Select pages - there are more than 4 available
Select pages - there are more than 4 available
Electric Water and Laughing Gas.
Paracelsus.
Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim (Paracelsus) was allegedly born in 1493 in Egg an der Sihl, a village close to the Etzel Pass in Einsiedeln, Schwyz which is in central Switzerland.
He was said to be a pioneer in several aspects of the 'medical revolution' during the Renaissance; emphasising the value of observation combined with received wisdom. He is credited as being the 'father of toxicology'.
He also had a substantial influence as a prophet or diviner, with his 'Prognostications' being studied by Rosicrucians in the 1600's. Paracelsianism is the early modern medical movement inspired by the study of his works.
In the beginning of the sixteenth century he allegedly, but unknowingly, observed Hydrogen gas as he noted that when acids attack metals, the ensuing reaction gave off a gas.
Théodore Turquet de Mayerne, a Genevan born physician, allegedly repeated the experiments of Paracelsus in 1650 and found that the gas given off was flammable.
Neither Paracelsus nor de Mayerne named the gas 'Hydrogen' nor did they propose that it might be a new element.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paracelsus
Théodore de Mayerne.
1573 - 1655
Recall what was just said in the above quote from the Wikipedia page about Paracelsus:
Théodore Turquet de Mayerne, a Genevan born physician, allegedly repeated the experiments of Paracelsus in 1650 and found that the gas given off was flammable.
So, what does the article in Wikipedia say about de Mayerne?
Sir Théodore Turquet de Mayerne was a Genevan-born physician who treated kings of France and England and advanced the theories of Paracelsus.
He was born in a Huguenot family in Geneva, Republic of Geneva. His father was a Protestant French historian who had fled Lyon following the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre and his godfather was Theodore Beza. Mayerne's first wife was Marguerite de Boetslaer and they had three children.
Mayerne studied first in Geneve and later moved to the University of Heidelberg. Later he moved to Montpellier to study medicine, graduated 1596 and received his doctorate in 1597. His dissertation defended the use of chemical remedies in medicine, under the guidance of Joseph du Chesne; this was the first intimation of his interest in Paracelsian theories.
Notice the use use of modern terms: graduated, doctorate and dissertation.
In May 1599, Mayerne joined Henri de Rohan, a Huguenot nobleman very powerful in Brittany, on his grand tour of Europe, visiting Germany, Italy, Bohemia, the Netherlands, England, and Scotland.
During their visit to London in October 1600, Rohan and Mayerne were received by Queen Elizabeth I at her court, and in November 1600, when they reached Edinburgh, they were received by King James VI, before returning to France in early 1601.
Despite his austere Calvinism, Mayerne greatly admired the many works of art and architecture he saw in his travels in Germany and Italy, especially liking the paintings of Albrecht Dürer and the Kunstkammer in Munich of curios kept by the Duke of Bavaria.
Mayerne moved to Paris, lecturer on anatomy and pharmacy and founded a medical practice. By that time he had begun to support the views of Paracelsus and used many chemical remedies. He kept detailed notes about his patients, among them Armand du Plessis, later Cardinal Richelieu, whom he treated for gonorrhea in 1605.
In 1600 French royal physician Jean Ribit de la Rivière (1571–1605) sponsored him to become one of the personal physicians, physician in ordinary, of the king Henri IV. His other pursuits were thwarted because he was not a Catholic and because most French physicians still followed the principles of Galen. In 1603 he tried to support his views to Medical Faculty of Paris, stating that his views were not opposed to Galenic and Hippocratic principles.
Despite their opposition, he retained the favour of the King, who appointed him to travel with the Duc de Rohan in his diplomatic missions to Germany and Italy. When the King intended to make Mayerne his first physician, the queen opposed the decision because Mayerne refused to convert to Catholicism. Mayerne continued in his lower post until 1606 when he sold it to another physician.
How exactly do you 'sell' a 'lower post'?
At this time he continued his association with du Chesne and the circle of Hermeticists that had grown up around him. These devotees of Paracelsus believed they were reviving the wisdom of the mythical pre-Platonic natural philosophers - men known as the prisci theologi that included Zoroaster and Hermes Trismegistus. The alchemical nature of their experiments was greatly resented by Galenists at the University of Paris.
In the same year he briefly visited England by invitation and met James I. He became a physician of Anne of Denmark and was incorporated at Oxford on April 8, 1606. He probably spent the following years back in France.
