Abstract
In this paper, we revisit the discovery of argon by Lord Rayleigh and William Ramsay. We argue that to understand historically how argon was detected, conceptualized, and accommodated into chemical knowledge we need to take into account the philosophical insight that scientific discovery is often an extended process. One of argon’s most intriguing properties was that it did not react with other elements. Reactivity, however, had been a constitutive property of elements. Thus, the discovery of argon could not have been accepted by chemists without a reconceptualization of ‘element’. Furthermore, there were difficulties with the accommodation of argon in the Periodic table, because argon appeared to undermine the conception of matter that underlay the Periodic table. The discovery of argon was complete only after those conceptual difficulties had been removed. This is why it has to be understood as an extended process, rather than as an event. Furthermore, we will suggest that some of the factors that complicated the discovery of argon were related to the legitimization of physical techniques of investigation in chemistry and the emergence of physical chemistry.
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Notes
- 1.
Cf. Gordin (2012, p.59): “I have no idea who discovered the periodic system of chemical elements, and I am going to tell you why.” The main reason he gives is that there is no way to answer the “What?” question.
- 2.
Apart from the published sources, the following discussion takes into consideration the notebooks of Lord Rayleigh, William Ramsay and James Dewar. These notebooks have not been explored by the historians who have written about the “discovery of argon” and though they do not add anything substantially new, they do help to clarify a number of issues. Rayleigh’s Notebooks are in the Lord Rayleigh Papers in Hanscomb Air Base, Massachusetts; Ramsay’s in the William Ramsay Papers at University College, London; and Dewar’s in the Sir James Dewar Papers at the Royal Institution, London. We thank the administrative officers of these archives for their permission to use them.
- 3.
For the precision culture that Rayleigh fostered at the Cavendish see Schaffer (1995).
- 4.
William Ramsay to Lord Rayleigh, 20 November 1892.
- 5.
William Ramsay to Lord Rayleigh, 27 May 1894.
- 6.
William Ramsay to Lord Rayleigh, August 4, 1894.
- 7.
Lord Rayleigh to William Ramsay, August 7, 1894.
- 8.
William Ramsay to Lord Rayleigh, August 7, 1894.
- 9.
British Medical Journal, September 1, 1894, 508.
- 10.
Dewar’s Laboratory Notebooks are in the Dewar Archives at the Royal Institution, London. See note 2.
- 11.
Dewar Notebooks: Entries for August 9; August 14; November 21; November 27; November 29; December 3; December 14; December 20, 1894.
- 12.
See also Dewar’s Laboratory Notebooks, entries throughout November 1894.
- 13.
From the report in Nature, volume 51, number 1319, February 7, 1895, 338.
- 14.
Wilhelm Ostwald to William Ramsay, December 24, 1894 (our emphasis). William Ramsay Papers, University College Library, London.
- 15.
George Francis FitzGerald to William Ramsay, December 14 and December 20, 1894. See note 2.
- 16.
George Francis FitzGerald to William Ramsay, December 28, 1894. See note 2.
- 17.
George Francis FitzGerald to William Ramsay, January 8, 1895. See note 2.
- 18.
Wiiliam Ramsay to Arthur Smithells, March 11, 1895. See note 2.
- 19.
Glasgow Herald, February 22, 1896. See also G.G. Stokes to Kelvin, March 11, 1896: “I quite agree with the Glasgow Herald. I should think it expresses the feeling of scientific men in general.”
- 20.
Dmitri Mendeleev to William Ramsay, 12 February 1895; quoted in Matyshev (2005, p. 1283).
- 21.
Chemical News, February 1, 1895, 61.
- 22.
For an illuminating discussion of Mendeleev’s concept of elements and its significance for the Periodic Table see Scerri (2007, pp. 112ff).
- 23.
See Matyshev (2005). The quotes are from p. 1284, the source being Mendeleev’s book, Periodic Law (the Russian edition of 1958).
- 24.
For more detailed information about others’ attempts to accommodate argon in the periodic table, see Giunta (2001).
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Acknowledgments
We would like to thank John Heilbron for asking us to spell out the “added value” of our philosophical approach to the history of science. John suggested in conversation the first part of the title of this paper (“From Discrepancy to Discovery”). Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the 2014 Meeting of the History of Science Society in Chicago, and at “Knowledge, Technologies, and Mediation: A Workshop in Honor of Norton Wise” (UCLA, October 2015). We are indebted to the audiences for helpful discussion. Moreover, we are grateful to the editors for their constructive comments. Finally, Theodore Arabatzis’s work for this paper was supported by European Union (European Social Fund—ESF) and Greek national funds through the Operational Program “Education and Lifelong Learning” of the National Strategic Reference Framework (NSRF)—Research Funding Program: THALIS—UOA—Aspects and Prospects of Realism in the Philosophy of Science and Mathematics.
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Arabatzis, T., Gavroglu, K. (2016). From Discrepancy to Discovery: How Argon Became an Element. In: Sauer, T., Scholl, R. (eds) The Philosophy of Historical Case Studies. Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science, vol 319. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-30229-4_10
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