Physics:Mitscherlich's law

From HandWiki

Mitscherlich's law of isomorphism, or the law of isomorphism, is an approximate law suggesting that crystals composed of the same number of similar elements tend to demonstrate isomorphism.[1]

Origins

Mitscherlich's law is named for German chemist Eilhard Mitscherlich,[2] who formulated the law and published it between 1819 and 1823.[3]

According to Ferenc Szabadváry, one of the clues that helped Berzelius determine the atomic weights of the elements was "the discovery of Mitscherlich that compounds which contain the same number of atoms and have similar structures, exhibit similar crystal forms (isomorphism)."[4]

Law of physiological relations

Eihard's son, Alexander Mitscherlich studied crop yields in 1909[5] and articulated a "law of physiological relations".[6] It was compared to the law of diminishing returns in 1942, when Liebig's law of the minimum and the limiting factors of Frederick Blackman were also noted:

Liebig's Law of the Minimum was the formulation of an idea that yield of a crop was determined primarily by the amounts of plant food that were present in minimum quantities. His idea was discussed later as the Limiting Factor by BLACKMAN and again by MITSCHERLICH as the Law of Physiological Relations. The latter was expressed as a logarithmic function between yield and the quantity of plant food constituents, which is virtually the Law of Diminishing Returns.[7]

The relation was reviewed by Hans Schneeberger in 2009.[8]

References

  1. "Mitscherlich, Eilhard". Encyclopedia.com. 2008. http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Eilhard_Mitscherlich.aspx. 
  2. Schutt Hans-Werner. (1997.) Eilhard Mitscherlich: Prince of Prussian Chemistry, Chemical Heritage Foundation. ISBN:9780841233454.
  3. Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent. (1996.) A History of Chemistry, Harvard University Press, p. 122. ISBN:9780674396593.
  4. Szabadváry, Ferenc; Svehla, trans., Gyula (1992). History of Analytical Chemistry. Yverdon, Switzerland: Gordon and Breach Science Publishers. p. 141. ISBN 978-2881245695. https://books.google.com/books?id=53APqy0KDaQC&pg=PA206. Retrieved 12 March 2020. 
  5. Mitscherlich, E. A. (1909.) "Das Gesetz des Minimums und das Gesetz des abnehmenden Bodenertrags", Land. Jahrb., 38.
  6. Ward Chesworth (editor)(2008) Encyclopedia of Soil Science, p. 434, at Google Books
  7. Howard S. Reed (1942) A Short History of the Plant Sciences, page 247, Chronica Botanica Company
  8. Schneeberger, Hans (1 July 2009). "Mitscherlich's Law: Sum of Two Exponential Processes". http://soil-statistic.de/mitscherlichs-law/mitscherlich.html.