Solutions and Heat Engines

Abstract

DR. HALDANE considers my statement of van't Hoff's theory (it is not mine) as incoherent. I cannot do better than quote, as an alternative statement, from the account of osmotic pressure in the book under review (p. 109): “Let us imagine pure hydrogen and pure nitrogen at ordinary atmospheric pressure and contained in two equal gas-tight chambers separated from one another by a rigid septum permeable to the hydrogen but completely impermeable to the nitrogen. The hydrogen contained in chamber 1 will immediately begin to diffuse into the nitrogen in chamber 2, and will continue to do so until the pressure of the hydrogen is the same in the two chambers. … If the pressure in the first chamber is kept constant, by reducing its volume or letting in hydrogen as required, the pressure in the second chamber will be two atmospheres”.