John AR Newlands

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John AR Newlands

John Alexander Reina Newlands (born November 26, 1837 in London , † July 29, 1898 ibid) was an English chemist who made the first attempts to establish a periodic table of the elements between 1863 and 1866 . At that time around 60 different elements were known.

Newlands was the son of a clergyman. He studied from 1856 at the Royal College of Chemistry in London and was from 1857 assistant at the Royal Agricultural Society of England , but interrupted his studies to take part in the Italian War of Independence under Giuseppe Garibaldi as a volunteer (his mother was of Italian descent). In 1860 he was back in England. From 1864 he had a private laboratory for chemical analyzes and taught at schools in London. From 1868 he was a chief chemist in a sugar factory and from 1886 he again had his own laboratory in London, where he and his brother mainly devoted himself to problems of sugar chemistry.

Newlands found out in 1864 that when the elements are ordered according to increasing atomic mass, the chemical properties are repeated in every eighth position, which he compared with the octaves from music. He called his discovery the law of octaves . Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev and Lothar Meyer later recognized the same connection. In England, the much more established chemist William Odling was working on a periodic table at about the same time and had the advantage of having attended the Karlsruhe congress in 1860 with the presentation of better values ​​for atomic weights by Stanislao Cannizzaro (while Newlands was fighting in Italy during this time). Odling also recognized periodicities (with period 16), but was much more reluctant to recognize a law in them.

Newland's theory was initially rejected by his contemporaries. His first work on this in 1863 he published anonymously, his improved systems in 1864 (two systems) and 1865. The latter was a considerable improvement over its predecessors and now comprised 65 elements and was based on his law of octaves, which he published in 1866 at the same time as a further considerable improvement of the system published. He also drew a comparison with the octaves of the music for which he was attacked, but according to Scerri it was rather the generally negative attitude in England to such comprehensive theoretical systems that was the reason for the hostile attitude in his lecture to the London Chemical Society. His periodic system still had errors (like that of Mendeleev), for example it placed iron (a metal) in the same group as oxygen and sulfur. Newlands was not prevented from publishing (his articles appeared in the Chemical News, for example), even if the London Chemical Society declined to publish his lecture (competition from Odling, who chaired the meeting may have played a role).

Newlands was an industrial chemist with work mainly on sugar chemistry. With Duncan he invented a new, patented process for cleaning sugar. He also gave private lessons in chemistry. He never received an academic position.

Works

  • with Charles G. Warnford Lock, Benjamin ER Newlands: Sugar: A Handbook for Planters and Refiners. Spon, London 1888, archive.org .
  • On the discovery of the periodic law , 1884 (collection of his essays on the periodic system of elements)
  • Relations Between Equivalents , Chemical News, Volume 10, 1864, pp. 59-60, pp. 94-95 (second system)
  • On the Law of Octaves , Chemical News, Vol. 12, Aug. 18, 1865, p. 83
  • On the Law of Octaves , Chemical News, Volume 13, 1866, p. 130

literature

  • Michael A. Sutton: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography . 2004
  • Winfried Pötsch u. a .: Lexicon of important chemists . Harri Deutsch, 1989
  • Wendell H. Taylor: JAR Newlands: A Pioneer in Atomic Numbers, Journal of Chemical Education, Vol. 26, 1949, pp. 152-157
  • CJ Giunta: JAR Newlands, Classification of the Elements: Periodicity, but No System , Bulletin for the History of Chemistry, Volume 24, 1999, pp. 24-31
    • In reply: Eric Scerri A Philosophical Commentary on Giunta's Critique of Newlands' Classification of the Elements , Bulletin for the History of Chemistry, Volume 26, 2001, pp. 124-129
  • Eric Scerri: The periodic table , Oxford UP 2007, pp. 72ff

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Scerri, The periodic table, 2007, p. 77
  2. ↑ Seven years later, he said he had rejected the publication because it was too theoretical in nature, which led to controversy. Scerri, The periodic table, 2007, p. 78
personal data
SURNAME Newlands, John AR
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Newlands, John Alexander Reina
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English chemist
DATE OF BIRTH November 26, 1837
PLACE OF BIRTH London
DATE OF DEATH July 29, 1898
Place of death London