When Henri IV was murdered in 1610, Mayerne moved to England, again by invitation. In 1611 he became first physician of James I and his queen, succeeding Martin Schöner. He also treated most members of the royal court, including Sir Robert Cecil and Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales. His inability to successfully treat those two individuals, together with his closeness to the scandal surrounding the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury coloured his first years in England. Nevertheless, he was sometimes sent on diplomatic missions to France.
Mayerne made extensive Latin notes describing his treatment of Anne of Denmark from 10 April 1612 to her death in 1619. Some of these were published in 1703.
Why use Latin when French was the language spoken at the time?
But he also made extensive notes (in French) on artistic techniques and the preparation of pigments and oils, many gleaned first-hand from leading artists, artisans and craftsmen of the day. The notes shown below were taken down by Mayerne almost certainly while he sat for his portrait with Peter Paul Rubens.
Mmmm... "almost certainly" isn't the same as certainly!
The following images are allegedly from a manuscript made by Mayerne regarding the 'science' of colour in painting. The writing is French and not his usual Latin.
Source: https://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2014/07/the-colourful-career-of-sir-theodore-de-mayerne.html
Mayerne is one of the many historical 'polymaths' who have the time and resources to go into detailed investigations of numerous subjects. He was allegedly a successful Court physician and travelled widely yet was also able to study the methods of colours in art!
This all sounds like a back-projected lie.
Lost Secrets of Flemish Painting, written by Donald C. Fels, Jr. and accompanied by oil paintings by the renowned artist Joseph Sulkowski, is a work devoted solely to documenting in detail, the varnishes, painting mediums and painting methods used by Renaissance and Baroque craftsmen and painters. Now, for the first time in one book, painters and historians will find listed not only clear directions for replicating the visual effects found on XVI and XVII century oil paintings, but also have at their fingertips the early historical documents which describe the practices used by painters and craftsmen before 1700.
Also included in this work is the first complete English translation of the De Mayerne manuscript B.M. Sloane 2052. The notes of the XVIIth century's most renowned authority on the technical aspects of painting and art, Sir Theodore Turquet De Mayerne. Originally written in several languages on 170 manuscript pages, these notes comprise the most complete record on the technical aspects of XVII century painting and craft practices which have come down to us. Here in the notes of Dr. De Mayerne, gained from his position at court to the kings James I, Charles I and Charles II of England, the reader will find recorded technical instructions on art and painting along with recipes for preparing varnishes, painting mediums, arranging a palette, coating canvases, panels, painting landscapes, the human figure, mixing colors, and preparing pigment from such giants in painting as Sir Peter Paul Rubens, Sir Anthony Van Dyck, and a host of other well-known XVII century painters and craftsmen.
Source: http://alchemistmediums.com/products_book.php
In 1616 Mayerne was elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians. He helped the Society of Apothecaries to obtain a royal charter separate from the Grocers and helped to found the Company of Distillers. He was knighted in 1624. Next year he briefly visited Switzerland, where he had become Baron Aubonne. Mayerne retained his post as a first physician after the accession of Charles I in 1625.
There were fears over the health of Henrietta Maria, and in July 1627 she travelled with Mayerne to take the medicinal spring waters at Wellingborough in Northamptonshire.
He successfully championed the effort to produce the first official pharmacopoeia, which would specify treatments that apothecaries should provide for specific ailments. In this he included chemical remedies, which were easier to introduce in Protestant England than in Catholic France.
In 1628 his wife died and in 1630 he married Elizabeth Joachimi. They had five children but only one daughter Marie from his first marriage survived to adulthood. At about this time he treated Oliver Cromwell for a variety of physical and emotional symptoms, including a severe depression. In response to the Plague of 1630, he suggested the institution of a centralized 'Office of Health', with free royal hospitals, trained officials, and regulatory power.
During the English Civil War Mayerne kept a low profile in his practice in London and retained the favour of the parliament. After the execution of Charles I in 1649, he became nominal physician to Charles II but soon retired to Chelsea.
Mayerne died at Chelsea on 22 March 1654 or 1655. He was buried in St Martin-in-the-Fields with most of his family and his godson Sir Theodore des Vaux sponsored a monument for him. Des Vaux later published Mayerne's medical notes in the book Praxis Medica in 1690.
