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1862 In Science
The year 1862 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below. Astronomy * January 31 – Alvan Graham Clark makes the first observation of Sirius B, a white dwarf star, through an eighteen-inch telescope at Northwestern University in Illinois. Biology * May 15 – Charles Darwin publishes '' On the various contrivances by which British and foreign Orchids are fertilised by insects, and on the good effects of intercrossing''. * Henry Walter Bates publishes "Contributions to an insect fauna of the Amazon valley. ''Lepidoptera: Heliconidae''" describing Batesian mimicry. * George Bentham and Joseph Dalton Hooker begin publication of Genera plantarum' based on the collections of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, England. * John Gwyn Jeffreys begins publication of ''British Conchology, or an account of the Mollusca which now inhabit the British Isles and the surrounding seas''. Chemistry * Chemist and composer Alexander Borodin describes the first nucleophi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alexander Borodin
Alexander Porfiryevich Borodin (12 November 183327 February 1887) was a Russian Romantic composer and chemist of Georgian–Russian parentage. He was one of the prominent 19th-century composers known as " The Five", a group dedicated to producing a "uniquely Russian" kind of classical music. Abraham, Gerald. ''Borodin: the Composer and his Music''. London, 1927. Borodin is known best for his symphonies, his two string quartets, the symphonic poem '' In the Steppes of Central Asia'' and his opera '' Prince Igor''. A doctor and chemist by profession and training, Borodin made important early contributions to organic chemistry. Although he is presently known better as a composer, he regarded medicine and science as his primary occupations, only practising music and composition in his spare time or when he was ill. As a chemist, Borodin is known best for his work concerning organic synthesis, including being among the first chemists to demonstrate nucleophilic substitution, as w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pedology
Pedology (from Greek: πέδον, ''pedon'', "soil"; and λόγος, ''logos'', "study") is a discipline within soil science which focuses on understanding and characterizing soil formation, evolution, and the theoretical frameworks for modeling soil bodies, often in the context of the natural environment. Pedology is often seen as one of two main branches of soil inquiry, the other being edaphology which is traditionally more agronomically oriented and focuses on how soil properties influence plant communities (natural or cultivated). In studying the fundamental phenomenology of soils, e.g. soil formation (aka pedogenesis), pedologists pay particular attention to observing soil morphology and the geographic distributions of soils, and the placement of soil bodies into larger temporal and spatial contexts. In so doing, pedologists develop systems of soil classification, soil maps, and theories for characterizing temporal and spatial interrelations among soils. There are a few ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Friedrich Albert Fallou
Friedrich Albert Fallou (11 November 1794 – 6 September 1877) was a German lawyer who is considered one of the founders of modern soil science. While working as a lawyer and tax assessor, Fallou established himself as an independent scientist and a recognized authority in the natural history of farm and forest soil. In 1862, he proposed that soil was separate in nature from geology and, intent on establishing the study of soils as an independent science, Fallou introduced the term pedology (). Life Friedrich Albert Fallou came from an aristocratic French Huguenot family. He was the son of a judicial bailiff, and spent his childhood in Rochlitz and Grimma, where he studied at the Gymnasium St. Augustine. He never married. From 1814 to 1817, Fallou studied jurisprudence at the University of Leipzig. From 1818 to 1824, he worked as a lawyer in Colditz. In 1825, he was appointed town clerk of Waldheim and worked as an administrative officer at the City Court, and as a land va ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plastics Industry
The plastics industry manufactures polymer materials—commonly called plastics—and offers services in plastics important to a range of industries, including packaging, building and construction, electronics, aerospace, manufacturing and transportation. It is part of the chemical industry. In addition, as mineral oil is the major constituent of plastics, it therefore forms part of the petrochemical industry. Besides plastics production, plastics engineering is an important part of the industrial sector. The latter field is dominated by engineering plastic as raw material because of its better mechanical and thermal properties than the more widely used commodity plastics. Companies Markets According to PlasticsEurope, the top three markets for plastics are packaging, building and construction, and automotive. Production Plastics production has been growing globally. The numbers include thermoplastics and polyurethanes, as well as thermosets, adhesives, coatings, s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Synthetic Polymer
