In
order to interpret certain facts, it has to be recognized that a part
only of the molecules in a saline solution can be considered as
conductors of electricity, and that by adding water the number of
molecular conductors is increased. This increase, too, though rapid at
first, soon becomes slower, and approaches a certain limit which an
infinite dilution would enable it to attain. If the conducting
molecules are the dissociated molecules, then the dissociation (so
long as it is a question of strong acids and salts) tends to become
complete in the case of an unlimited dilution.
The opposition of a large number of chemists and physicists to the
ideas of M. Arrhenius was at first very fierce. It must be noted with
regret that, in France particularly, recourse was had to an arm which
scholars often wield rather clumsily. They joked about these free ions
in solution, and they asked to see this chlorine and this sodium which
swam about the water in a state of liberty. But in science, as
elsewhere, irony is not argument, and it soon had to be acknowledged
that the hypothesis of M.
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