physikalische Chemie in 1887, five years after Kopp’s book was published, and the theory was widely adopted within a few years.
- 209.
The phoenix was a mythical bird that arose reborn from its funeral pyre. “In the wet way” refers to the tables of chemical affinity of Etienne François Geoffroy and Torbern Bergmann in the eighteenth century, which distinguished between chemical affinity as exercised in dry reactions, as opposed to in solutions.
- 210.
Again, Kopp explains what was the prevailing understanding of electricity at this time.
- 211.
With regard to.
- 212.
Of the masculine gender.
- 213.
This is what is called a longways set in English and Scottish country dancing: all the men shoulder-to-shoulder in one line, all the women in an opposing line, with partners facing each other.
- 214.
The essential character of the process that Kopp describes here on pp. {85–88} was first proposed in 1806 by Theodor von Grotthuss (1785–1822), to provide an explanation of the mysterious circumstance that products of electrolysis appear only at the electrodes, and not throughout the solution [28]. Grotthuss suggested the kind of molecular dance depicted so anthropomorphically by Kopp; chains of decomposition occur throughout the solution, but radicals remain chemically bound to neighboring radicals, other than during the fleeting instants when molecular partners are exchanged. Consequently, liberated elements appear only at the ends of the chains, that is, at the poles. This theory was accepted, with variations, by most chemists and physicists until the late 1880s. See above, n. 209.
- 215.
I have not been able to identify this reference.
- 216.
This corresponds to the starting position of a “grande chaîne” in a minuet: couples form a single line with partners facing each other, then partners progress down the line in opposite directions using alternate hands, all men moving in one direction, women the other. See the end of the next paragraph.
- 217.
Kopp’s phrase “etwas abruzzenmässig aussehenden” = “in appearance somewhat Abruzzan.” Abruzzo is a mountainous and predominantly rural region of east central Italy, historically associated with Naples.
- 218.
This is a formulation of Faraday’s laws of electrolysis (1834), which posit that the weight of a substance deposited or freed at an electrode is proportional to the amount of current that has passed between the electrodes, and is also proportional to the respective equivalent weights of the reacting substances.
- 219.
A later edition of what is obviously the same catalog to which Kopp here refers is Preisbuch über Cotillon- Ball- und Scherzartikel, Saaldekorationen, Sommerfestartikel, u.s.w. (Erfurt: J.C. Schmidt, 1911).
- 220.
A fast sideways sliding step done as a couple.
- 221.
P. Sigmund Fellöcker, Die chemischen Formeln der Mineralien in geometrischen Figuren (1879).
- 222.
By studying solubility regularities of saturated aqueous salt solutions using mixed salts in selected pairs, Kopp argued in an 1840 paper [29, 270] that certain pairs of compounds must be forming double salts in solution, which decompose back into single salts when the solvent is removed. This is an example, Kopp noted, how solubility studies can reveal the existence of compounds “that are not easy to detect in other ways.”
- 223.
A little dirty?
- 224.
Zinc vitriol or white vitriol is zinc sulfate, used in tanning, dyeing, and pharmacy.
- 225.
German Bittersalz, English Epsom salt, i.e., magnesium sulfate.
- 226.
Glauber’s “miraculous salt” is sodium sulfate.
- 227.
Sodium sulfate has unusual solubility characteristics. With rising temperature, the solubility of the salt in water increases, but only until 32.4° C. is reached; at this point the salt begins to become less soluble with increasing temperature. Hence a precipitate begins to form when the temperature of a saturated solution of sodium sulfate is raised to about 34°. Kopp was aware that this is because the decahydrate decomposes at this temperature, leaving the less soluble anhydrous salt.
- 228.
A reference to Kopp’s popular lecture, Sonst und Jetzt in der Chemie, ein populär-wissenschaftlicher Vortrag (Braunschweig: Vieweg, 1867), which compared “Past and Present” understandings of chemical substances.
- 229.
Gay-Lussac [30, 1012–13].
- 230.
Here and in the following passages Kopp suggests that the attraction between the molecule of anhydrous salt and the molecules of water of crystallization can be considered a kind of “molecular compound” similar to those phenomena discussed on pp. {46–51} and {78}.
- 231.
The German word is “vormärzlich,” meaning pertaining to the era that preceded the insurrections of March 1848, presaging the (ultimately failed) liberal revolution of that year. German historians still use the terms “Vormärz” and “Nachmärz” to designate the eras adjoining that eventful month.
- 232.
“Auch wackelt nicht im bösen Willen / An Eu’rem Bett und räkelt nicht; / Die Zipfelmütze zieht im Stillen / Zufrieden über’s Angesicht. / Der Hund im Stall, der Mann beim Weibe, / Die Magd beim Knecht, wie Recht und Pflicht, / So ruht und rührt Euch nicht beileibe, / Auf dass der Stadt kein Schad’ geschicht.” Franz von Dingelstedt (1814–1881), Lieder eines kosmopolitischen Nachtwächter (Hamburg: Hoffmann, 1842), “Nachtwächters Stilleben.”
- 233.
Kopp is pondering the fact that certain anhydrous salts, the atoms of which have already satisfied all their valence bonds, unite with definite numbers of water molecules in an apparently chemical fashion, to form hydrated salts (salts containing water of crystallization). These hydrated salts then dissolve as such, in larger amounts of solvent water molecules. Then, under certain conditions, the salt molecules apparently lose their water of crystallization, and dissolve (or precipitate) as the anhydrous salt molecules. He notes here that such facts were not theoretically explicable in his day.
- 234.
“Aber in welchem Verhältniss zu einander stehen denn die … Molecüle? … [S]ie leben im Convibrat.” Since “Verhältnis” means ratio or proportion as well as relationship, this is another double entendre. Convibrat is a nonce word, intended humorously to evoke the connotation of cohabitation.
- 235.
With the expression “March-days” (“Märztage”) Kopp is once more playing on the idea of revolution (see above, n. 232), but this time a revolution in science that (he is suggesting) occurred in the late summer of 1850. He is almost certainly referring to Alexander Williamson’s ground-breaking work on ethers. See Rocke [13, 1–3].
- 236.
“Das Glück ist eine leichte Dirne, / Und weilt nicht gern am selben Ort; / Sie streicht das Haar dir von der Stirne, / Und küsst dich rasch und flattert fort.” Heinrich Heine (1797–1856), Romanzero (1851).
- 237.
A phalanstère was the projected (but never built) physical heart of the sort of utopian community prescribed and designed by the socialist Charles Fourier.
- 238.
A reference to polygamy. To a nineteenth-century German, the Turks would not be counted among the “höherer Civilisation zugeneigteren Menschen-Völker.”
- 239.
See above, n. 228.
- 240.
The modern determination of this transition temperature is 35.4°. At this temperature Kopp knew that the decahydrate of sodium carbonate becomes a monohydrate, with slightly different solubility characteristics.
- 241.
Not identified; possibly a restaurant or hotel.
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Rocke, A.J., Kopp, H. (2012). From the Molecular World. In: From the Molecular World. SpringerBriefs in Molecular Science(). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27416-9_2
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