Mayerne compiled the so-called 'de Mayerne manuscript' between 1620 and 1646 based on conversations with painters (and others). The manuscript includes contributions from Rubens, van Dyck, Mytens, Paul van Somer, and Cornelius Johnson. His estate included copious amount of medical manuscripts, including detailed notes about his patients, most of it in Latin and French; his patients ranged from John Donne to Oliver Cromwell. His papers are kept in the Royal College of Physicians.
These papers cannot only be accessed by 'academics'; not mere plebeians!
His influence on the administration of medicine - including the first suggestion of socialized medicine in England, and the standardisation of chemical cures, has been widely recognised.
His 'Paracelsian' outlook, which viewed the world as 'abounding in chemical secrets waiting to be exploited', led him to devise projects to enhance Scottish coal mines, to reopen lead mines in Europe and to monopolize oyster beds. He made chemical and physical experiments, created pigments and cosmetics, introduced calomel to medical use and created black-wash (lotio nigra). It also led him to an interest in cooking, and he grew obese in later years.
Seriously? An alleged polymath and physician allows himself to become obese!
The amount of bullshit written about him is ridiculous!
In 1634, he wrote the introduction for and edited one of the first treatises ever published on Insects (usually attributed to Thomas Muffet.
In 1701 Joseph Browne produced an edition of Mayerne's Latin casebooks which includes details of medical treatments given to several courtiers, documents concerning the final illness of Prince Henry, and a journal of his consultations with Anne of Denmark and Henrietta Maria.The edition is some respects unreliable with misleading punctuation.
Notice that Mayerne is never credited with replicating the experiment done by Paracelsus - the discovery of the gas 'Hydrogen'.
Why not?
Because it is a back-projected lie!
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%A9odore_de_Mayerne
Robert Boyle.
25 January 1627 – 31 December 1691
Robert Boyle was born on 25 January 1627 and was an Anglo-Irish natural philosopher, chemist, physicist, alchemist and inventor. Boyle is largely regarded today as the first modern chemist, and therefore one of the founders of modern chemistry, and one of the pioneers of modern experimental scientific method.
He is best known for Boyle's law, which describes the inversely proportional relationship between the absolute pressure and volume of a gas, if the temperature is kept constant within a closed system. Among his works, The 'Sceptical Chymist' is seen as a cornerstone book in the field of chemistry. He was a devout and pious Anglican and is noted for his writings in theology.
He was an alchemist; and believing the transmutation of metals to be a possibility, he carried out experiments in the hope of achieving it; and he was instrumental in obtaining the repeal, in 1689, of the statute of Henry IV against multiplying gold and silver.
In1671, he is said to have discovered and described the reaction between iron filings and dilute acids, which resulted in the production of hydrogen gas.
Boyle was said to have used:
"....a very sharp and piercing saline spirit and iron filings."
He described the gas in the following way:
"Upon the approach of a lighted candle it would readily enough take fire and burn with a blueish and sometimes greenish flame at the mouth of the vial, for a good while."
The problem is that Hydrogen ignites readily and explosively. Boyle's description isn't that of pure Hydrogen.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Boyle
Henry Cavendish.
10 October 1731 – 24 February 1810
Henry Cavendish was an English natural philosopher and scientist who was an important experimental and theoretical chemist and physicist. He is noted for his discovery of hydrogen, which he termed "inflammable air".[1] He described the density of inflammable air, which formed water on combustion, in a 1766 paper, On Factitious Airs. Antoine Lavoisier later reproduced Cavendish's experiment and gave the element its name.
He produced no books and few papers!
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Cavendish
Cavendish's apparatus for making and collecting 'Inflammable Air' (Hydrogen).
Cavendish found that a definite, peculiar, and highly inflammable gas was produced by the action of certain acids on certain metals. He called the gas 'Inflammable Air'.
He said that he knew only of three metallic substances - zinc, iron and tin that generated inflammable air on solution in acids.
Only diluted vitriolic acid (sulphuric acid) and spirit of salt (hydrochloric acid) produced inflammable air.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Cavendish
Allegedly written by Henry Cavendish.
Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier.
26 August 1743 – 8 May 1794
Lavoisier was a French nobleman and chemist who was central to the 18th-century chemical revolution and who had a large influence on both the history of chemistry and the history of biology.
It is generally accepted that Lavoisier's great accomplishments in chemistry stem largely from his changing the science from a qualitative to a quantitative one. Lavoisier is most noted for his discovery of the role oxygen plays in combustion. He recognized and named oxygen (1778) and hydrogen (1783), and opposed phlogiston theory. He coined the name oxygen for this constituent of the air, from the Greek words meaning "acid former" and named the gas hydrogen from the Greek word for 'water former'.
