Physical Chemistry

Abstract

We have seen that from the middle of the nineteenth century organic chemistry emerged as a separate discipline in the sense that some chemists devoted all their efforts to this branch of the subject. The date of birth of physical chemistry is often quoted as 1887, for in that year there appeared the first edition of the Zeitschrift für physikalische Chemie, Stoichiometrie und Verwandtschaftslehre. The principal editors of the new journal were Friedrich Wilhelm Ostwald (1853–1932) and Jacobus Henricus van’t Hoff (1852–1911), and they, along with Svante August Arrhenius (1859–1927), were to champion the new discipline in the face of sometimes scornful attacks from organic chemists. While the appearance of the Zeitschrift provides a clear indication that physical chemistry was emerging as a distinct subdivision of the subject, many of the major themes of physical chemistry have their origin before 1887.