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The Importance of History and Philosophy of Science in Correcting Distorted Views of ‘Amount of Substance’ and ‘Mole’ Concepts in Chemistry Teaching

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Abstract

The knowledge of historical facts can help teachers and students to correctly appreciate a variety of scientific theories. It is important to be aware of the evolution of the basic concepts, particularly the ones our students find very abstract and therefore difficult to understand. Historical knowledge of chemical concepts will allow us to understand their difficulties and make them easier to teach successfully. In this paper we answer the following research questions: what was the historic and sociologic context in which chemical equivalent, mole and its magnitude amount of substance were introduced to science? How the lack of historic knowledge in science teaching contributes to the presence of distorted views of science and hampers meaningful learning?

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Notes

  1. Later, they would look for a relationship among those weights to obtain an empirical and universal law similar to the gravitation law.

  2. Almost one century prior to this controversy, Geoffroy designed an affinity table (rapports)—he tried to avoid using the affinity term. In his notes, he (indirectly) suggested the idea of what a chemical compound was. For Geoffroy, a chemical compound should be relatively stable and also formed by a specific substance. He also differentiated between chemical compounds and mixtures, assuming that the combination relationship (rapports) among the substances to form a compound were characteristics of the chemical compound itself. We do not know if Proust used Geoffroy’s ideas, but it is clear that the latter was well ahead of his time and constituted the first steps to what was later called ‘the constant proportions law’.

  3. Sulphuric acid was SO3.

  4. These differences were due to the fact that chemists used to determine oxygen’s molecular weight by multiplying the fraction of abundance of each isotope by its mass and adding these numbers to obtain the atomic weight, while in physics, only the weight of oxygen-16 was used.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Fisica y Quimica Teorica, Facultad de Quimica, UNAM, Mexico city, Z.P. 04510, Mexico

    Kira Padilla

  2. Universitàt de Valencia, Alcalde Reig N° 8, Z.P. 46006, Valencia, Spain

    Carles Furio-Mas

Authors
  1. Kira Padilla
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  2. Carles Furio-Mas
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kira Padilla.

Appendix A: Chemistry Textbooks That Were Analyzed

Appendix A: Chemistry Textbooks That Were Analyzed

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Padilla, K., Furio-Mas, C. The Importance of History and Philosophy of Science in Correcting Distorted Views of ‘Amount of Substance’ and ‘Mole’ Concepts in Chemistry Teaching. Sci & Educ 17, 403–424 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-007-9098-2

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