Lavoisier helped construct the metric system, wrote the first extensive list of elements, and helped to reform chemical nomenclature.
Lavoisier was a powerful member of a number of aristocratic councils, and an administrator of the Ferme générale. The Ferme générale was one of the most hated components of the Ancien Régime because of the profits it took at the expense of the state, the secrecy of the terms of its contracts, and the violence of its armed agents. The Ferme générale was essentially an outsourced customs, excise and indirect tax operation that collected duties on behalf of the King (plus hefty bonus fees for those who collected the taxes), under renewable six - year contracts.
All of these political and economic activities enabled him to fund his scientific research.
In 1771 at the age of 28, he married Marie - Anne Pierrette Paulze, the 13 year old daughter of a senior member of the Ferme générale. It is claimed that she translated English documents for him, including Richard Kirwan's Essay on Phlogiston and Joseph Priestley's research. She is also said to have created many sketches and carved engravings of the laboratory instruments used by Lavoisier and his colleagues for their scientific work.
This is complete nonsense, as the 'plebian skills' of engraving would not be taught to 'aristocratic ladies'.
Lavoisier, together with Louis-Bernard Guyton de Morveau, Claude-Louis Berthollet, and Antoine François de Fourcroy, submitted a new program for the reforms of chemical nomenclature to the Academy in 1787, for there was virtually no rational system of chemical nomenclature at this time. This work, titled Méthode de nomenclature chimique (Method of Chemical Nomenclature, 1787), introduced a new system which was tied inextricably to Lavoisier's new oxygen theory of chemistry.
The classical elements of earth, air, fire, and water were discarded, and instead some 33 substances which could not be decomposed into simpler substances by any known chemical means were provisionally listed as elements.
Why 33?
The elements included light; caloric (matter of heat); the principles of oxygen, hydrogen, and azote (nitrogen); carbon; sulfur; phosphorus; the yet unknown "radicals" of muriatic acid (hydrochloric acid), boric acid, and "fluoric" acid; 17 metals; 5 earths (mainly oxides of yet unknown metals such as magnesia, baria, and strontia); three alkalies (potash, soda, and ammonia); and the "radicals" of 19 organic acids.
At the height of the French Revolution, he was charged with tax fraud and selling adulterated tobacco, and was guillotined.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoine_Lavoisier
Joseph Priestley.
1733 - 1804
Joseph Priestley was an English chemist, natural philosopher, separatist theologian, grammarian, multi-subject educator, and liberal political theorist. He published over 150 works, and conducted experiments in electricity and other areas of science. He was a close friend of, and worked in close association with Benjamin Franklin involving electricity experiments.
Priestley is credited with his independent discovery of oxygen by the thermal decomposition of mercuric oxide, having isolated it in 1774. During his lifetime, Priestley's considerable scientific reputation rested on his invention of carbonated water, his writings on electricity, and his discovery of several "airs" (gases), the most famous being what Priestley dubbed "dephlogisticated air" (oxygen). Priestley's determination to defend phlogiston theory and to reject what would become the chemical revolution eventually left him isolated within the scientific community.
In August 1774 he isolated an "air" that appeared to be completely new, but he did not have an opportunity to pursue the matter because he was about to tour Europe with Shelburne. While in Paris, Priestley replicated the experiment for others, including French chemist Antoine Lavoisier. After returning to Britain in January 1775, he continued his experiments and discovered "vitriolic acid air" (sulphur dioxide, SO2).
In March he wrote to several people regarding the new "air" that he had discovered in August. One of these letters was read aloud to the Royal Society, and a paper outlining the discovery, titled "An Account of further Discoveries in Air", was published in the Society's journal Philosophical Transactions. Priestley called the new substance "dephlogisticated air", which he made in the famous experiment by focusing the sun's rays on a sample of mercuric oxide.
He first tested it on mice, who surprised him by surviving quite a while entrapped with the air, and then on himself, writing that it was "five or six times better than common air for the purpose of respiration, inflammation, and, I believe, every other use of common atmospherical air". He had discovered oxygen gas (O2).
This is complete speculation!
Priestley's science was intertwined with his theology and he kept trying to fuse Enlightenment rationalism with Christian theism.
His publications were highly controversial and because of his outspoken support of the American Revolution and the French Revolution, he received public and governmental contempt.
