Programska knjižica - Hrvatsko filozofsko društvo

(Joseph Black, James Hutton, John Leslie, John Thomas Romney Robinson i
drugi). Vjerojatnije je da je ta škola tri godine ranije preuzela Boškovićeva, a
ne Venelova gledišta. Pored toga, engleski kemičar Joseph Priestley, u bibliografiji
svoga djela History of Optics (1772) citirao je četiri Boškovićeve knjige
i tako proširio Boškovićeve ideje i u Engleskoj.
Pored navedenog, pokazat će se da je Bošković svojim tezama o svjetlosti
i toplini prethodio i Lavoisierovim pogledima u djelu Traité élémentaire de
chimie te tumačenju pojma kemijskog afiniteta. Također će se pokazati da je
najvažnija Boškovićeva tvrdnja u kemiji o tome da svojstva tvari ovise o rasporedu
njenih elementarnih čestica odnosno točaka tvari našla odraz u kristalografiji
19. stoljeća, osobito u tumačenjima engleskog kemičara Humphrya
Davya (razlika između grafita i dijamanta), kao i u tumačenjima njegova učenika
Michaela Faradaya. Spomenut će se osvrt i priznanje koje su u Rusiji
Boškovićevoj teoriji odali Dmitrij I. Mendeljejev u 19. stoljeću i Bonifatij M.
Kedrov u 20. stoljeću.
Ključne riječi: kemija, svjetlost, toplina, flogiston, kemijski postupak kalcinacije, Ruđer
Bošković, Gabriel Venel, Joseph Priestley
RUĐER BOŠKOVIĆ AND CHEMISTRY
Combustion, oxidation of metals and the role of heat and light in chemical
reactions were interpreted in the eighteenth century on the basis of the phlogiston
theory. It was believed that by combustion phlogiston (as hypothetical
matter) vanished from the matter. Three major questions were posed:
1. What is the real nature of fire, heat and flame?
2. What is combustion and what is the nature of combustible bodies?
3. Why do some metals calcinated in air increase their mass and change
into metallic calx (oxide)?
The phlogiston theory provided partial answers to the first two questions,
while the third continued to puzzle the chemical minds.
Bošković made an attempt to answer that question in his Dissertazione
della tenuità della luce solare (Treatise on the tenuity of solar light), published
in the journal Giornale de’Letterati (1747). He did not use the term phlogiston,
but the terms heat, light or sulphurous substance, as done by most of Newton’s
followers. The analysis of the above treatise has shown that Bošković was the
first to have come forward with an exposition of phlogiston as a “positively
light matter” (1747).
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