Wilhelm Ostwald Quotes

The development of a rational view of the nature of catalysis was thus absolutely dependent on the creation of the concept of the rate of chemical reaction.

Every chemical reaction has a transition state.

The distinction between the old and the new formulations consisting in the incorporation of the concept of the rate of chemical reactions is so great that it immediately asserted itself in the objective development of catalysis.

I was also interested in formulating the path of chemical reactions.

As early as 1912, we worked on the problem of the hydrogenation of organic substances with the aid of highly compressed hydrogen.

My own ideas on the mechanism of catalytic phenomena were very different from those at one time commonly held, ideas which I no doubt owed to the influence of the illustrious teacher who had guided my first steps in chemistry nearly twenty years before - I refer, of course, to Berthelot.

Catalysts are the conductors who choreograph the chemical dance that results in the formation of new structures.

Many transition states have a well-defined preferred geometrical requirement.

When oxygen and sulphur dioxide are mixed in the presence of a filiament of platinum, they form sulphurous acid. This combination takes place only if the platinum is present; nevertheless the newly formed acid contains no trace of platinum, and the platinum itself is apparently unaffected: has remained inert, neutral, and unchanged. The mind of the poet is the shred of platinum.

It was obvious-to me at any rate-that the answer was to why an enzyme is able to speed up a chemical reaction by as much as 10 million times. It had to do this by lowering the energy of activation-the energy of forming the activated complex. It could do this by forming strong bonds with the activated complex, but only weak bonds with the reactants or products.

During the period 1901 to 1905, together with Senderens, I showed that nickel is very suitable for the direct hydrogenation of nitriles into amines and, no less important, of aldehydes and acetones into corresponding alcohols.

Through the continued accumulation of detailed and reliable knowledge about elementary reactions, we will be in a better position to understand, predict and control many time-dependent macroscopic chemical processes which are important in nature or to human society.

This success led my theoretical group to the chemical reactivity theory, extending more and more widely the range of compound and reactions that were discussed.

There's nothing colder than chemistry.

For, with pure water the inversion of cane sugar scarcely proceeds and subsequently it required very thorough, difficult studies before this effect and its order of magnitude were established.

But the nature of my main work in chemistry can be better represented by more than 280 English publications, of which roughly 200 concern the theory of chemical reactions and related subjects.

Soon afterwards I studied the inversion of sugar in the light of these considerations and immediately found that this classical reaction, too, was determined quantitatively by the same property of the acids, as was of course to be expected from the previous results.

In 1967, I had formed a collaboration with Hermann Eggerer, then of Muenchen, and together, we solved the problem of the 'asymmetric methyl group' and applied the solution in some of the many ways that have proved possible.

I've started to think it must just be chemistry, in which case we're looking for the Shift and we haven't found it yet.

It's all about chemistry. Talent alone won't get it done.

You've got a chemistry class; I want a piece of your mind; You don't know what you started when you mixed it up with mine.

Chemistry on film is like chemistry in real life, it's either there or it isn't.

My own interest in basic aspects of electron transfer between metal complexes became active only after I came to the University of Chicago in 1946.

One of the most rewarding aspects of my research has been the opportunity to study the potential applications of a new catalyst.

Gaseous nitrogen combines with gaseous hydrogen in simple quantitative proportions to produce gaseous ammonia.