The Popular Science Monthly, June, 1900: Vol. 57, May, 1900 to October, 1900Various
Science
The Popular Science Monthly, June, 1900: Vol. 57, May, 1900 to October, 1900
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
Two lectures have been recently delivered by Prof. James Dewar at the
Royal Institution on the subject of liquid and solid hydrogen. These
lectures have been illustrated by experiments and have attracted the
attention of the most distinguished chemists and physicists of England.
It is easy to understand such interest in the subject when we consider
that even Clerk Maxwell thought it improbable that hydrogen would
ever be liquified, and yet Dewar was able to exhibit not only liquid,
but solid, hydrogen to his audience. Briefly recapitulated, the steps
in the condensation of what were formerly called the permanent gases
are these: in 1878 Cailletet, in Paris, and Pictet, at Geneva, by
suddenly expanding gases which had been compressed to a high degree and
cooled to a low temperature, succeeded in obtaining these gases in the
shape of a mist or of a transitory liquid jet. In 1884 Wroblewski and
Olszewski at Crakow obtained oxygen and nitrogen as static liquids. By
expanding hydrogen from a compression of 190 atmospheres in a vessel
cooled by liquid air evaporating under diminished pressure, this gas
was obtained as a mist or momentary froth, though it was affirmed by
Olszewski that he observed the liquid hydrogen in colorless drops and
as a liquid running down the sides of the tube. In May, 1898, Dewar
obtained hydrogen as a static liquid by allowing compressed hydrogen,
cooled in a bath of boiling air, to escape rapidly at a jet, the liquid
hydrogen being collected in a doubly isolated vacuum vessel. This
liquid hydrogen is a colorless liquid, with a specific gravity of 0.07
or less than one sixth the weight of liquid marsh gas, the lightest
liquid hitherto known. This is better realized by saying that while
one gram of water has the volume of one cubic centimeter, one gram of
liquid hydrogen has a volume of over 14 c. c. The boiling point of
hydrogen is -252° C. or 21° above the absolute zero, and by boiling
in a vacuum the temperature of 15° can be obtained. Very recently by
slowly evaporating very perfectly isolated liquid hydrogen, solid
hydrogen was obtained by Dewar as a white mass of solidified form, of
the lowest temperature ever obtained, -258° C.
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