WILMELM OSTWALD The
GREAT PROTAGONIST Pad I WILDER D. BANCROFT Cornell Universitv. Ithaca, New York
W
ILHELM OSTWALD was born in Riga on September 2, 1853. His father was a t that time a poor but skilful cooper and his mother was a baker's daughter. Ostwald inherited his skill in painting from his father and his love of music from his mother. During the seven years that Ostwald spent in the Realgymnasium in Riga, many of his later characteristics became discernible though, a t that time, no one was looking for them. He had to learn Latin, French, English, Russian, mathematics (through analytical geometry), physics, and chemistry. Russian was too hard for him and he failed in i t although living in Russia. On the side Ostwald went in for painting, music, photography, and fireworks. He olaved , the oiano to some extent and the viola in a the bepinninp of the next semester, which'he did. The string cjuartk. When ~ o m a candles i blew up in the secondthirdwas passedat the end of the sixth semester, oven where they were drying, the small boy was moved late in 1874, and Ostwald was so thrilled by his success into the basement. Photography was a bit difficult that he backed himself to pass the last third in one because Ostwald had no camera, no lens, no plates, month. That meant doing two-thirds of the work in and no money. Also, those were the days of wet three years and the last third in one month. He won collodion plates. A camera was made ftom a cigar the het but never got the champagne. The graduating box, the lens came from his mother's opera-glass, and thesis was published in 1875 under the title, "The the developing dishes were made of varnished card- Chemical Mass Action of Water." This was suggested board. Broken window panes furnished the glass for by Lemberg and was apparently done under the the plates. Ether and concentrated nitric acid for the nomina1,direction of Karl Schmidt. collodion were made a t home as were also ammonium Ostwald was given an assistantship in physics by iodide and cadmium iodide. It was apparently a hope- von Oettingen because of his interest even a t that time less undertaking; but Ostwald got his photographs. in physical chemistry. In 1876 Ostwald published in After seven years a t the Realgymnasium Ostwald Poggendorff's Annalen a paper entitled "Volumeentered the University of Dorpat as a freshman in Chemical Studies." With this as his thesis he was January, 1872. He joined the Riga corps and did given the master's degree in 1876. In the oral examivery little work for a year and a half. This did not nation Karl Schmidt asked him: "If you were to please his father and Ostwald promised to pass one- write a textbook on chemistry-which Heaven forbidthird of the examinations for the bachelor degree a t how would you hegin it?" This was a good deal like 539
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telling a child not to put beans up his nose. Ostwald began a t once to wonder how he would begin that book. The master's degree a t Riga carried with it the standing of a prieratdozent, though in Germany that is the next step after the doctor's degree. He announced a course of lectures, two hours a week, on physical chemistry and began collecting data for what was to be the "Lehrbuch der allgemeinen Chemie." Only six people took the lectures; but Ostwald was started on his scientific and literary career. More volumechemical studies along with measurements on densities and indices of refraction furnished the thesis for the doctor's degree, which was awarded toward the end of 1878 when Ostwald was just twenty-five years old. In April, 1879, Ostwald became engaged to Miss Helene von Reyher and the question of a definite position became pressing. At the end of 1879 a position became available a t a Dorpat high school to teach mathematics and science. Ostwald accepted this because he could also hold an assistantship a t the university under Schmidt and thereby continue his research work. In after life Ostwald felt that the teaching of boys fourteen to eighteen years old had been invaluable in showing him how to write his books clearly. That may be so; but i t is not the invariable result of teaching young people. It is more likely that Ostwald was the kind of man who would have got some profit out of anything that he had to do. On the strength of this appointment Ostwald was married in the spring of 1880. Ostwald had already received some scientific recognition. Pattison Muir had published in the Philosophical Magazine an account of the work of Guldberg and Waage and of Ostwald on chemical affinity and had spoken very highly of it. The importance of the results obtained by Guldberg and Waage, and by Ostwald must be apparent to every chemist. . Ostwald furnishes chemistry with a new method for solving some of her most efficient problems; and Guldberg and Waage led the way in the application of mathematical reasoning to the facts of chemical science.
