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Roberto Poeti Chimica
  • History
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March 2020

EuropaTime Travel

Grauballe’s man: the swamp mummy

by Roberto Poeti 31 March 2020
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The mummy of the swamp

In the Moesgard Museum in  Aarhus, Denmark among the collection of prehistoric finds is the main attraction which is the bimillion-year-old Grauballe Man, whose extraordinarily preserved body was found in 1952 near the village of Graubelle, 35 km from the city of Aarhus, in a swamp in central Jutland by a peat-seeker. No jewelry or clothing were found near the body. The mummy is very well preserved. The fingers are in good condition, so much so that they can get fingerprints. Beard, hair and skin are excellently preserved, but the colors have been altered by time and prolonged immersion in the swamp. Nail and hair keratin has taken on a reddish colou for the biochemical conditions of the environment. The bones are almost dissolved due to the acidity of the environment that has soluble the mineral component of the bones. . The skin has taken on a very dark color, almost black, which like a parchment seems to cover the bones. The body had been preserved for a process similar to tanning, caused by the umic acid and the iron contents of the peat water that had made the skin very resistant and prevented rotting.

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31 March 2020 0 comment
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History

“On a New Chemistry Theory” of Archibald Couper

by Roberto Poeti 27 March 2020
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                              Introduction to the Essay “On a New Chemistry Theory” of Archibald Couper

Archibald Scott Couper wrote in 1857 a note about his new chemical theory that was presented by Jean Baptiste Dumas at the French Academy and published in Comptes rendus. His presentation was followed by the publication of an essay entitled “Sur Une Nouvelle Theorie Chimique” in Annales de chimie et de physique. The article appeared soon after in the British magazine Philosophical Magazine entitled “On a New Chemical Theory” which contained some important changes from the version French. Almost simultaneously, Friedrich August Kekulé’s article “The Constitution and Metamorphoses of Chemical Compound and the Chemical Nature of Carbon” appeared in Annalen der Chemie und Pharmacie, in which he came to the same conclusions as Couper.

Couper’s Disappearance

In another article on my blog I described the human and scientific events that made A.S.Couper so extraordinary and interesting.  I reserved the precedence of Couper over Kekulè because he appears in this scientific story the most unlucky character, but also more brilliant. After writing his revolutionary essay Couper will soon disappear from the scientific life overwhelmed by his problems. We will no longer remember him. Only Kekulè, on the other hand, will take credit for the discoveries made, and even then famous, it will later become one of the greatest chemists of the nineteenth century.

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27 March 2020 0 comment
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History

The Tragic Story of a Great Chemist: Archibald Scott Couper (1831-1892)

by Roberto Poeti 26 March 2020
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Carbon Chemistry

In the history of Organic Chemistry, to the German chemist Friedrich August Kekulé von Stradonitz (1829 – 1896) is reserved for a pre-eminent place. In 1858 he wrote an article listing two fundamental properties of the carbon atom: valence four and the ability of carbon atoms to bind together. In 1865 he published another paper in which he defined the hexagonal structure of the benzene molecule. These discoveries gave an extraordinary boost to the chemistry of the nineteenth century.  Today they constitute the axioms of organic chemistry.

But there’s another chemist

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But in the same year 1858, a few weeks after the publication of Kekulè and in a completely independent way, another Scottish chemist Archibald Scott Couper (1831-1892) at only twenty-seven years old published an article “On a new chemical theory ” with the same conclusions to which Kekulè had arrived. The life of this chemist is as interesting as it is tragic. He was born in a small village a few miles from Glasgow in 1831. He was the only surviving son of Archibald Couper, a large cotton weaving plant owner that employed more than 600 workers. Of unsteady health, he had a good and scrupulous upbringing at home. In 1851 he began his undergraduate studies at Glascow in Latin and Greek, traveled to Germany, then continued his studies at the University of Edinburgh in philosophy, logic, metaphysics and moral philosophy. So far there are no references in his notes to chemistry studies.

 

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26 March 2020 0 comment
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PROF. ROBERTO POETI

Hi, my name is Roberto Poeti , a former teacher . I decided to create this blog to continue the dialogue on Chemical Scienze, its history and its teaching and to share the experiences of my trips I’ve done now and in the distant past.
“Even Chemistry is a beautiful journey into the knowledge of the matter“

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