Scientific method

The aim here is to figure out how it works. And how we can be sure of the knowledge we build on top of.

Iterative generation of explanations for observations

• The method isn’t really this homogeneous, universal thing
• One constant defining factor seems to be empiricism, that rationalism alone can not create good explanations of things

Combustion

• It was known at the beginning of the 17th century that air played a role in the burning of a candle
• Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier discovered that the product of burned sulphur weighed more than its initial substance.
• Heating the ash realised this same substance
• This gas component of the air was called oxygen
• Based on the idea of the conservation of matter.
• Lavoisier discovered that air was not a simple substance, that there was a component of it that did not ‘respire’ with the metal to be burned. The other component he referred to as ‘eminently respirable’ and discovered that most acids contained this gas. This breathable air. (oxygene acid generator)
• How did we get to classify the materials used in experiments
• Can we define the recursive formula to devise elements?
• How do we explore things we can’t physically see!

What is a chemical element and how did we generate this theory of a chemical element?

• natural assumption do wonder, is that something that’s indivisible. So looking the table is there a slice that is so small it can’t be sliced again. Similarly for matter in every form. Is there a respective slice of it that can no longer be sliced (or separated)
• John Dalton proposed that the conservation of mass and the law of constant composition could be explained with his atom theory. That there existed whole structure on a micro scale that did not differ in an element but differed between elements. The combination of elements then could be in constant ratios.
• So Dalton proposed this hypothesis, did he then perform experiments that agreed with this? If so, what were those experiments?
• Think Boyle is the first to propose the modern definition. A substance that cannot be decomposed into simpler substances. An example here I saw was the decomposition, it’s products can’t be decomposed any more.

Books

Introduction to the history of Chemistry

• Exploration of the materials around us seems to begin with tool making, understanding that different materials have different properties.
• Trial and error generated compounds such as glass and improve their purity. This form of knowledge requires a seemingly large amount of trial and error, I wonder how intuitive some of these methods generated actually were?
• ”Indeed almost all ‘industrial’ or ‘applied’ chemistry right up until the 18th century was purely ‘trial and error’ and empirical in nature”
• Aristotle looked at causation of ‘stuff’ in general, what was its final form, or material cause (why it had certain properties), why it formed the way it formed.
• There was a large array of synonyms for the same thing. There was no patent structure no people wanted to keep processes to themselves. Made it very confusing to practice this “science” it was more a collection of techniques used by artisans, metallurgists, technologists and pharmacists
• Theres evidence (it seems) that alchemists thought in weights and measures, with a general theory of a molecule

Chapter 2

• Fundamental problem is transmutation. How can two disparate materials merge two form another disparate one. The process can be reversed so we know that the initial materials are somehow compounded to create the merger.
• The origins of chemistry is in the metallurgical, distillation and glass-making activities of Greco-Egyptian artisans which was adopted by the Arabs (who were able to isolate alcohols?) which eventually made it’s way to the west.
• Paracelsus pushed for this chemical nature of the universe. He saw his mission to reform natural philosophy and theology (?). He saw himself as a prophet. He didn’t see the balance of the 4 humours as a valid explanation for diseases, he thought it down to poisons from the starts or inappropriate diet. His remedies tried to find analogous anatomical things in nature. He then performed chemical processes to distill these things down. This made chemistry a part of a physicians training. Academic chemistry became a thing.
• He viewed things in a trinity. So the building blocks of transmutation came in sulphur, mercury and salt. He broke down combustion in this way. It’s interesting that similarly in Ptolemy’s geometrical view of the orbits it fits a nice anthropocentric narrative. That is one that we can comfortably understand.
• The triumph of Paracelsus against the Galenic view of medicine promoted pharmaceutical chemistry in universities for the years to come.
• The fact that materials could be mixed and then through some other process (acid on an alloy) be reclaimed signified that the initial materials somehow merged to form the composite.
• Water as a fundamental substance of matter (Helmont, from growing a tree from just watering the soil) inspired Boyle too, he thought however that there was a universal substratum of matter divided into corpuscles.
• Chemistry became part of a basic education in France around this time
• Towards the end here I’m confused at how the use of the three principles was beneficial. Is it that more composite building blocks than those of matter floating around could be used? French chemists began to work with salts
• In the 18th century French chemists were able to categorise the different “chemical affinities”. Newton had suggested that some similar dynamic to gravity existed on a smaller scale as an explanation to why matter cohered and aggregated. This affinity is classified as a particular type of displacement reaction.
• These tables offered no theoretical insight however
• These tables expanded the trinity of principles into a wider array of principles that composed minerals

A Brief History of Science

Chapter 7 New Age of Physics

• All starts with the cahode ray tube

Vacuum

• Aristotle had arguments against the idea of a ‘void’ in his book ‘Physics’
  • This could be a good example generally for how Aristotle influenced thinking.
• Muslim philosophers also argued on this. More detail maybe needed here.
• There was a commonly held view that ‘nature abhorred a vacuum’

• There was even speculation that even God could not create a vacuum if he wanted and the 1277 Paris condemnations of Bishop Etienne Tempier, which required there to be no restrictions on the powers of God, led to the conclusion that God could create a vacuum if he so wished

• The 17th century saw the first attempts to quantify a vaccum despite the suction pump being around before then for it’s practicality

Airs

• Anaximenes

Notes

• I think my intuition is frustrated wiht modern knowledge explaining past knowledge. Now, we can explain in detail what early scientists were looking at. To me, it’s as if that same mental model was what the scientists at the time had. Which I don’t think is the case.
  • So what I’m fundamentally trying to ask is: what was the state of affairs in this scientists head when they were carrying out their discoveries. Hoping, to draw from this logic to their induction.
  • This might be a bit of a re invention of the wheel. Maybe there are patterns I could look out for using the framework of the modern day ‘scientific method’
• From Kuhn, the idea that paradigms previously constructed are essential in guiding experimentation. Chapter 3 explaining the nature of normal science
• It’s interesting Kuhn refers to experimentints in visual perception where people can only get there bearings after establishing a model of the world. He says that “something like a paradigm is prequisite to perception itself”. It’s interesting to note that I too am searching for a paradigm to view the history of Science through. Also, trying to notice the frameworks I’m currently looking at Science through.
• From Kuhn the main crisises in Chemistry before oxygen theory pneumatic (gas) chemistry and weight relations. The air pump signified some relationship between air and chemical reactions (?). Bodies experienced weight gain when burned or roasted. This was seen as just a minor inconvenience.
• The vacuum pump
  • How would you induce all air had been removed?
    • From the first experiments with a barometer. When the tube is turned upside down. A gap appeared at the top. Because of the conservation laws (I think), this can’t just be air that has appeared. It is a lack of water and air. A lack of any fluid.
    • Toriccelli thought he would be arrested with his new ideas about the vacuum. It seems he first proposed this idea that the air has weight. That it pushes down on us.
    • https://web.archive.org/web/20100106074525/http://www.strange-loops.com/scibarometer.html
  • The origins of the suction pump
    • The problem of raising water. To clear out mines
    • Use cases are first scene in the 15th century with German mines
    • Hand operated force pumps were limited. The introduction of a valve that allowed in air one way but not the other was the crucial step.
    • I’m not too sure how natural atmospheric pressure makes this work.