AMPÈRE, ANDRÉ-MARIE. - THE CLASSIFICATORY SYSTEM OF AMPERE.

Essai D'une Classification naturelle pour les Corps simples. (+) Suire De l'Essai i d'une Classification naturelle pour les Corps simples. (+) Suire D'une Classification naturelle pour les Corps simples. Suite du § II. (+) Suite...Suite du § II. (4 papers).

(Paris, Crochard, 1816) No wrappers as extracted fron 'Annales de Chimie et de Physique', Volume 1 and 2 (2e Series). Pp. 295-308 a. pp. 373-394 (Vol. 1), pp. 5-32 a. pp. 105-125 (Vol. 2). With both halftitles to vols. 1 a. 2. Htitles shaved in inner margins, no loss of letters. All 4 papers having some scattered brownspots.


First appearance of Ampere's notable memoir (issued in 4 parts) in which he tries to set up a classification system for the elementary entities in chemistry tieing the elements together in a natural classification, a dim foreshadowing of the periodic table.

"Here (in the paper offered) he drew attention to the similarities between Lavoisier's and his fellowers classification of elements in terms of their reactions with oxygen and Linnaeus' classification of plants in terms of their sexual organs. Bernard de Jussieu had successfully challenged Linnaeus with a natural system that took the whole plant into account and sought affinities between all parts of the plant, not just the flowers, as the basic classification. Ampère now wished to do the same thing for chemistry. By discovering a natural classification, i.e., one that tied the elements together by real and rather than artificial relations, Ampère hoped to prove a new insight into chemical reactions. His classificatory scheme, therefore, was not merely an ordering ofthe elements but, like the later periodic table of Dimitri Mendeleev, a true instrument of chemical research. Ampères system was as artificial as Lavoisier's...Thepapermay be noted, however, as an early attempt to find relationships between elements that would bring some order into the constantly growing number of elementary bodies."(DSB I, p. 143).

Order-nr.: 43465


DKK 2.000,00