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The "Lehrbuch der allgemeinen Chemie" was begun a t Dorpat in 1880. The first half of the first volume was published by the end of 1883 and the two volumes were printed by the end of 1886. This was a tremendous piece of work a t the time, though it seems relatively insignificant to those who started 'with the second edition. The book was an important f v t o r in Ostwald's being called to Leipzig. In 1881 Ostwald was offered the professorship of chemistry a t the Riga Polytechnic after Johann Lemberg and Gustav Bunge had declined the chair. Ostwald moved to Riga a t the beginning of 1882 and was now started on his remarkable career. At Riga he developed his thermostat and was then able to start on chemical kinetics. He read up on thermodynamics and became acquainted with the work of Willard Gihbs, to which his attention had been drawn by von Oettingen. The chemical laboratories in Riga were in the cellar.
Ostwald persuaded the governing body to authorize a new laboratory and he went to Germany in the Christmas holidays to inspect the German laboratories. Kolhe gave a dinner for Ostwald in Leipzig and expressed the hope that Ostwald would some day settle there. Although this actually happened later, one feels that Kolbe's dislike of Gustav Wiedemann and Eilhard Wiedemann was the chief cause for the remark rather than his admiration for Ostwald. In June, 1884, Ostwald received the now-famous paper by Arrhenius on the conductivity of electrolytes. His first impression, like that of many other people, was that the proposed concept of electrolytic conduction was absolute nonsense. Further study convinced Ostwald that Arrhenius had worked out a simple method for measuring the chemical affinity of acids and bases, the very subject on which Ostwald had been working for his whole scientific life. There was no apparatus in the Riga laboratory for measuring conductivity by the Kohlrausch method but Ostwald and a mechanician made an apology for one in a few days. With this Ostwald measured his whole stock of acids and found that the electrical method gave him data for the chemical affinity which agreed unexpectedly well with those which Ostwald had previously obtained from his volume-chemical and thermochemical studies. From that time on Ostwald was an enthusiastic admirer of Arrhenius and it was what he said on his visit to Arrhenius that summer which made it possible for Arrhenius to get some money to enable him to study in Germany. In 1886 Ostwald read a pamphlet by J. H. van't Hoff entitled "Etudes de dynamigue chimigue." As Ostwald was not an organic chemist, he claims never to have heard of van't Hoff, though i t is difficult to see how he could have avoided knowing that van't Hoff rediscovered the mass law ten years after Guldberg and Waage. Ostwald was naturally surprised to find that van't Hoff was farther along in chemical thermodynamics than himself. The success of the "Lehrbuch': made the publisher willing to consider publishing a new journal to take care of the new work in this field. Ostwald inquired among his friends as to the advisability of such an undertaking and was told by everybody that i t was absolutely hopeless. One man said +at nobody read physical-chemical papers even when published in regular chemical journals and that consequently nobody would ever open a journal devoted exclusively to such papers. An attempt was made to convert the Journal fur praktische Chemie into a fifty per cent. physical-chemical journal with Ernst von Meyer and Ostwald as joint editors; but E m t von Meyer turned down that suggestion. I n 1886 Ostwald accepted the offer of the Leipzig publisher, Engelmann, to start the Zeitschrift fur physikalische Chemie the following year. J. H. van't Hoff consented to have his name go on as joint editor though he took no active part in the editorial work. The first number appeared in February, 1887. In the preface to the first volume Ostwald
quotes from Emil du Bois-Reymond, "In contra- paper on the measurement of the single-potential difdistinction to modem chemistry one can call physical ference between metal and solution by the flowingmercury method. The method did not give accurate chemistry the chemistry of the future." In 1887 Professor Hankel retired as professor of results because of adsorption from solution by the physics a t Leipzig and Gustav Wiedemann took his mercury, a thing that nobody took into account a t that place, leaving vacant the only chair of physical chem- time. Even though not correct, it was a very clever istry in Germany. It was impossible to get Landolt, piece of work. At that time Ostwald did not know Lothar Meyer, Winkler, or van't Hoff to take the chair, anything about reversible electrodes and consequently so the choice narrowed down to Ostwald and Eilhard measured without difficulty combinations which he Wiedemann. Wislicenus and Wnndt were in favor of afterward declared could not be measured. Under