Walther Nernst Research Articles

A New Interpretation of Contributions Presented at the Solvay Conference 1911. Can We Falsify the “Geocentric” Foundations of Quantum Mechanics in the Solar System?

We have studied the contributions and presentations published in the Proceedings of the Solvay Conference 1911. Based on the lecture of Ernest Solvay on the “gravito-matérialitique” we can distinguish two features of the Earth´s gravitational field – 1. “gravité réelle” described by the Newton´s gravitational law and 2. “gravité potentielle” acting as an agent of the self-organization on quantum particles and creating structures described by the Planck constant hEARTH. From the discussions followed after the presentations of Walther Nernst and Albert Einstein we interpreted the Nernst- Lindemann Formula for the specific heat of solids using the comment of Heike Kamerlingh Onnes (the discoverer of the superconductivity) as two transverse and one longitudinal oscillations of phonon in the surroundings at temperature T. In order to falsify this “geocentric” model of foundations of quantum mechanics in the spirit of Karl Popper we propose to initiate the CURE Project (China – USA – Russia – European Union) (cure = to solve a problem) in order to build quantum laboratories on different orbits around the Earth, on the surface of the Moon and Mars, and in the Lagrange points of the system the Earth – Moon and the Earth – Sun to get new experimental data for the specific heat of solids, the critical temperatures of superconductors, chemical and physical self-organized reactions (Liesegang rings, Belousov- Zhabotinsky waves, chemical clocks, Bose-Einstein condensates, de Broglie waves, etc.). There is space enough for all participants on this CURE Project to collect new valuable data describing this “hidden variable” presented by Ernest Solvay in his forgotten lecture in 1911.

TERMOELETTRICITÀ: DALL’ARCO DI ALESSANDRO VOLTA AI GENERATORI TERMOELETTRICI FERRO-LIQUIDI

We start this concise review from the exciting history of thermoelectricity in which such names as Luigi Galvani, Alessandro Volta, Thomas Seebeck, Walter Nernst, William Tompson, Georg Wilhelm Hegel and many others have been involved. We then move on to the main concepts in description of thermoelectric phenomena, discuss how to increase their magnitude and efficiency, formulate the requirements for modern thermoelectric materials and present thermoelectric applications that are already available.

Open-Circuit Voltage Comes from Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics

Abstract Originally derived by Walther Nernst more than a century ago, the Nernst equation for the open-circuit voltage is a cornerstone in the analysis of electrochemical systems. Unfortunately, the assumptions behind its derivation are often overlooked in the literature, leading to incorrect forms of the equation when applied to complex systems (for example, those with ion-exchange membranes or involving mixed potentials). Such flaws can be avoided by applying a correct thermodynamic derivation independently of the form in which the electrochemical reactions are written. The proper derivation of the Nernst equation becomes important, for instance, in modeling of vanadium redox flow batteries or zinc-air batteries. The rigorous path towards the Nernst equation derivation starts in non-equilibrium thermodynamics.

Inside the Nobel Prize in Chemistry nominations

Who was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry the most times? Who received the most nominations but never won? When Nobel Media released a digital archive in 2014 containing details about nominations submitted during the early years of the chemistry prize, we aimed to answer these questions by “interviewing the data.” Up until then, the records had been closely guarded. Nominations for the chemistry prize come from members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Nobel Committees for Chemistry and Physics, past winners in chemistry and physics, scientists and professors from invited universities, and other invited scientists. According to our analysis of the now-public data, between 1901 and 1950, there were 1,987 nominations submitted for 323 chemists. During this period, thermodynamics guru Walther Nernst was the chemist who garnered the most nominations and also won the prize. ◾

ChemInform Abstract: Walther Nernst and the Development of Physical Chemistry

AbstractReview: 28 refs.

Walther Nernst and the development of physical chemistry.

A commemorative symposium took place on the 16th June 2014 in the Magnus House in Berlin on the occasion of the 150th birthday of Walter Nernst. This Essay outlines the important stages in his life and consider the main features in the development of the discipline cofounded by him.

