Classic Papers from the History of Chemistry
(and Some Physics too)
Return to Main Menu
Carmen Giunta and I keep each other informed of our parallel work in posting classic chemistry papers. His classic papers page has additional papers to the ones on this site. His site is thematically organized and links back to the papers posted here. I intend to continue posting the papers I transcribe in a more-or-less chronological order. Please feel free to direct article suggestions to either person.
Carmen's top page has additional history of chemistry information and links. I also have a History of Science Link List. There are duplicates in the two link lists, but there are also links unique to each list.
You may also be interested in my Chemists' Photo Gallery.
Primary Articles (almost all are excerpted)
- c. 50 B.C. - Lucretius' De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things) - the entire poem
- A excerpt of De Rerum Natura
- 1811 - Avogadro's Essay
- 1828 - Wöhler on Urea
- 1834 - Faraday on electrolysis
- 1864 - Waage & Guldberg on the Law of Mass Action
- 1887 - Arrhenius on electrolytic dissociation
- 1897 - the Zeeman effect
- 1899 - Rutherford discovers Alpha and Beta radiation
- 1900 - Rutherford discovers half-life
- 1904 - J.J. Thomson on the structure of the atom
- 1907 - Arrhenius on the Thomson (1904) model of the atom
- 1909 - Sören Sörenson's introduction of pH
- 1911 - Rutherford's first announcement of the nucleus concept
- 1911 - van den Broek's first letter on the atomic number concept
- 1913 - Fajans on isotopes
- 1913 - van den Broek's second letter on the atomic number concept
- 1913 & 1914 - Moseley on the high frequency spectra of the elements
- 1916 - Lewis on the shared electron pair bond
- 1920 - Aston on mass spectroscopy
- 1923 - Brønsted on acids and bases
Secondary Articles
- How the Theory of Solutions Arose
- Birthplace of the Web (Not chemistry, but I found it interesting.)
Biographical Articles
- The Genius of James Clerk Maxwell, Part 2
- The Genius of James Clerk Maxwell, Part 3