Ostwald and he was appointed. Nobody since then has Ostwald's direction Le Blanc measured polarization and decomposition voltages, the writer measured the elecquestioned the wisdom of the choice. In September, 1887, Ostwald moved with his family tromotive forces of oxidation and reduction cells, from Riga to Leipzig. The laboratory was officially Brandenburg and Zengelis the electromotive forces the second chemical laboratory instead of the physical- due to insoluble and complex salts of various metals, chemical lahoratory; and he had to take care of the and Kahlenberg showed that the non-precipitation of prospective pharmacists. The first difficulty did not the hydroxides of the heavy metals in the presence of amount to anything because Ostwald was indifferent the sugars was accompanied by the disappearance of to names and got along well with Wislicenus who was the ions of the metals in question. The work of in charge of the first chemical laboratory. The second Bredig and Knu$er tied in with that of van't Hoff difficulty turned out to be an advantage because rather than with Nemst. Xernst considered mercury, mercurous chloride, Ostwald put Beckmann in charge of the pharmaceutical work, thereby securing a man who was later known all potassium chloride as an electrode reversible with through the physical-chemical world. Beckmann respect to the anion and consequently had to consider this and silver, silver chloride, potassium chloride as proved to be a great asset to the growing laboratory. The year 1887 was an important one in physical representing allotropic chlorine electrodes. Ostwald chemistry. The "Lehrbuch der allgemeinen Chemie" saw that these could be treated as mercury and silver was published officially in that year, though actually electrodes respectively if one took into account the the year before; the Zeitschrift fiir physikalische Chemie solubilities of mercurous chloride and silver chloride. was started. Van't Hoff published his paper on os- This was a great step forward. On the other hand motic pressure; Arrhenius his paper on electrolytic Ostwald never saw that the term for the composition dissociation; and Ostwald began his epoch-making for the solid mercurous chloride drops out of the equacareer in Leipzig. tion. Consequently one should write the formula Ostwald saw from the first the significance of the Hg& so as to be in harmony with the known formula work of van't Hoff and Arrhenius. He worked out Hg2(NO& for mercurous nitrate. the Ostwald dilution law and he started Beckmann In 1894 appeared the classical paper by Goodwin on on the freezing-point and boiling-point work. Nernst the electromotive forces of concentration cells. In was the first assistant in the physical-chemistry labora- spite of Planck's having come out with much the same resultsasNernst, tory. T h e r e r only two the Srrnst thestudents, so ory'had not inXernst had tewstcd people olentv u i time yenr much and it was the work at his disposal. of Ostwald that I t was Ostwald gave, it the imwho s t a r t e d portance which Nemst studying it has never lost. the relation of For forty years osmotic pressure it has displaced to d i i s i o n ; but the more exact the application theory of Helmof osmotic presholtz on concensure relations to t r a t i o n cells. concentration People would cells was due almuch rather most exclusively have a first apto Nernst's own proximation genius. which is easy to In 1887 Ostwald published a YAN'T HOFFA N D OSTWALDIX T H E LABORATORY OF THI: L A ~ Y R apply than an A
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exact theory which is very difficult to apply. The Nernst theory had the advantage over the Helmholtz theory of seeming to give more information about the condition of salts in solution. It is an interesting illustration of Ostwald's influence that the chemists who pride themselves on what they call exact thermodynamics have ignored the Helmholtz theory of concentration cells pretty completely. Running a laboratory and a scientific journal was not enough to keep Ostwald busy. In 1889 he published the "Grundriss der allgemeinen Chemie" and started editing "Die Klassiker der exakten Wissenschaften," writing about a score of the numbers himself. I n 1892 he published a translation of the fundamental paper by J. Willard Gihbs; in 1893 the "Iiand- und Hilfsbuch zur Ausfuhrung physiko-chemischer Messungen," in 1894 "Die wissenschaftlichen Grundlagen der amlytischen Chemie;" and 1896 the huge book "Elektrochemie, ihre Geschichte und Lehre." In addition he was joint editor of the Zeitschrift ' f u r Elektrochemie from December, 1894, to June, 1896, having helped found the German Electrochemical Society and having been its first president. When Ostwald told Lothar Meyer that he was writing the "Grundriss der amlytischen Chemie," the latter laughed a t him, saying that it was impossible, because Ostwald had never published a paper in this field. When Ostwald assured him that the