The Age of Vacuum Tubes: The Conquest of Analog Communications [Historical

After they first appeared on the scene in the early 1900s [1], a series of improvements on vacuum tubes occurred in the second decade of the 20th century, leading them to maturity. A major advancement was introduced by an American chemist and physicist Irving Langmuir (18811957) of the GE Research Laboratory in 1912, who used his new mercury vapor diffusion pump to obtain high vacuum tubes. These proved much more durable, reliable, and capable of linear amplification at high frequencies, thus opening the way to their wider application. Langmuir, who obtained his doctorate under Nobel laureate Walther Nernst in Göttingen, Germany, (perfecting in Europe was a common practice among talented American researchers of the time: top scientists Joshia W. Gibbs and Henry A. Rowlands did the same) was the first to explain the theory of the device and developed it into a tube dubbed Pliotron (De Forest, the inventor of Audion, erroneously thought that residual gas was essential for its conduction). After introducing inert-gas filling of incandescent bulbs in 1913, thus greatly lengthening their lifetime and assuring huge incomes for GE, he was let free to follow his research interests in surface chemistry, which ultimately led him to the Nobel Prize in 1932, the first awarded to an industrial chemist.

Walther Nernst: grandfather of dark energy?

Helge Kragh examines the origin of a concept that heralds the ideas of modern cosmology.

Preludes to dark energy: zero-point energy and vacuum speculations

According to modern physics and cosmology, the universe expands at an increasing rate as the result of a “dark energy” that characterizes empty space. Although dark energy is a modern concept, some elements in it can be traced back to the early part of the twentieth century. I examine the origin of the idea of zero-point energy, and in particular how it appeared in a cosmological context in a hypothesis proposed by Walther Nernst in 1916. The hypothesis of a zero-point vacuum energy attracted some attention in the 1920s, but without attempts to relate it to the cosmological constant that was discussed by Georges Lemaitre in particular. Only in the late 1960s, was it recognized that there is a connection between the cosmological constant and the quantum vacuum. As seen in retrospect, many of the steps that eventually led to the insight of a kind of dark energy occurred isolated and uncoordinated.

Modern chemistry, red in tooth and claw

This book is about the building of modern chemistry, centering primarily in developments in physical chemistry since its inception in the 1880s until right after WWII. It depicts how physical chemistry conversed with traditional chemistry and physics, how its ‘in between’ placement fostered the emergence of other subdisciplines such as surface chemistry, photochemistry, nuclear chemistry, and cosmochemistry, and how it shaped the modern world through its technological and economic implications and its military uses. The book’s title—Cathedrals of Science—is inspired by a small piece of beautiful prose written by the physical chemist Gilbert Newton Lewis in the preface to the textbook Thermodynamics and the Free Energy of Chemical Substances (New York, 1923), in which it is voiced that ‘‘science has its cathedrals, built by the efforts of a few architects and many workers...’’ (p. ix). There are many ways to approach disciplinary history. As indicated by the book’s sub-title, and probably inspired by Lewis, Patrick Coffey chose to give the architects and major workers of physical chemistry a prominent role, not circumscribed to the ‘‘perfection of the complete whole’’ but attentive to the ‘‘sounds of hammers, the reek of tobacco, the trivial jests bandied from workman to workman’’ (p. ix). Besides Lewis, who is central to the narrative, several male scientists (Svante Arrhenius, Jacobus H. Van’t Hoff, Wilhelm Ostwald, Paul Ehrlich, Walter Nernst, Fritz Haber, Theodor W. Richards, Irving Langmuir, William D. Harkins, Harold Urey, Glenn Seaborg, and Linus Pauling) and a woman scientist (Dorothy Wrinch) are the nodes of a dense network of scientific and human relationships, which shaped modern chemistry in all its more or less grimy facets. A chemist-businessman working in the area of chemical instrumentation and software, Patrick Coffey has been attracted to the history of science, being presently

Throwing heat and light on Walther Nernst

Walther Nernst (1864–1941) is a central figure in the history of physical chemistry and an important figure in late nineteenth and early twentieth century German science. He won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 1920 for his discovery of the Third Law of Thermodynamics. In addition, he made fundamental contributions to electrochemistry, the theory of solutions, thermodynamics, solid state chemistry and photochemistry. His textbooks in physical chemistry were central to the field. Nernst was also an inventor whose research and inventions flowed from a nexus of linked theoretical and technological issues. Nernst helped found the KaiserWilhelm-Gesellschaft (later the Max Planck Society) and was the host of and a regular participant in the famous Friday afternoon physics discussions in the early 1920s that included Einstein, Planck, von Laue, and Schrodinger among others. Given Nernst’s stature and influence, it is perhaps surprising that until now we have had no biography in English that covers his entire life. Diana Barkan focuses her excellent book, Walther Nernst and the Transition to Modern Physical Science (Cambridge, 1999), primarily on Nernst’s scientific and technological interests before the First World War. An earlier biography by Mendelssohn is, as its title accurately conveys, more about The World of Walther Nernst (Pittsburgh, 1973) than about Nernst himself. Bartel and Huebener’s biography of Nernst’s entire life attempts to fill this gap, paying special attention to his work during and after World War I. They cover Nernst’s early life; his years as a student; his marriage and family life; his assistantship with Ostwald in Leipzig; his first university position in Gottingen; his move to Berlin to assume the chair as Professor of Physical Chemistry; his brief sojourn as director of the Physikalish-Technische Reichsanstalt (PTR) from 1922 until 1924; his move back to the University of Berlin for the rest of the 1920s; and

