早期研究化學元素的十大奇聞趣事(下)

inum Was More Valuable Than Gold

5.鋁比金子還珍貴

Chemists knew that aluminum was around for about 40 years before they had the technology to isolate it. When they finally did so in 1825, it became insanely valuable. Originally, a Danish chemist developed the method for extracting only the tiniest bit, and it wasn't until 1845 that the Germans figured out how to create enough of it that they could study even its most basic properties. In 1852, the average price of aluminum was around $1,200 per kilogram. Today, that's the equivalent of about $33,650.

化學家們在有能力分離鋁約40年前就認識了鋁元素。在1825年他們終於找到了分離鋁的方法，隨後鋁就變得出奇的珍貴。最初，一位丹麥化學家研究出了一種方法來分離鋁，但是隻能分離極少的一點。隨後在1845年德國人研究出了怎樣分離出足夠供給的份量，甚至他們可以研究鋁的基本屬性了。1852年鋁的平均價格大約是每千克1200美元，就相當於今天的33650美元。

It wasn't until the 1880s that another process was developed that would allow for the more widespread use of aluminum, and until then, it remained incredibly valuable. The first president of the French Republic, Napoleon III, used aluminum dinner settings for only his most valued guests. The regular, run-of-the-mill guests were seated with gold or silver tableware. The King of Denmark wore an aluminum crown, and when it was chosen as the capstone of the Washington Monument, it was the equivalent of choosing pure silver today. Upscale Parisian ladies wore aluminum jewelry and used aluminum opera glasses to demonstrate just how wealthy they were. Aluminum also formed the backbone of visions for the future. It was the biggest attraction at the Parisian Exposition of 1878, and it became the material of choice for writers like Jules Verne when they were building their grand visions of the future. Aluminum was going to be used for everything from entire city structures to rocket ships. Of course, the value of aluminum took a steep dive when new ways were developed to create it, and it was suddenly everywhere.

直到1880年，技術進步了，鋁才被廣泛的應用，不過那個時候鋁還是貴得難以想象。法國共和國的第一任總統，拿破崙三世只有在宴請最重要的賓客的時候纔會使用鋁製餐具，一般的普通賓客就用金銀餐具招待。丹麥的國王有一頂鋁製的皇冠，並且在華盛頓紀念碑的頂點就是純鋁的，就像是我們今天選擇純銀是一樣的。巴黎上層的貴婦們佩戴着鋁製珠寶，並用鋁製的觀劇望遠鏡來顯示她們有多富裕。鋁也構成了未來願景的骨幹。1878年，巴黎舉辦了一個大型的鋁製品展會，一時之間鋁成了如凡爾納等作家在構建未來偉大夢境時的首選材料。那時打算把鋁用在從城市建築到火箭船舶所有可能用到的地方。當然了，當製造鋁的新方法出現時，鋁突然一下子變得隨處可見，其價值也跟着急劇下降。

rine's Deadly Challenge

4.致命殺手--氟

The first observations of fluorine came from the 1500s, with a German mineralogist who described it as a material that served to lower the melting point of ore. In 1670, a glassworker accidentally found that fluorspar and acids would react and used the reaction to etch glass. Isolating fluorine proved much more difficult—and deadly.

16世紀一位德國礦物學家開始研究氟，並把它描述爲一種能降低礦石熔點的物質。1670年，一個玻璃廠工人偶然發現氟石和酸性物質能夠發生化學反應，並將這一發現用於蝕刻玻璃。分離氟也變得越加艱難--還可能致命。

It was our old friend Carl Scheele who determined that it was something in the fluorspar that was causing the reaction, and in 1771, the hunt for fluorine began in earnest. Before it was finally isolated by Ferdinand Frederic Henri Moissan in 1886 (earning him a Nobel Prize), the process left quite a trail of illness and injury. Moissan himself was forced to stop his work four times as he suffered from, and slowly recovered from, fluorine poisoning. The damage done to his body was so great that it's generally thought that his life would have been incredibly shortened by it had he not died of appendicitis only a few months after accepting the Nobel Prize. Humphry Davy's attempts would leave him with permanent damage to his eyes and fingers. A pair of Irish chemists, Thomas and George Knox, also worked extensively on trying to isolate fluorine, with one dying and the other left bedridden for years. A Belgian chemist also died in his attempts, and a similar fate befell French chemist Jerome Nickels. In the 1860s, George Gore's work resulted in a few explosions, and it was only when Moissan stumbled onto the idea of lowering the temperature of his sample to –23 degrees Celsius (–9 °F) and then trying to isolate the highly volatile liquid that fluorine was successfully documented for the first time.

