Abstract
NO problem is of greater importance in modern physical chemistry than the determination of the true nature of osmosis and of osmotic pressure. Although for some considerable period this problem has to most chemists appeared solved, several recent investigations have thrown doubt upon the validity of van 't Hoff's hypothesis that the osmotic pressure developed in solutions is purely a kinetic phenomenon. The experiments of Battelli and Stephanini in this connection have already been referred to in NATURE (vol. lxxii., p. 541). Some remarkable results which have been obtained by Prof. Louis Kahlenberg are now described in the Transactions of the Wisconsin Academy (March) and the Journal of Physical Chemistry (vol. x., pp. 141–209); these, if subsequently verified, will invalidate van 't Hoff's theory, and, what is of even greater importance, destroy the basis of the theory of electrolytic dissociation, developed by Arrhenius, upon which modern physical chemistry so largely depends.
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Osmosis and Osmotic Pressure . Nature 74, 19 (1906). https://doi.org/10.1038/074019b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/074019b0