An angry mob burned down his Birmingham home and church. In 1791 he fled first to London and then to the United States. He spent his last ten years in Northumberland County, Pennsylvania in America.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Priestley
Drawing of the apparatus allegedly used by Priestley.
Electrostatic generator.
An engraving of the electrostatic machine that was allegedly invented and used by Priestley. The illustration appeared in the first edition of his publication: 'Familiar Introduction to the Study of Electricity' in 1768.
Like many designs of that period, it consists of a glass sphere that is rotated by a hand crank and the friciton generated by rubbing against a large felt pad, produces the static electricity.
Unlike a battery (an electrochemical cell), electrostatic generators cannot be used to provide a steady and reliable source of direct current voltage.
Luigi Galvani.
1735 - 1798
Luigi Galvani, (born Sept. 9, 1737, Bologna, Papal States—died Dec. 4, 1798, Bologna, Cisalpine Republic), Italian physician and physicist. His early research focused on comparative anatomy, including the structure of kidney tubules and the middle ear. His developing interest in electricity was inspired by the fact that dead frogs underwent convulsions when attached to an iron fence to dry. He experimented with muscular stimulation by electrical means, using an electrostatic machine and a Leyden jar, and from the early 1780s animal electricity remained his major field of investigation. His discoveries led to the invention of the voltaic pile, a kind of battery that makes possible a constant source of current electricity.
Source: https://www.britannica.com/summary/Luigi-Galvani
He was investigating the effects of distant atmospheric electricity (lightning) on prepared frog legs when he discovered that the legs convulsed not only when lightning struck, but also when he pressed the brass hooks attached to the frog's spinal cord to the iron railing they were suspended from.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luigi_Galvani
Galvani's apparatus used to strike frog's legs with lightning.
The lightning is supposed to strike the small rod of metal (marked B) and travel down the wire (marked A). The electrical force of the lightning then strikes the frog inside the jar (marked D). It also seems that lightning is supposed to strike the other piece of wire that is attached to the wall of the building, then strike the frog on the table.
The unpredictability of lightning strikes means that the likelihood of a strike hitting the small rod or piece of wire is almost zero!
If a strike did occur, then it is unlikely that it would be observed and the effects on the frogs would be catastrophic; so how can such an experiment be deemed valid?
A typical lightning strike has a voltage of around 300 million volts and a current of around 30,000 amps!
It's more back - projected lies and nobody has ever reproduced this experiment!
In his laboratory, Galvani later discovered that he could replicate this phenomena by touching metal electrodes of brass to the frog's spinal cord and to an iron plate. He concluded that this was proof of"animal electricity". the electric power of animated living things.
Pieter van Musschenbroek.
1692 - 1761
Pieter van Musschenbroek, a Dutch experimental scientist, was born Mar. 14, 1692. Musschenbroek’s father was an instrument maker, specializing in double-acting vacuum pumps, a family business that Pieter’s older brother continued. Not surprisingly, Pieter grew up with an interest in instrumental science, but he took the academic route, becoming a professor, first in Duisburg, then Utrecht, and then finally, in 1739, in Leiden. He was a prolific author of books on experimental science, many of which we have in our collections, in multiple editions. On Jan. 20, 1746, Musschenbroek wrote an excited letter to a French colleague, Réne-Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur. Musschenbroek began his letter (in Latin): “I would like to tell you about a new but terrible experiment, which I advise you never to try yourself, nor would I, who have experienced it and survived by the grace of God, do it again for all the kingdom of France.”
Source: https://www.lindahall.org/about/news/scientist-of-the-day/pieter-van-musschenbroek
Why would he write in Latin when Dutch was the language used by Dutch people of that time period and his colleague spoke French?
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Dutch_language
The monks who compiled the back - projected false history, spoke and wrote in Latin!
A typical Leyden Jar used to store electrical charge.
Musschenbroek had found a way to store electricity in a bottle. He discovered that if you half-fill a glass bottle with water (it must be German glass, he claimed!); insert a metal rod, with a knob on the end, into the jar; and hold the knob to a prime conductor connected to an electrostatic generator, you can fill the water with invisible electric fluid. You couldn't see it, but it was definitely there, and in prodigious quantity, because if you held the jar in your left hand, and touched the knob with your right, the shock would knock you off your feet. Musschenbroek had made what we would call an electrical capacitor. His contemporaries called it a Leyden jar.
