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Home > Dictionary of Science Quotations > Scientist Names Index F > Comte de Antoine Francois Fourcroy Quotes

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Comte de Antoine Francois Fourcroy
(15 Jun 1755 - 16 Dec 1809)

French chemist who contributed to a major revision of chemical nomenclature. He collaborated with Antoine Lavoisier, Guyton de Morveau, and Claude Berthollet to publish Méthode de nomenclature chimique.


Science Quotes by Comte de Antoine Francois Fourcroy (4 quotes)

Oil portrait of Antoine-François de Fourcroy - standing behind table, upper body with hands on books
Antoine-François de Fourcroy
Oil portrait by Anicet Charles Gabriel Lemonnier (source)

Compounds formed by chemical attraction, possess new properties different from those of their component parts... chemists have long believed that the contrary took place in their combination. They thought, in fact, that the compounds possessed properties intermediate between those of their component parts; so that two bodies, very coloured, very sapid, or insapid, soluble or insoluble, fusible or infusible, fixed or volatile, assumed in chemical combination, a shade or colour, or taste, solubility or volatility, intermediate between, and in some sort composed of, the same properties which were considered in their principles. This is an illusion or error which modern chemistry is highly interested to overthrow.
— Comte de Antoine Francois Fourcroy
Quoted in A General System of Chemical Knowledge (1804), Vol. I, trans. W. Nicholson, 102-3.
Science quotes on:  |  Attraction (61)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Combination (150)  |  Component (51)  |  Compound (117)  |  Consider (428)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Different (595)  |  Error (339)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Form (976)  |  Illusion (68)  |  Interest (416)  |  Intermediate (38)  |  Long (778)  |  Modern (402)  |  New (1273)  |  Possess (157)  |  Principle (530)  |  Property (177)  |  Shade (35)  |  Solubility (2)  |  Soluble (5)  |  Taste (93)  |  Thought (995)  |  Two (936)

Tout homme qui reçoit une éducation libérale compte aujourd'hui la chimie parmi les objets les plus indispensables de ses études.
Everyone who receives a liberal education today counts chemistry among the most essential parts of his studies.
— Comte de Antoine Francois Fourcroy
Système des Connaissances Chimiques, et de Leurs Applications aux Phénomènes de la Nature et de l'Art (1800), Vol. 1, Preface, xviii. Translation by Webmaster.
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It is to geometry that we owe in some sort the source of this discovery [of beryllium]; it is that [science] that furnished the first idea of it, and we may say that without it the knowledge of this new earth would not have been acquired for a long time, since according to the analysis of the emerald by M. Klaproth and that of the beryl by M. Bindheim one would not have thought it possible to recommence this work without the strong analogies or even almost perfect identity that Citizen Haüy found for the geometrical properties between these two stony fossils.
— Comte de Antoine Francois Fourcroy
Haüy used the geometry of cleavage to reveal the underlying crystal structure, and thus found the emeral and beryl were geometrically identical. In May Elvira Weeks, The Discovery of the Elements (1934), 153, citing Mellor, Comprehensive Treatise on Inorganic and Theoretical Chemistry (1923), 204-7.
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The serum, when subjected to heat, coagulates and hardens like egg. This property is one of its striking characteristics; it is attributed to a particular substance which is thereby readily recognizable, and which is called albumine, because it is the one present in egg white, termed albumen.
— Comte de Antoine Francois Fourcroy
Système des Connaissances Chimiques (1801), Vol. 5, 117. Trans. Joseph S. Fmton, Proteins, Enzymes, Genes: The Interplay of Chemistry and Biology (1999), 161.
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Quotes by others about Comte de Antoine Francois Fourcroy (1)

You have heard of the new chemical nomenclature endeavored to be introduced by Lavoisier, Fourcroy, &c. Other chemists of this country, of equal note, reject it, and prove in my opinion that it is premature, insufficient and false. These latter are joined by the British chemists; and upon the whole, I think the new nomenclature will be rejected, after doing more harm than good. There are some good publications in it, which must be translated into the ordinary chemical language before they will be useful.
Letter to Dr. Currie (Paris, 1788). In Thomas Jefferson and John P. Foley (ed.), The Jeffersonian Cyclopedia (1900), 135. From H.A. Washington, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (1853-54). Vol 2, 544.
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See also:
  • 15 Jun - short biography, births, deaths and events on date of Fourcroy's birth.
  • Fourcroy: Chemist and Revolutionary, 1755-1809, by W.A. Smeaton. - book suggestion.

Carl Sagan Thumbnail In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. (1987) -- Carl Sagan
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