Chemistry and the Law

by Harold Goldwhite

In the previous column I traced the career of Humphry Davy to 1800. In 1801 he was invited by Count Rumford to a position at the relatively new Royal Institution in London. There Davy was eventually able to continue his own research, but first had to work up lectures on the chemistry of tanning, and with his usual thoroughness he did experiments on that subject; and on the applications of chemistry to agriculture. He later published a well-received book on that topic, and developed techniques of soil analysis.
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by Harold Goldwhite

Humphry Davy, perhaps the most romantic of all 19th century chemists, died on May 29, 1829, in Geneva, Switzerland, at the age of 50. Why the most romantic? Look at any portrait of Davy in his prime: the handsome face, the wavy hair, and the superb public manner. And he was also a poet, esteemed by Coleridge. All this and a great chemist, too. Yes, a romantic figure.
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By Harold Goldwhite

In the first of this two-part series on Max Planck, I sketched his career to the point where, in 1897, he began to work on explaining the phenomena of black-body radiation, a problem that had challenged some of the best physicists of the day and that they had failed to solve. At first, he tried combining electrodynamics and thermodynamics, but Boltzmann correctly criticized Planck’s formulation. Planck then successfully combined Wien’s work with that of Rayleigh and Jeans, but a satisfactory physical explanation was still lacking.
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by Harold Goldwhite

April, like most months, is rich in anniversaries of scientists who made major contributions to chemical sciences. Among them are James Watson, Robert Woodward, Carl Lindemann, and Glen Seaborg. But I choose to discuss the career of a great physicist whose work made such an impact on our science that it changed the thinking and work of every chemist who followed him. I refer to Max Karl Ernst Ludvig Planck, born in Kiel, Germany, on April 23 (a birthday he shares with Shakespeare), 1858.
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