“Astonishing Successes” and “Bitter Disappointment”: The Specific Heat of Hydrogen in Quantum Theory

The specific heat of hydrogen gas at low temperatures was first measured in 1912 by Arnold Eucken in Walther Nernst’s laboratory in Berlin, and provided one of the earliest experimental supports for the new quantum theory. Even earlier, Nernst had developed a quantum theory of rotating diatomic gas molecules that figured in the discussions at the first Solvay conference in late 1911. Between 1913 and 1925, Albert Einstein, Paul Ehrenfest, Max Planck, Fritz Reiche, and Erwin Schrodinger, among many others, attempted theoretical descriptions of the rotational specific heat of hydrogen, with only limited success. Quantum theory also was central to the study of molecular spectra, where initially it was more successful. Moreover, the two problems interacted in sometimes surprising ways. Not until 1927, following Werner Heisenberg’s discovery of the behavior of indistinguishable particles in modern quantum mechanics, did American theorist David Dennison find a successful theory of the specific heat of hydrogen.

Zero-Point Energy: The Case of the Leiden Low-Temperature Laboratory of Heike Kamerlingh Onnes

Summary In this paper we examine the reaction of the Leiden low-temperature laboratory of Heike Kamerlingh Onnes to new ideas in quantum theory. Especially the contributions of Albert Einstein (1906) and Peter Debye (1912) to the theory of specific heat, and the concept of zero-point energy formulated by Max Planck in 1911, gave a boost to solid state research to test these theories. In the case of specific heat measurements, Kamerlingh Onnes's laboratory faced stiff competition from Walter Nernst's Institute of Physical Chemistry in Berlin. In fact, Berlin got the better of it because Leiden lacked focus. After the liquefaction of helium in 1908, Kamerlingh Onnes transformed his laboratory into an international facility for low temperature research, and for this reason it was impossible to make headway with the specific heat measurements. In the case of zero-point energy, Leiden developed a magnetic research programme to test the concept. Initially the balance of evidence seemed to be tipping in favour of zero-point energy. After 1914, however, Leiden would desert the theory in fovour, of a concept from calssical physics. A curious move that illustrates Kamerlingh Onnes's discomfort with the new quantum theory.

Walther Nernst: pioneer of physics and of chemistry

Walther Nernst: pioneer of physics and of chemistry

Chemical free energies and the third law of thermodynamics

ABSTRACT At the close of the 19th century, it had become clear that determination of the free energy of chemical reactions was the key to understanding chemical affinity. Yet the available methods for obtaining free energies were unreliable and of limited applicability, and there was no known method for determination of free energies from thermal measurements. Walther Nernst's 1906 heat theorem, which later became known as the third law of thermodynamics, would prove to be the key to thermometric determinations of free energies. The paper examines the chemical significance of the third law; earlier attempts by le Chatelier, Lewis, Richards, Haber, and van't Hoff at the problem; and some later clarifications of the third law. The paper then covers the human side of the discovery of the third law, including disputes among Nernst, Lewis, and Richards.

Confusion and clarification: Albert Einstein and Walther Nernst's Heat Theorem, 1911–1916

This paper discusses the early history of Walther Nernst's Heat Theorem and the first stages of its development into the Third Law of Thermodynamics. In addition to published papers, informal discussions were important in shaping the understanding of the meaning and validity of the Theorem. Special attention is given to the role of Albert Einstein in these discussions. As it turns out, Einstein played an important role in determining the limits of validity of the Heat Theorem.

Fritz Haber: Chemist, Nobel Laureate, German, Jew (review)

