BERTHELOT, MARCELLIN. - THE FOUNDATION OF THERMOCHEMISTRY

Sur les Principes généraux de la Thermochemie. 1.- 13. Mémoire. (+) Dissolution des Acides et de Alcalis. 1. - 9. Mémoire.

Paris, Victor Masson, Imprimerie Gauthier-Villars, 1875. 8vo. Contemp. hcalf, raised bands, gilt spine. Light wear along edges. Wear to top of spine. Small stamps on verso of titlepage. Both works in "Annales de Chimie et de Physique", 5me Series - Tome IV. 572 pp. (The entire volume offered). Berthelot's works: pp. 5-131 a. 141-214 + pp. 445-537. Internally clean and fine.

First appearance of this collection of Berthelot's famous memoirs on thermochemistry to which he turned his attention in 1865. In these lectures he introduced the concepts of 'exothermix' and 'endothermic'. He also intorduce his famous 3 principles - equivalence between internal and heat changes in chemical reactions, heat evolved or absorbed in a chemical change depends onlyon the initial and final states of the reactans and products, provided no external work is done, and "law of maximum work" which says that "every chemical change accomplished without the intervention of energy from outside tends towards the production of a body or system of bodies which produce the most heat". The principles of Thermochemistry given here Berthelot considered himself fundamental.

"In the 1860s Berthelot was done with synthesis and turned to thermochemistry, the study of the heat of chemical reactions. In some of his work he had unknowingly been anticipated by Hess, but he went much further. He devised a calorimeter within which he could measure the heat of chemical reactions and ran hundreds of determinations. This work along with that being conducted by Thomson threw the science of thermochemistry into high gear."(Asimov).

Order-nr.: 43164