It turns out that Musschenbroek did not invent the Leyden jar; he was preceded in his work by Jürgen von Kleist in far-off Pomerania. Nor did Musschenbroek discover the key to charging and discharging a Leyden jar – hold it in your hand; that was painfully discovered by a lawyer colleague of Musschenbroek. But Musschenbroek wrote the letter to Réaumur, who passed it on to the abbé Nollet, who read it to the Paris Academy of Sciences on Apr. 20, 1746, and successfully duplicated the experiment (he found that Parisian glass works just as well as German). It is said that Nollet coined the term “Leyden jar,” and perhaps he did, but I could not find the term in his published paper, although he makes copious use of the phrase “experience du Leyde”.
The picture above shows the beginning of the translation of Musschenbroek’s letter, You can perhaps make out the phrase at the top: “experience nouvelles, mais terrible” (for some reason the last half of Musschenbroek’s first sentence is elided – perhaps Nollet did not want to scare away future experimenters).
Or, perhaps it is a total fabrication!
Source: https://www.lindahall.org/about/news/scientist-of-the-day/pieter-van-musschenbroek
Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio Volta .
1745 - 1827
Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio Volta was an Italian physicist and chemist who allegedly was a pioneer of electricity and who is credited as the inventor of the electric battery and the discoverer of methane. He invented the voltaic pile in 1799, and reported the results of his experiments in 1800 in a two-part letter to the president of the Royal Society. With this invention Volta proved that electricity could be generated chemically and debunked the prevalent theory that electricity was generated solely by living beings. Volta's invention sparked a great amount of scientific excitement and led others to conduct similar experiments, which eventually led to the development of the field of electrochemistry.
Volta also drew admiration from Napoleon Bonaparte for his invention, and was invited to the Institute of France to demonstrate his invention to the members of the institute. Volta enjoyed a certain amount of closeness with the emperor throughout his life and he was conferred numerous honours by him.[1] Volta held the chair of experimental physics at the University of Pavia for nearly 40 years.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alessandro_Volta
Structure of a Galvanic Cell.
Volta's invention was built on Luigi Galvani's 1780s discovery of how a circuit of two metals and a frog's leg can cause the frog's leg to respond. Volta demonstrated in 1794 that when two metals and brine-soaked cloth or cardboard are arranged in a circuit they produce an electric current. In 1800, Volta stacked several pairs of alternating copper (or silver) and zinc discs (electrodes) separated by cloth or cardboard soaked in brine to increase the total electromotive force. When the top and bottom contacts were connected by a wire, an electric current flowed through the voltaic pile and the connecting wire.
Volta thought that the pile was a perpetual motion machine and he wrote:
"This endless circulation of the electric fluid (this perpetual motion) may appear paradoxical and even inexplicable, but it is no less true and real."
He never realised that the zinc discs 'oxidised' rapidly which resulted in the voltage dropping equally rapidly.
Once the electrolyte starts to dry out, the voltage falls rapidly.
Click on the images below to view them full size.
Because Volta believed that the electromotive force occurred at the contact between the two metals, Volta's piles had a different design than the modern design illustrated on this page. His piles had one extra disc of copper at the top, in contact with the zinc, and one extra disc of zinc at the bottom, in contact with the copper.
Adriaan Paets van Troostwijk.
1752 - 1837
Adriaan Paets van Troostwijk (4 March 1752 – 3 April 1837) was a Dutch businessman amateur chemist. He conducted experiments and theorized on the nature of substances, conducted some of the earliest experiments on the electrolysis of water in collaboration with physician Johan Rudolph Deiman (1743–1808).
Troostwijk was born in Utrecht to cloth-merchant Wouter van Troostwijk and Johanna Dolphina Paets. He married Marie Cornelia Loten in 1770 and joined the business of his father-in-law in Amsterdam until 1816 and lived in Niewersluis subsequently. Here he became a member of the Felix Meritis, an Amsterdam organization of polymaths founded in 1777. Along with his physician friend Jan Deiman, he conducted experiments and wrote 35 papers between 1778 and 1818.
The director of the Haarlem Teylers museum Martinus van Marum also collaborated with Paets van Troostwijk. Using an electrostatic generator, he was able to split water with gold as an electrode (acting as a catalyst as examined in studies in the 21st century) and was able to identify the components oxygen and hydrogen.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adriaan_Paets_van_Troostwijk
An electrostatic generator.