Reviewed by: Fritz Haber: Chemist, Nobel Laureate, German, Jew Anthony Stranges (bio) Fritz Haber: Chemist, Nobel Laureate, German, Jew. By Dietrich Stoltzenberg, Philadelphia: Chemical Heritage Press, 2004. Pp. xxv+326. $40. The German physical chemist Fritz Haber (1868-1934) has been dead for seventy-one years, yet his story remains fascinating, controversial, and instructive. My interest in Haber began in graduate school, and since then his life and work, especially his ammonia synthesis and World War I poison-gas program, have become part of my survey courses in the history of science and U.S. history. Although these developments remain crucial to a complete understanding of World War I, Haber is absent from discussions of the war in every U.S. and most European history textbooks. Hence Dietrich Stoltzenberg's biography warrants a wide readership. There is more to Haber than his World War I involvement. His scientific work had long-term consequences in many fields of science—physics, physical chemistry (especially thermodynamics and electrochemistry), and biochemistry—as well as in the applied fields of chemical technology and agriculture. He excelled in fusing science and politics. The scientist and German patriot became one. Stoltzenberg contrasts Haber, patriotic scientist and statesman, with Haber, Jew and failed family man. An underlying question remains relevant today: When does blind patriotism become immorality and possibly criminal behavior? As Stoltzenberg notes, Haber's scientific reputation resulted largely from his successful high-pressure synthesis of ammonia, NH3, from its elements nitrogen and hydrogen. Ever since William Crookes, in an 1898 address before the British Association for the Advancement of Science, warned of an impending world food crisis, scientists had searched for ways to fix atmospheric nitrogen in chemical compounds and thereby produce the fertilizers essential for increased crop production. None of the fixation processes proved economically feasible until 1908, when Haber in Karlsruhe developed the ammonia synthesis. Even though Wilhelm Ostwald and Walther Nernst had experimented with ammonia's synthesis, it was Haber who succeeded in establishing the proper temperature and pressure conditions and finding catalysts that made it practical. He developed only a laboratory-scale synthesis, and its transformation into a successful industrial process required the genius of Carl Bosch and Alwin Mittasch at BASF in Ludwigshafen. The scale-up occurred in 1913, and the timing was fortuitous. BASF's success in industrializing the reaction of ammonia gas with oxygen to give the nitrates required for the production of fertilizers and explosives followed in May 1915. Germany's military had initially planned for a six-month war and had only limited supplies of each. The new synthesis enabled Germany to continue the war. [End Page 448] The war involved Haber in another, far less noble way. Haber, who had converted from Judaism to Protestantism in 1892-94 and regarded himself as a dedicated German patriot, directed Germany's poison gas program. While he had earned the respect of the international scientific community for his ammonia synthesis, his war work—in violation of international law—led to his classification as a war criminal and to strong protests when he was awarded the 1918 Nobel Prize in chemistry. Animosity faded, however, and by the time of his forced exile and death in 1934, Haber had become a sympathetic figure. Haber the statesman succeeded in promoting the growth of German and international scientific organizations, such as the Emergency Association of German Science, and in advancing the careers of those who worked with him or studied under him. But he failed as a husband and family man. As with his friend Einstein, science dominated his life, and he expected others to subordinate their lives to his. His first wife shot herself in 1915, his second divorced him in 1927. Stoltzenberg's biography is likely to be the final word on this troubled chemist who only in exile recognized that his ultrapatriotism—at the expense of everything else, including his Jewish roots and family—counted for nothing in Nazi Germany. Those whom Haber had earlier either neglected or fought against tried to provide a new home for him, possibly in England or Palestine, but he died in Basel not quite sure of his future. A postscript on the translation...

April 1915: Five future Nobel Prize–winners inaugurate weapons of mass destruction and the academic–industrial–military complex

Poison gas warfare was initiated in the Great War by a German military unit that included five future Nobel laureates: James Franck, Fritz Haber, Otto Hahn, Gustav Hertz and Walther Nernst. It was Haber's idea to use poison gas. To implement gas warfare he devised an organization that meshed the academy into the military–industrial complex. Later three other Nobel laureates, Emil Fischer, Heinrich Wieland and Richard Willstätter, contributed to the enterprise. Huge quantities of poisons were used by both sides during the war, because they were well adapted to static trench warfare, even though—which is a surprise to many—they were substantially less deadly than explosives.

Walther Nernst and the Transition to Modern Physical Science. Diana Kormos Barkan

Walther Nernst and the Transition to Modern Physical Science. Diana Kormos Barkan

The Colligative Property of Walther Nernst

Among the properties of solutions such as boiling point elevation is a little-known colligative property described in 1890 by Walther Nernst and called of solubility. In common with the other colligative properties, it can be used for determining molecular masses. This method involves a binary liquid-liquid system of an organic solvent and water. After equilibrium, the concentration of the organic solvent in the aqueous phase is determined. Then a measured mass of a substance of unknown molecular mass is dissolved in the organic phase of the liquid-liquid system. The reduction of the solubility of the organic phase in the aqueous phase is a function of the molar concentration of the unknown in the organic phase. We tested this experiment to examine its potential pedagogic use. Although quite accurate results can be obtained, we found the method to be extremely limited.