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Sunto di un corso di filosofia chimica — Stanislao Cannizzaro

1858 AD · Transmission: Global
ChemistryMethodItalian

Stanislao Cannizzaro writes in March 1858 a long letter to his colleague Sebastiano de Luca, published that same year as "Sunto di un corso di filosofia chimica" ("Outline of a Course in Chemical Philosophy"). In it he revives Avogadro's 1811 hypothesis, practically forgotten for almost half a century, and uses it to resolve the more-than-fifty-year confusion around atomic weights: he shows how vapor-density measurements allow unambiguous calculation of molecular weights from Avogadro's principle, and from there derive consistent atomic weights. The pamphlet, reissued in 1859, initially had little impact until Cannizzaro personally distributed it among attendees of the 1860 Karlsruhe Congress, where it ended up being the document that unlocked the consensus the conference itself had failed to reach.

InstitutionUniversity of Genoa
Historical regionKingdom of Sardinia (present-day Italy)
Primary sourceCannizzaro, S. — "Sunto di un corso di filosofia chimica fatto nella R. Università di Genova", Il Nuovo Cimento, vol. 7, 1858
Secondary sourceEncyclopaedia Britannica — Stanislao Cannizzaro; Science History Institute — Stanislao Cannizzaro; Linda Hall Library — Stanislao Cannizzaro
Original languageItalian
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