Frasi di Friedrich August Kekulé von Stradonitz

Friedrich August Kekulé von Stradonitz è stato un chimico tedesco.

Il suo nome è associato alla definizione della struttura del benzene e dei composti aromatici in generale, basata sulla risonanza; struttura che raccontò essergli stata ispirata in sogno e che fino a quel momento era stata un enigma per i chimici dell'epoca.

Kekulé entrò all'università come studente di architettura e ne uscì laureato in chimica. A convincerlo del cambiamento fu il fascino intellettuale di Justus von Liebig insieme alla sua innata curiosità e immaginazione. Nel 1858 coltivò l'idea che l'atomo di carbonio, in tutti i composti organici, si legava agli altri atomi sempre con quattro legami. Prima di quella data i chimici parlavano della composizione percentuale delle sostanze, ma non avevano idee chiare sulla struttura molecolare. Kekulé avanzò l'ipotesi che l'atomo di carbonio poteva legarsi ad altri atomi di carbonio e formare lunghe catene e perfino cicli. In tutte queste strutture il carbonio conservava la sua capacità di combinazione quattro. Con Kekulé nacque la chimica organica strutturale, così come la conosciamo oggi. Wikipedia  

✵ 7. Settembre 1829 – 13. Luglio 1896
Friedrich August Kekulé von Stradonitz photo
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Friedrich August Kekulé von Stradonitz Frasi e Citazioni

Friedrich August Kekulé von Stradonitz: Frasi in inglese

“I fell into a reverie, and lo, the atoms were gamboling before my eyes.”

Statements about a reverie in 1854 (1890), as quoted in "The Experimental Basis of Kekulé's Valence Theory" by Erwin N. Hiebert, in Journal of Chemical Education (1959)<!-- , 36, pp. 321-328 -->
Contesto: I fell into a reverie, and lo, the atoms were gamboling before my eyes. Whenever, hitherto, these diminutive beings had appeared to me, they had always been in motion. Now, however, I saw how, frequently, two smaller atoms united to form a pair: how a larger one embraced the two smaller ones; how still larger ones kept hold of three or even four of the smaller: whilst the whole kept whirling in a giddy dance. I saw how the larger ones formed a chain, dragging the smaller ones after them but only at the ends of the chains.

“Let us learn to dream, gentlemen, and then perhaps we shall learn the truth . . . but let us beware of publishing our dreams before they have been put to the proof by the waking understanding.”

Account of his famous dream of the benzene structure, as quoted in A Life of Magic Chemistry : Autobiographical Reflections of a Nobel Prize Winner (2001) by George A. Olah, p. 54<!-- also partially quoted in Serendipity, Accidental Discoveries in Science (1989) by Royston M. Roberts , pp. 75-81 -->
Contesto: I was sitting writing on my textbook, but the work did not progress; my thoughts were elsewhere. I turned my chair to the fire and dozed. Again the atoms were gamboling before my eyes. This time the smaller groups kept modestly in the background. My mental eye, rendered more acute by the repeated visions of the kind, could now distinguish larger structures of manifold conformation; long rows sometimes more closely fitted together all twining and twisting in snake-like motion. But look! What was that? One of the snakes had seized hold of its own tail, and the form whirled mockingly before my eyes. As if by a flash of lightning I awoke; and this time also I spent the rest of the night in working out the consequences of the hypothesis. Let us learn to dream, gentlemen, and then perhaps we shall learn the truth... but let us beware of publishing our dreams before they have been put to the proof by the waking understanding.

“One of the snakes had seized hold of its own tail, and the form whirled mockingly before my eyes.”

Account of his famous dream of the benzene structure, as quoted in A Life of Magic Chemistry : Autobiographical Reflections of a Nobel Prize Winner (2001) by George A. Olah, p. 54<!-- also partially quoted in Serendipity, Accidental Discoveries in Science (1989) by Royston M. Roberts , pp. 75-81 -->
Contesto: I was sitting writing on my textbook, but the work did not progress; my thoughts were elsewhere. I turned my chair to the fire and dozed. Again the atoms were gamboling before my eyes. This time the smaller groups kept modestly in the background. My mental eye, rendered more acute by the repeated visions of the kind, could now distinguish larger structures of manifold conformation; long rows sometimes more closely fitted together all twining and twisting in snake-like motion. But look! What was that? One of the snakes had seized hold of its own tail, and the form whirled mockingly before my eyes. As if by a flash of lightning I awoke; and this time also I spent the rest of the night in working out the consequences of the hypothesis. Let us learn to dream, gentlemen, and then perhaps we shall learn the truth... but let us beware of publishing our dreams before they have been put to the proof by the waking understanding.

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