化學界的老朋友卡爾·史基認爲這種化學反應是源於氟石裏的某種物質。對於氟這一化學物質的尋找之旅也於1771 年正式啓程。直到1886年，享利·莫瓦桑才成功將其分離出來，他也憑此榮獲諾貝爾獎。然而發現之旅充滿了無數的疾病和傷痛，莫瓦桑本人在中途因爲氟中毒和緩慢的恢復情況也曾四次被迫停止研究。這一傷害對他的身體影響巨大，以至於人們認爲即便亨利沒有在得獎幾個月後死於闌尾炎，他的壽命也會因此極大縮短。漢弗萊·戴維他的眼睛和手指因研究氟受到了永久性傷害。愛爾蘭化學家托馬斯和喬治·諾克斯也傾盡全力試圖分離出氟，他們一個爲此付出生命，一個多年臥牀不起。一位比利時化學家也爲此付出生命，相同的命運還發生在法國化學家傑羅姆·尼 克爾斯身上。19世紀60年代，喬治·戈爾的研究導致了幾起爆炸,直到莫瓦桑誤打誤撞地想到將他的樣本溫度降低到-23攝氏度(9°F), 然後嘗試着分離高度揮發的液體後，才首次成功獲得氟。

Element Named For The Devil

3.以魔鬼命名的元素

Nickel is incredibly common today, used as an alloy and lending its name to a US coin (that's really only about 25 percent actual nickel). The name is something of an oddity, though. While many elements are named for gods and goddesses, or their most desirable characteristic, nickel is named for the Devil.

鎳在現今已經十分普遍，它是美國硬幣裏的一種合金，正因如此，它也代指美國硬幣(不過硬幣中的鎳含量只有百分之二十五)。不過鎳這個名字也挺奇怪的。 其他的元素都是以諸神或他們的特點命名，而鎳卻是魔鬼的名字。

The word "nickel" is short for the German word kupfernickel. Its use dates back to an era when copper was incredibly useful, but nickel wasn't the least bit desirable. Miners, always a superstitious lot, would often find ore veins that looked like copper but weren't. The worthless ore veins came to be called kupfernickel, which translates to "Old Nick's copper." Old Nick was a name for the Devil, and he was much more than that to the miners who were laboring deep underground. The belief was that Old Nick put the fake copper veins there on purpose, partially to make the miners waste their time and also to guide them in a direction that could be deadly. Every day was potentially deadly, after all, and miners have long believed in the presence of Earth spirits who can either help or kill the interlopers sent into their underground domain. Pure nickel was first isolated in 1751 by Swedish chemist and mineralogist Axel Fredrik Cronstedt, and the name that the miners had been calling the worthless ore for centuries stuck.

"Nickel" 這一單詞是德語尼格爾銅的簡寫。這一用法要追溯到那個銅十分普遍而鎳一無是處的時代。那時的礦工們十分迷信，發現幾處原以爲是銅礦的礦脈，最終卻大失所望，這些無用的礦脈就被命名爲kupfernickel，翻譯成英文就是"Old Nick's copper"。Old Nick是魔鬼的名字。對於在地下深處勞作的礦工們來說Old Nick更爲可怕。他們認爲Old Nick 故意用假的銅礦來浪費礦工的時間並將他們引向死亡。畢竟，他們工作的每一天都埋伏着死亡的危機，礦工們深信着地靈的存在，堅信地靈可以決定是幫助還是殺死那些進 入其地下領域的入侵者。1751年，瑞典化學家兼礦物學家阿克塞爾·弗雷德裏克·克龍斯泰特首次分離出了純粹的鎳。礦工們用了幾個世紀的無用礦石這一名字也就此打住。

Bizarre Unveiling Of Palladium

2.揭開鈀的神祕面紗

Palladium was documented by an incredibly under-studied genius named William Hyde Wollaston. Wollaston, who had a medical degree from Cambridge and only turned to chemistry after a long career as a doctor and inventor of optical instruments, isolated palladium and rhodium and created the first type of malleable platinum. His methods for revealing his finding of palladium to the world make for the best story, though.

鈀最先由一位叫做威廉·海德·沃拉斯頓的研究天才所記錄的。沃拉斯頓擁有劍橋大學的醫學學位，畢業後當了很長時間的醫生和光學儀器研究者，之後才從事化學領域的研究，並且成功分離了鈀和銠，創造了第一種可延展性鉑。他向世人展示鈀的方式堪稱爲化學史上的一朵奇葩。

After establishing a partnership with the financially well-off Smithson Tennant, Wollaston got access to a material that needed to be smuggled into England through Jamaica from what's now Colombia—platinum ore. In 1801, he set up a full laboratory in his back garden and got to work. His journals from 1802 talk about his new element, originally called "ceresium," renamed "palladium" shortly afterward. Knowing that there were other researchers right behind him in their work, he had to go public with his findings. However, he wasn't quite ready to present it formally, so he took a handful of his new element to a store on London's Gerrard Street in Soho. He then handed out a bunch of flyers advertising a wonderful new type of silver that was up for sale. Chemists went rather mad for the whole idea, with a number of them trying to replicate the material and failing to do so. With everyone denouncing the idea that it was anything but some kind of alloy, he anonymously offered a reward for anyone who could prove it. Of course, no one could. In the meantime, Wollaston kept working, found rhodium, and published a paper on it. That was in 1804; in 1805, he was ready to come forward with palladium and wrote a paper on his earlier find. Appearing before the Royal Society of London, he gave a talk on the properties of this strange new material, before summing it up with an admission that he had found it earlier and needed time to explore all of its properties to his satisfaction before making it official.

