Jeremias Benjamin Richter

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Jeremias Benjamin Richter

Jeremias Benjamin Richter (born March 10, 1762 in Hirschberg , Silesia , † May 4, 1807 in Berlin ) was a doctor of philosophy , chemist , mining expert and private scholar.

Life

Richter was the son of a Breslau merchant. At the age of 13 he was tutored by his uncle, who was a city architect in Wroclaw . At the age of sixteen he joined a military engineering corps, but was not promoted because he neglected his official duties. He resigned after seven years and dealt with science and chemistry . Richter studied philosophy with Immanuel Kant and obtained a doctorate in mathematics and chemistry in 1789 . In 1792 he completed his important work on chemical stoichiometryon. However, his literary work brought him no economic advantage. His wish for an apprenticeship at the university also failed. Finally he got a job in the Oberbergamt near Breslau. In 1798 he got a job in the paint laboratory of the Royal Porcelain Manufactory . His scientific work, which was not paid for, he now carried out in the morning and evening hours. In later years he was appointed as a foreign member by the scientific societies, for example in 1796 by the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and the Russian Academy of Sciences in Saint Petersburg , of which he was a corresponding member since 1800. In 1796 he was elected a corresponding member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences . Scientific fame was denied to him during his lifetime.

Scientific achievements

Richter took the philosophical and methodological model for the mathematization of chemistry from Leibniz student Christian Wolff and his work "Beginnings of Algebra". In this work by Wolff, the universal scientific Ars-Inveniendi method is described and explained, with the help of which many natural laws can be found faster and more effectively in all individual sciences through the algebraization of mathematical models. Richter's dissertation from 1789 with the Latin title DE USU MATHESEOS IN CHEMIA should therefore not be translated into German as on the use of mathematics in chemistry , but rather as on the use of the MATHEMATICAL METHOD in chemistry or on the benefits of the ARS INVENIENDI METHOD Christian Wolffs in chemistry . With this philosophical-theological work, Richter is considered the founder of stoichiometry . In 1791/92 he postulated the law of equivalent proportions , which is still an important part of theoretical chemistry today. The law of stoichiometry of equivalent proportions was integrated into a universal cosmology by Richter in 1792, which placed his original law of stoichiometry in a mathematical relation to astronomical constellations. Richter's stoichiometric experiments are, in his opinion, not reproducible because the gravitational conditions, e.g. B. due to the moon and planetary movements, which in his opinion have an influence on the result of an experiment, are variable.

The law of equivalent proportions states: elements always combine in the ratio of certain compound masses ( equivalent masses) or integer multiples of these masses to form chemical compounds.

Richter initially derived his law from certain mixtures of two salts in water ( calcium acetate and potassium tartrate ). The solution remained neutral, which was not a matter of course at the time. A precipitate ( calcium tartrate ) occurred on the mixture . Richter concluded that a salt mixture of A1B1 combined with A2B2 can form four mixed salts in certain mathematical combinations (A1B1, A1B2, A2B1, A2B2). From the ratios A1 / B1 = x, A2 / B1 = y etc., all individual salt mixtures can be calculated according to the neutrality of the resulting solution.

The connection becomes even more understandable if metal hydroxides (e.g. iron (II) hydroxide ) are mixed with dilute hydrochloric acid. The addition of hydrochloric acid only makes the solution acidic when all the iron hydroxide has been converted into iron (II) chloride . Even back then, acid could be detected with litmus . If the concentration of the acid is known and the exact weight of the metal oxides has been carried out, the atomic weight of the metal can also be derived. The determination of the atomic mass via the hydroxides or oxides was used in later years by Jöns Jakob Berzelius to determine the atomic weight of over 40 elements.

“Mathematics includes all those sciences in its field where there are only quantities, and a science consequently lies more or less in the circle of the art of measurement, the more or less quantities are to be determined. This truth led me, in chemical experiments, to the question whether and to what extent chemistry is a part of applied mathematics; it was especially agitated by the so common experience that two neutral salts, when they decompose one another, make neutral compounds again. The immediate conclusion, so I drew from this, could be no other than that there must be certain proportions between the constituents of the neutral salts. "

- JB Richter : Beginnings of stoichyometry or the art of measuring chemical elements, first part, 1792 (preface)

There is evidence that John Dalton knew the important work of Richter and was able to formulate the atomic theory . Why Richter overlooked the link between stoichiometry and atomic theory remains a mystery. Probably for philosophical reasons (according to Kant) he believed in a different structure of matter. Other circles (e.g. Claude Louis Berthollet ) made the work of Richter known by Ernst Gottfried Fischer in Berlin.

Works (selection)

  • About the newer subjects of chemistry. Breßlau / Hirschberg from 1791. (Series of publications)
  • The beginnings of stoichyometry or the art of measuring chemical elements. First, second and third part, Breßlau / Hirschberg 1792–1793.

literature

Web links

Wikisource: Jeremias Benjamin Richter  - Sources and full texts

swell

  1. ^ Büttner, Stefan, "Richter, Jeremias Benjamin" in: Neue Deutsche Biographie 21 (2003), pp. 532-533
  2. ^ Foreign members of the Russian Academy of Sciences since 1724. Jeremias Benjamin Richter. Russian Academy of Sciences, accessed October 20, 2015 (Russian).
  3. ↑ Holger Krahnke: The members of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen 1751-2001 (= Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philological-Historical Class. Volume 3, Vol. 246 = Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematical-Physical Class. Episode 3, vol. 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 201.
  4. ↑ Christoph Poggemann: About the theological, philosophical, alchemical and therefore also Paracelsian character of the work "Beginnings of Stoichiometry". In: Paracelsus and the wound medicine. Border areas of Paracelsus research and interpretation, 53rd Paracelsus Day 2004. Ed .: International Paracelsus Society in Salzburg, Volume 38, Österreichischer Kunst- und Kulturverlag, Vienna 2005, ISBN 3-85437-282-5 , pp. 72–94.
  5. ^ Wilhelm Ostwald : JB Richter. In: Günther Bugge: The book of great chemists. Verlag Chemie, Weinheim 1974, Volume I, ISBN 3-527-25021-2 , p. 375.
personal data
SURNAME Judge, Jeremias Benjamin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German chemist, mining expert and private scholar
DATE OF BIRTH March 10, 1762
PLACE OF BIRTH Hirschberg , Silesia
DATE OF DEATH May 4, 1807
Place of death Berlin