Using an electrostatic generator, he was allegedly able to split water into hydrogen and oxygen using gold electrodes.
The problem is that such a system will not produce a steady D.C. flow; only an intermittent, high voltage burst of electricity which is typically 50,000 volts!
Electrostatic generators are not suitable for such experiments as they do not produce a steady low voltage.
The paid authors who compiled the back - projected false history didn't care about or understand technical details!
William Nicholson.
1753 - 1815
William Nicholson was an English writer, translator, publisher, scientist, inventor, patent agent and civil engineer. He launched the first monthly scientific journal in Britain, Journal of Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, and the Arts, in 1797, and remained its editor until 1814. In 1800,
In 1799 he established a school in London's Soho Square, where he taught natural philosophy and chemistry, with the aid of a grant of £1,500 from Thomas Pitt.
In May 1800 he with Anthony Carlisle discovered electrolysis, the decomposition of water into hydrogen and oxygen by voltaic current. The two were then appointed to a chemical investigation committee of the new Royal Institution. But his own interests shortly turned elsewhere. In 1809 he became a first class corresponding member, living abroad, of the Royal Institute of the Netherlands.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Nicholson_%28chemist%29
Anthony Carlisle.
1768 - 1840
Anthony Carlisle was born in Stillington, County Durham, the third son of Thomas Carlisle and his first wife, and the half-brother of Nicholas Carlisle. He was apprenticed to medical practitioners in York and Durham, including his uncle Anthony Hubback and William Green. He later studied in London under John Hunter. In 1793 he was appointed Surgeon at Westminster Hospital in 1793, remaining there for 47 years. He also studied art at the Royal Academy.
In 1800, he and William Nicholson discovered electrolysis by passing a voltaic current through water, decomposing it into its constituent elements of hydrogen and oxygen.
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1804. He was Professor of Anatomy of the Society from 1808 to 1824.
In 1815 he became a member of the council of the Royal College of Surgeons,[1] and served as president of the College in 1828 and 1837. He twice delivered their Hunterian oration, causing consternation at his second oration in 1826 by using the occasion to talk about oysters, earning the epithet of Sir Anthony Oyster. He also delivered their Croonian Lecture in 1804, 1805 and 1807.
He was Surgeon Extraordinary (1820–1830) to King George IV, by whom he was knighted on 24 July 1821.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Carlisle
I smell a rat!
The rise of physical chemistry in the 19th century has at its root two closely connected events which took place in the final year of the 18th century. In 1800, Alessandro Volta in Lombardy invented an early form of battery, known as the Voltaic pile, which Messrs. Carlisle and Nicholson in England promptly employed to discover electrolysis.
Carlisle and Nicholson’s discovery that electricity can decompose water into hydrogen and oxygen caused as big a stir as any scientific discovery ever made. It demonstrated the existence of a relationship between electricity and the chemical elements, to which Michael Faraday would give quantitative expression in his two laws of electrolysis in 1834. Faraday also introduced the term ‘ion’, a little word for a big idea that Arrhenius, Ostwald and van ‘t Hoff would later use to create the foundations of modern physical chemistry in the 1880s.
The president of the Royal Society, Sir Joseph Banks, lived in a house at No.32 Soho Square. Here he entertained all the leading members of the scientific establishment, and it was here in April 1800 that he yielded to temptation and disclosed the contents of Signor Volta’s confidential letter to certain chosen acquaintances. Among them was another resident of Soho Square, the fashionable surgeon Anthony Carlisle, who had just moved in at No.12.
Volta’s announcement of his invention made an instant impression on Carlisle, who immediately arranged for his friend the chemist William Nicholson to look over the letter with him, after which Carlisle set about constructing the apparatus according to the instructions in Volta’s letter.
Nicholson records in his paper that by 30th April 1800, Carlisle had completed the construction of a pile “consisting of 17 half crowns, with a like number of pieces of zinc, and of pasteboard, soaked in salt water”. Using coinage for the silver discs was smart thinking by Carlisle – with a diameter of 1.3 inches (3.3 cm), the half crown was an ideal size for the purpose, and was made of solid silver.
From Nicholson’s account, it seems likely that Carlisle obtained a pound (approx. ½ kilo) of zinc from a metal dealer called John Tappenden who traded from premises just opposite the church of Saint Vedast Foster Lane, off Cheapside in the City of London. A pound of zinc was enough to make 20 discs of the diameter of a half crown.