與經濟大亨史密森·坦能建立合作關係後，沃拉斯頓獲得了所有實驗所需要的原材料。這種材料從現如今叫做哥倫比亞鉑礦的地方開採取得，需要從牙買加走私才能進入英國。1801年，他在自己的後花園裏建立了一個完整的實驗室進行相關研究。沃拉斯頓早在1802年就在日記中提到了他所發現的新元素鈀，最初命名爲ceresium，不久後改名爲palladium。得知還有其他的研究者也在進行相關的研究，他必須儘快公佈他的發現。但是，他並不準備按照正常的流程公佈，反而將一些新元素給了位於倫敦傑勒德街的一家商店。之後他發了些傳單，宣傳這是一種待售的新類型優質銀。化學家們對這種行爲表示氣憤，很多人想要剽竊這種材料，無疑全部失敗。同時有很多人譴責他，認爲這種物質只是一類合金，於是他又匿名宣稱任何可以證明這一點的人都將獲得豐厚的獎賞。毫無疑問，沒人可以證明。但是，沃拉斯頓並沒有停止相關的研究工作，在此期間，他又發現了元素銠，並且爲此發佈了一篇論文。這一切全都發生在1804年。到了1805年，沃拉斯頓準備將鈀公之於衆，併爲此寫了一篇關於鈀早期發現的文章。在倫敦皇家學會發現該元素之前，他對這種陌生的新材料的性質做了演講，與向世人公佈他早已發現了這種元素相比，成功研究了這種新元素的性質更令他興奮。

rine And Phlogiston

1.氯和燃素

Belief in a substance called phlogiston set back the documentation of chlorine for decades.

人們相信燃素的存在還要追溯要幾十年前有關氯的記錄。

Introduced by Georg Ernst Stahl, the theory of phlogiston states that metals were made up of the core being of that metal, along with the substance phlogiston. Starting in the 18th century, chemists used it to explain why some metals change substance. When iron rusts, for example, it loses its iron-ness and only has its phlogiston left. The theory was an ever-evolving one, and by the 1760s, it was believed that the substance was "inflammable air," also known as hydrogen. Other elements were referred to in terms of the theory, too. Oxygen was dephlogisticated air, and nitrogen was phlogiston-saturated air. In 1774, Carl Scheele first produced chlorine using what we now call hydrochloric acid, and he described it in terms that we recognize pretty easily. It was acidic, suffocating, and "most oppressive to the lungs." He recorded its tendency to bleach things and the immediate death that it brought to insects. Rather that recognizing it as a completely new element, though, Scheele believed that he had found a dephlogisticated version of muriatic acid. A French chemist argued that it was actually an oxide of an unknown element, and that wasn't the end of the arguing. Humphry Davy (whom we mentioned in his ill-fated quest for fluorine), thought it was an oxygen-free compound. This was in complete opposition to the rest of the scientific community, which was convinced that it was a compound involving oxygen. It was only in 1811, well after its first isolation and the debunking of the phlogiston theory, that Davy confirmed it was an element and named it after its color.

喬治·厄恩斯特·斯塔爾介紹說："燃素理論表明，金屬以組成該金屬的元素爲核心，周圍散佈有大量的燃素。"18世紀初，化學家使用這種理論解釋爲什麼金屬燃燒後發生了實質上的改變。比如說：鐵燃燒之後，失去了鐵的性質，只留下燃素。該理論不斷完善，到了18世紀60年代，人們相信這種物質是"易燃空氣"，就是我們所熟知的氫。其他元素在該理論中也有提及，比如說氧是"缺乏燃素的空氣"，而氮是"燃素飽和的空氣"。1774年，卡爾·舍勒第一次使用鹽酸製備氯氣，他描述該物質很容易辨別，顯酸性，會使人窒息，並且會對肺部會產生巨大壓迫。他還記錄了氯氣擁有漂白物體的性質，此外，氯氣會使昆蟲迅速死亡。可惜直到這時舍勒還認爲他發現的並不是新元素，而只是一種缺乏燃素的鹽酸。一位法國的化學家認爲這是一種未知元素的氧化物，但這並不是關於氯討論的最終結果。漢弗萊·戴維（命途多舛的氟發現者）認爲這是一種無氧化合物，這完全與其餘科學家的觀點相違背，因爲大多數科學家確信這是一種含氧化合物。直到1811年，燃素說被推翻，戴維才確信這是一種新元素，並以其顏色命名爲氯。

審校：彼得潘 編輯：Carrie Xu 來源：前十網