conducted at normal (‘usual’) pressure to simplify experimental procedure, but
in summing up ‘Bestimmung … ‘ the two men now declared that they had;
… devised an apparatus which permits pressurised experiments at 30 atm and
almost 1000 °C by external heating and with streaming [flowing] gases, with
the same comfort with which they are feasible at usual pressure … .
and after the horror of Hamburg they even permitted themselves a little
indulgence;
Determination of the ammonia … [at high pressure] … by means of this
arrangement at 700 °C, 801 °C, 901 °C and … 974 °C … confirmed our
values obtained at usual pressure … making Herr Nernst’s statements
regarding the situation of the equilibrium … irrelevant’ [!].
an observation which Nernst never publicly acknowledged until some years
later. Indeed, at the time, Nernst’s public utterances on the matter continually polemicised against Haber’s figures.
24 To make matters even worse
between the two sets of workers, Haber had earlier received a preliminary
copy of a paper by Jost regarding the ammonia equilibrium entitled ‘Die Lage
des Ammoniakgleichgewichtes’
25 in which Jost tried to salvage something
from the sorry mess of his experiments by claiming his ‘numbers’ were in line
with those of Haber and Le Rossignol, and although Jost’s paper was eventually published in the same edition
26 of Zeitschrift as ‘Bestimmung …’, Haber
and Robert would have none of it. Zeitschrift therefore included an additional
paper by the two men—also entitled ‘Die Lage des Ammoniakgleichgewichtes’
27
—which followed on from their main paper; this put Jost firmly in
his place. With the ‘bone of contention’ between he two sets of workers being
the efficacy of external versus internal heating and the attendant accuracy of
temperature measurement, Haber and Robert’s repost began quite politely.
The note with the same title which Herr Jost kindly let us read in manuscript
form makes us add a few words to the report which we gave previously about
the topic. Herr Jost regards it as unacceptable that we didn’t install the thermocouple in free gas, but for reasons of convenience, between the pipe of the
experiment and the pipe of the stove ..
140
D. Sheppard
in summing up ‘Bestimmung … ‘ the two men now declared that they had;
… devised an apparatus which permits pressurised experiments at 30 atm and
almost 1000 °C by external heating and with streaming [flowing] gases, with
the same comfort with which they are feasible at usual pressure … .
and after the horror of Hamburg they even permitted themselves a little
indulgence;
Determination of the ammonia … [at high pressure] … by means of this
arrangement at 700 °C, 801 °C, 901 °C and … 974 °C … confirmed our
values obtained at usual pressure … making Herr Nernst’s statements
regarding the situation of the equilibrium … irrelevant’ [!].
an observation which Nernst never publicly acknowledged until some years
later. Indeed, at the time, Nernst’s public utterances on the matter continually polemicised against Haber’s figures.
24 To make matters even worse
between the two sets of workers, Haber had earlier received a preliminary
copy of a paper by Jost regarding the ammonia equilibrium entitled ‘Die Lage
des Ammoniakgleichgewichtes’
25 in which Jost tried to salvage something
from the sorry mess of his experiments by claiming his ‘numbers’ were in line
with those of Haber and Le Rossignol, and although Jost’s paper was eventually published in the same edition
26 of Zeitschrift as ‘Bestimmung …’, Haber
and Robert would have none of it. Zeitschrift therefore included an additional
paper by the two men—also entitled ‘Die Lage des Ammoniakgleichgewichtes’
27
—which followed on from their main paper; this put Jost firmly in
his place. With the ‘bone of contention’ between he two sets of workers being
the efficacy of external versus internal heating and the attendant accuracy of
temperature measurement, Haber and Robert’s repost began quite politely.
The note with the same title which Herr Jost kindly let us read in manuscript
form makes us add a few words to the report which we gave previously about
the topic. Herr Jost regards it as unacceptable that we didn’t install the thermocouple in free gas, but for reasons of convenience, between the pipe of the
experiment and the pipe of the stove ..
140
D. Sheppard