hook would contain the first really scientific treatment of the subject, Lothar Meyer said that he could not possibly believe that before he had read the book. As a matter of fact the general point of view outlined by Ostwald is the one adopted nowadays in all teaching of analytical chemistry, both qualitative and quantitative. In this hook Ostwald gave the first scientific theory of indicators. It was Roozehoom who emphasized the importance of the phase rule; but i t was Ostwald who made the whole of the work of Gibhs on thermodynamics and chemistry accessible to the scientific public. Ostwald says in his autobiography that the English and Americans had to read Gibbs in German until Yale University got out a new edition after the death of Gihhs. It was characteristic of Gihbs that he was "too busy" to write a preface to Ostwald's translation. Ostwald considered the hook on the history of electrochemistry the best thing he ever did, partly because of the local color introduced by the discwssion of the personal characteristics of the various leaders. The scientific public did not share this view. It is the only one of Ostwald's books which did not go into a second edition and which was not translated. The first edition of the "Lehrbuch der allgemeinen Chemie" was soon exhausted and a new edition called for. The first volume appeared in 1891, the first part of the second volume in 1897, and the last part of the second volume in 1902. There should have been a third volume; hut Ostwald's time and strength were not equal to that. The subject had grown faster than could be handled by any one man. As Ostwald pointed
out, the same thing had happened previously to the textbooks of Kekule, Erlenmeyer, and Fresenius. While Ostwald succeeded in nearly everything that he put his hand to during the first decade in Leipzig, he failed to convince the scientific world in regard to the thing that was perhaps nearest his heart, the doctrine of energetics. On coming to Leipzig his introductory address had been on "Energy and Its Transformations." Further thought on the subject led to the conclusion that "there is only one thing which is common to all fields of science and that is not space, time, or mass, but energy." I n an address given before the Naturforscher Versammlung in Liibeck on September 20, 1895, Ostwald stated that matter is nothing more than a spatial grouping of different energies. Concerning the atomic theory he said: The previous infertility of the atomistic doctrine has been modified and many new facts have come to light as the yean go by. This eliminates the hypothetical nature of the atomic theory and makes it a legitimate branch of experimental physics and chemistry. As soon as this development took place, I announced publicly that my previous doubts a b u t the advisability of the atomic theory were overcome and that its scientific justification required no more praof. Energetics is not affected at all by this change of front. Since it is the more general concept, it is quite independent of whether there are atoms or not. . The new theories have had to ascribe mass to energy, the one property that had hitherto been the characteristic mark of matter. Energy has therefore displaced matter as a concept.
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While the modem wave-mechanics seem to have eliminated pretty completely matter as we thought we knew it in the last century, Ostwald underestimated what could and would be done with kinetic theory. Ostwald did not succeed in putting his energetics across. It is still too soon to be sure whether his point of view was faulty or whether the time was not ripe for it, whether i t was an error of judgment or an error of tact. The battleground has been shifted by the opponents to Ostwald's disadvantage. Ostwald's fight was on the reality of energy and on the non-existence of matter apart from energy. The question of atoms was incidental as Ostwald himself-'says. The world assumes now that Ostwald's fight was on the reality of energy and on the non-existence of atoms. On that basis Ostwald has lost because he admits the existence of atoms. The atoms of today do not contain matter as apart from energy, so Ostwald has won to that extent. The bridge between the two.points of view was pointed out in the last century by Boltzmann who said that he saw no reason why energy should not he atomistic. Nobody now questions that electrical energy is particulate. I n the Faraday lecture, 1904, Ostwald admits the possibility of Boltzmann being right, though he seems to have repudiated his statement in regard to the existence of atoms. I n the second year a t Leipzig there was one student doing research work as against two the year before. The tide turned and the number of advanced students increased to thirty which was more than could be accommodated properly. This meant one hundred students in all in a buildin~designed for fifty.
(Part II will appear i n the October number. )