Some familiar household synthetic polymers include: Nylons in textiles and fabrics, Teflon in non-stick pans, Bakelite for electrical switches, polyvinyl chloride (PVC) in pipes, etc. The common PET bottles are made of a synthetic polymer, polyethylene terephthalate. The plastic kits and covers are mostly made of synthetic polymers like polythene, and tires are manufactured from polybutadienes. However, due to the environmental issues created by these synthetic polymers which are mostly non-biodegradable and often synthesized from petroleum, alternatives like bioplastics are also being considered. They are however expensive when compared to the synthetic polymers. Inorganic polymers * Polysiloxane * Polyphosphazene * Polyborazyline Organic polymers The eight most common types of synthetic organic polymers, which are commonly found in households are: * Low-density polyethylene (LDPE) *High-density polyethylene (HDPE) *Polypropylene (PP) *Polyethylene (PE) *Polyvinyl chl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Parkesine
Celluloids are a class of materials produced by mixing nitrocellulose and camphor, often with added dyes and other agents. Once much more common for its use as photographic film before the advent of safer methods, celluloid's common present-day uses are for manufacturing table tennis balls, musical instruments, combs, office equipment, fountain pen bodies, and guitar picks. History Nitrocellulose Nitrocellulose-based plastics slightly predate celluloid. Collodion, invented in 1848 and used as a wound dressing and an emulsion for photographic plates, is dried to a celluloid like film. Alexander Parkes The first celluloid as a bulk material for forming objects was made in 1855 in Birmingham, England, by Alexander Parkes, who was never able to see his invention reach full fruition, after his firm went bankrupt due to scale-up costs. Parkes patented his discovery as Parkesine in 1862 after realising a solid residue remained after evaporation of the solvent from photographic collo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alexander Parkes
Alexander Parkes (29 December 1813 29 June 1890) was a metallurgist and inventor from Birmingham, England. He created Parkesine, the first man-made plastic. Biography The son of a manufacturer of brass locks, Parkes was apprenticed to Messenger and Sons, brass founders of Birmingham, before going to work for George and Henry Elkington, who patented the electroplating process. Parkes was put in charge of the casting department, and his attention soon began to focus on electroplating. Parkes took out his first patent (No. 8905) in 1841 on a process for electroplating delicate works of art. His improved method for electroplating fine and fragile objects, such as flowers, was granted a patent in 1843. The process involved electroplating an object previously dipped in a solution of phosphorus contained in bisulphide of carbon, and then in nitrate of silver. A spider's web, silver-plated according to this method, was presented to Prince Albert when he visited the Elkington works ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Atomic Weight
Relative atomic mass (symbol: ''A''; sometimes abbreviated RAM or r.a.m.), also known by the deprecated synonym atomic weight, is a dimensionless physical quantity defined as the ratio of the average mass of atoms of a chemical element in a given sample to the atomic mass constant. The atomic mass constant (symbol: ''m'') is defined as being of the mass of a carbon-12 atom. Since both quantities in the ratio are masses, the resulting value is dimensionless. These definitions remain valid even after the 2019 revision of the SI. For a single given sample, the relative atomic mass of a given element is the weighted arithmetic mean of the masses of the individual atoms (including all its isotopes) that are present in the sample. This quantity can vary significantly between samples because the sample's origin (and therefore its radioactive history or diffusion history) may have produced combinations of isotopic abundances in varying ratios. For example, due to a different mixture ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chemical Element
A chemical element is a chemical substance whose atoms all have the same number of protons. The number of protons is called the atomic number of that element. For example, oxygen has an atomic number of 8: each oxygen atom has 8 protons in its atomic nucleus, nucleus. Atoms of the same element can have different numbers of neutrons in their nuclei, known as isotopes of the element. Two or more atoms can combine to form molecules. Some elements form Homonuclear molecule, molecules of atoms of said element only: e.g. atoms of hydrogen (H) form Diatomic molecule, diatomic molecules (H). Chemical compounds are substances made of atoms of different elements; they can have molecular or non-molecular structure. Mixtures are materials containing different chemical substances; that means (in case of molecular substances) that they contain different types of molecules. Atoms of one element can be transformed into atoms of a different element in nuclear reactions, which change an atom's at ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mineralogist
Mineralogy is a subject of geology specializing in the scientific study of the chemistry, crystal structure, and physical (including optical mineralogy, optical) properties of minerals and mineralized artifact (archaeology), artifacts. Specific studies within mineralogy include the processes of mineral origin and formation, classification of minerals, their geographical distribution, as well as their utilization. History Early writing on mineralogy, especially on gemstones, comes from ancient Babylonia, the ancient Greco-Roman world, ancient and medieval History of China, China, and Sanskrit texts from History of India, ancient India and the ancient Islamic world. Books on the subject included the ''Naturalis Historia, Natural History'' of Pliny the Elder, which not only described many different minerals but also explained many of their properties, and Kitab al Jawahir (Book of Precious Stones) by Persian scientist Al-Biruni. The German Renaissance specialist Georgius Agricola ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
