History
The current concept of "oxidation state" was introduced by W. M. Latimer in 1938. Oxidation itself was first studied by Antoine Lavoisier, who believed that oxidation was always the result of reactions with oxygen, thus the name. Although Lavoisier's idea has been shown to be incorrect, the name he proposed is still used, albeit more generally.
Oxidation states were one of the intellectual "stepping stones" Mendeleev used to derive the modern periodic table.
Read more about this topic: Oxidation State
Famous quotes containing the word history:
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—Ellis Meredith, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 14, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“There is one great fact, characteristic of this our nineteenth century, a fact which no party dares deny. On the one hand, there have started into life industrial and scientific forces which no epoch of former human history had ever suspected. On the other hand, there exist symptoms of decay, far surpassing the horrors recorded of the latter times of the Roman empire. In our days everything seems pregnant with its contrary.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“We may pretend that we’re basically moral people who make mistakes, but the whole of history proves otherwise.”
—Terry Hands (b. 1941)