Everyman's chemistry
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| Everyman's chemistry - Ellwood Hendrick |
the chemist's point of view and his recent work told for the layman
Introduction:
The second decade of the twentieth century has brought to the average man a general if vague, realization of the tremendous importance of chemistry and its application in actual life. This has never been felt so acutely before, and yet it has seemed to me that the same average man is not very well provided with a work that he could read and understand easily and at the same time get a chemical view of things.
To produce such a book has been my purpose, and if I have not made it interesting I shall be to blame, for I assure you the subject is full of interest and delight.
Of course, this is not a complete treatise on chemistry, nor do I pretend that it is a well-balanced book. Many important subjects are touched upon but lightly, and others of less general value I have not hesitated to ramble on about at considerable length, so long as they seemed interesting.
The whole thing is, in a way, a sporting proposition between you, the reader, and me. If I can hold your attention until you have read it through, I shall have succeeded in my undertaking and you will know something about the Ways of Stuff as the chemist has to do with them.
You will be out of the inky darkness. You will not think that a barrel of coal - tar, for instance, put into a pot and boiled with a teacupful of one thing and a tablespoonful of t'other will straightway resolve itself into dyestuffs, perfumes, medicines, and what not, according to the will of the man with the thermometer.
You will not know how the chemist works so much as you will of the way he thinks; and instead of presenting him to you as a superman with potentialities and powers beyond his kind, I have tried to make it clear that his problems are very like those of a businessman.
The difference is that the man of affairs deals with others of his kind whose minds are hidden from him, trying to induce them to do his bidding, whereas the chemist deals with molecules and atoms and ions, none of which he can see, but which also have ways of their own that are often exceedingly difficult to master.
My only stipulation is that you shall not attempt to read the book backwards. And yet I pray you to refer frequently to the table of elements at the end. It contains information that you will find useful as you read along, and I should have put it at the beginning had I not feared that it would frighten you away. Chemistry would be the dullest study on earth if it only had to do with the proportionate amounts of oxygen, nitrogen, sulphur, etc., that a body contains.
This is merely the genealogy of things and bears the same relation to them that the names of a man's several grandparents do to him. The interest lies in what these things will do, just as the interesting quality of a man lies in the problem of what he will do under more or less known conditions.
For those who desire to read more profoundly, I have added a select bibliography of standard works, some of which are easy to read and some of which are written with the understanding that the reader shall have devoted several years to the study of the subjects treated. This appears in an appendix.
Some contents:
PREFACE vii
PART FIRST
GENERAL AND INTRODUCTORY
GENERAL AND INTRODUCTORY
I. CHEMICAL MISERIES 3
II. THE HEART OF THE THING 16
III. PHASES OF MATTER 24
IV. ELEMENTS AND THEIR COMPOUNDS 38
V. CHEMICAL NAMES AND PHRASES 54
PART SECOND
INORGANIC CHEMISTRY
INORGANIC CHEMISTRY
VI. AIR AND WATER 59
VII. MORE ABOUT AIR 77
VIII. THE RED-HEADED HALOGENS 88
IX. SULPHUR, SULPHURIC ACID, AND SULPHUR COMPOUNDS 95
X. PHOSPHORUS, ARSENIC, ANTIMONY, AND BISMUTH . . 109
XI. THE ALKALI METALS 117
XII. SAND AND CLAY 130
XIII. LIME AND MAGNESIA 148
XIV. IRON AND STEEL 163
XV. MORE METALS 176
XVI. STILL MORE METALS 195
XVII. SOME OF THE RARER METALS 203
XVIII. CARBON 219
PART THIRD
ORGANIC CHEMISTRY
ORGANIC CHEMISTRY
XIX. PARAFFINS AND PETROLEUM BODIES 235
XX. OLEFINS AND ACIDS 247
XXI. ALCOHOLS AND SOME RELATIVES 258