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Carl Wilhelm Wolfgang Ostwald
(1883 - 1943)
Latvian chemist.
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Science Quotes by Carl Wilhelm Wolfgang Ostwald (8 quotes)
Die nicht wãsserigen Losungen leiten ja nicht.
Non-aqueous solutions don't conduct.
Non-aqueous solutions don't conduct.
— Carl Wilhelm Wolfgang Ostwald
Translation by W. H. Brock of Ostwald inZeitschrift für Physikalische Chemie (1901), 5, 341.
A catalyst is a substance which alters the velocity of a chemical reaction without appearing in the final products.
— Carl Wilhelm Wolfgang Ostwald
'Über Katalyse', Zeitschrift für Physikalische Chemie (1901), 7, 995-1004 as quoted in J. R. Partington, A History of Chemistry, Vol. 4 (1901), 599-600.
G=A – W
Glück gleich Arbeit weniger Widerstand.
Happiness is equal to work minus resistance.
Glück gleich Arbeit weniger Widerstand.
Happiness is equal to work minus resistance.
— Carl Wilhelm Wolfgang Ostwald
Quoted by E. P. Hillpern (previously an assistant to Ostwald), 'Some Personal Qualities of Wilhehn Ostwald Recalled by a Former Student', Chymia (1949), 2, 59. (Hillpern had been an assistant to Ostwald)
I must consider the organizer as more important than the discoverer.
— Carl Wilhelm Wolfgang Ostwald
Lebenslinien, Part 3 (1927), 435.
The chemists work with inaccurate and poor measuring services, but they employ very good materials. The physicists, on the other hand, use excellent methods and accurate instruments, but they apply these to very inferior materials. The physical chemists combine both these characteristics in that they apply imprecise methods to impure materials.
— Carl Wilhelm Wolfgang Ostwald
Quoted in Ralph Oesper, The Human Side of Scientists (1975), 116.
The description of some of the experiments, which are communicated here, was completely worked out at my writing-table, before I had seen anything of the phenomena in question. After making the experiments on the following day, it was found that nothing in the description required to be altered. I do not mention this from feelings of pride, but in order to make clear the extraordinary ease and security with which the relations in question can be considered on the principles of Arrhenius' theory of free ions. Such facts speak more forcibly then any polemics for the value of this theory .
— Carl Wilhelm Wolfgang Ostwald
Philosophical Magazine (1891), 32, 156.
The only difference between elements and compounds consists in the supposed impossibility of proving the so-called elements to be compounds.
— Carl Wilhelm Wolfgang Ostwald
'Faraday Lecture: Elements and Compounds', Journal of the Chemical Society (1904), 85, 520.
What we call matter is only a complex of energies which we find together in the same place.
— Carl Wilhelm Wolfgang Ostwald
'Faraday Lecture: Elements and Compounds', Journal of the Chemical Society (1904), 85, 520.
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) -- 