On May 1st, 1800, Carlisle and Nicholson set up their pile – most likely in Carlisle’s house at 12 Soho Square – and began by forming a circuit with a steel wire and passing a current through it. To assist contact with the wire, a drop of river water was placed on the uppermost disc. As soon as this was done, Nicholson records
“Mr. Carlisle observed a disengagement of gas round the touching wire. This gas, though very minute in quantity, evidently seemed to me to have the smell afforded by hydrogen”
It is amazing that Nicholson was able to identify hydrogen from such a minute sample. But even more amazing was the thought that occurred to him next
“This [release of hydrogen gas], with some other facts, led me to propose to break the circuit by the substitution of a tube of water between two wires.”
Nicholson does not say what those other facts are, but he does record that on the first appearance of hydrogen gas, both he and Carlisle suspected that the gas stemmed from the decomposition of water by the electric current. Following that wonderfully intuitive piece of reasoning, Nicholson’s suggestion can be seen as a natural next step in their investigation.
Encyclopedia Britannica online.
hydrogen (H), a colourless, odourless, tasteless, flammable gaseous substance that is the simplest member of the family of chemical elements.
https://www.britannica.com/science/hydrogen
Nicholson could NOT have smelled hydrogen gas as it is odourless!
How did he know in advance what the gas was supposed to smell like?
Source: https://carnotcycle.wordpress.com/2017/02/01/carlisle-nicholson-and-the-discovery-of-electrolysis/
Chemical Flatulence!
According to mainstream scientific theory, it is possible to produce water by combining hydrogen and oxygen.
Somewhat surprisingly, it isn't just a case of mixing the two gases in a glass vessel, you have to explode the hydrogen gas by igniting it in air!
Images from the video.
Click on each one to read the comments.
In the video, Brian is seen adding concentrated hydrochloric acid to pieces of zinc metal to produce a very white coloured gas (hydrogen).
He makes bubbles of the gas by passing it through a soapy solution and then ignites the gas bubbles.
The flame produced is very orange in colour; so it can't be pure hydrogen.
He then fills a large glass vessel with the gas, but what is not shown is that he is using a commercial cylinder of (allegedly) hydrogen and not the gas he produced previously.
The gas is ignited using an electrical spark and the resultant explosion produces a small amount of condensation on the inside of the glass vessel.
It is important to note that when the gas is exploded in the air, it is said to produce water vapor. Water vapor is not liquid water; it is a gas.
KEY POINTS:
"When hydrogen and oxygen react during combustion, water vapor is produced."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_of_combustion
"Water vapor, water vapour or aqueous vapor is the gaseous phase of water."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_vapor
The claim that liquid water is produced when hydrogen and oxygen are combined is a lie!
The video is a careful mix of different 'takes' and is designed to support the lie.
Quote from the video. Brian Cox - re Cavendish's experiment.
"Now Cavendish didn't really have any idea of what happened in these chemical reactions.
Indeed, his whole theoretical framework was nonsense to modern eyes. It was based on Alchemy.
He thought things burned because they contained a substance called phlogiston.
But even thought that is complete nonsense, because he was a great experimental scientist, his measurements were correct.
So, he managed to measure that water is made of two parts of hydrogen to one part of oxygen -H2O; even though he didn't believe that water was made of anything at all.
So, that ability to get your theoretical picture, your ideas about the way that nature works completely wrong and yet make honest and precise measurements that stand the test of time and are correct
is the mark of a great experimental scientist."
How can any sane person accept this drivel?
Exposing the lie.
The following illustrations are based on actual experiments. Anyone can reproduce the experiments as they use readily available materials and second hand plastic or glass bottles and containers can be used.
Thin cardboard can be used instead of a wooden splint.
The aluminium rods can be bought from a hardware or DIY store.
The aluminium foil is standard kitchen foil.
A small 9V D.C. or 12V D.C. power supply can be used or a battery.
The connecting wire can be bought from a hobby shop, DIY store or car parts shop.
De-ionised or distilled water can be bought from a car parts shop, DIY store or supermarket.
The hydrogen gas given off, is due to the decomposition of the aluminium used for the electrodes. The fact that chlorine gas is given off is due to the decomposition of the sodium chloride that was added to the distilled water.
Distilled or de-ionised water does not conduct electricity!
Water is NOT composed of hydrogen and oxygen, it is a pure element and NOT a compound.
It cannot be split into Hydrogen and Oxygen!
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