Abstract
So long as the lecture system of imparting information is retained, so long willthe experimental demonstration remain its necessary accompaniment. It is useless to contend that a student cannot derive the advantage by seeing an experiment performed that he would were he to do it himself in the laboratory. Apart from the costliness of much of the apparatus, the difficulties of manipulation would put it beyond the power of a beginner to obtain satisfactory results, which depend, as they frequently do, on the skill and experience of the experimenter. Provided an experiment is neither merely pretty nor obviously sensational, nor lasts long enough to interrupt the train of ideas, the effect can only be stimulating to the student. But the effective lecture experiment fulfilling these conditions requires a good deal of thinking and working out, and that is why the books on lecture experiments by Heumann and Newth are invaluable to teachers whose time outside the lecture room is occupied with research or the manifold duties of their departments. The third edition of Heumann's “Anleitung zum Experimentiren” will be welcomed by all teachers of chemistry. The author, who is perhaps better known as the discoverer of the indigo synthesis, died in 1894, shortly after the second edition of his work appeared, and the task of revision has fallen to Dr. Kühling. The experiments which he has added relate to electro-chemistry, to the use of liquid air in low temperature experiments, and to Moissan's electric furnace and Goldschmidt's reduction methods, for the production of high temperature reactions. Physical chemistry also claims a small share of the new edition. The increasing use of the lantern has induced the editor to introduce a chapter on optical projection which includes an account of an electric installation for the lecture room. The author has had the advantage of obtaining much valuable information from such skilled experimenters as Landolt, Fischer, Buchner, Bunte and many others, with the result that the volume has swelled to a bulk which might dismay any ordinary lecture assistant.
Karl Heumann's Anleitung zum Experimentiren bei Vorlesungen über anorganischen Chemie.
By Dr. O. Kühling. Third edition. (Brunswick: Vieweg und Sohn, 1904.) Price 19 marks.
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C., J. Karl Heumann's Anleitung zum Experimentiren bei Vorlesungen über anorganischen Chemie . Nature 70, 175 (1904). https://doi.org/10.1038/070175b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/070175b0