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:
“One classic American landscape haunts all of American literature. It is a picture of Eden, perceived at the instant of history when corruption has just begun to set in. The serpent has shown his scaly head in the undergrowth. The apple gleams on the tree. The old drama of the Fall is ready to start all over again.”
—Jonathan Raban (b. 1942)
“I believe that in the history of art and of thought there has always been at every living moment of culture a “will to renewal.” This is not the prerogative of the last decade only. All history is nothing but a succession of “crises”Mof rupture, repudiation and resistance.... When there is no “crisis,” there is stagnation, petrification and death. All thought, all art is aggressive.”
—Eugène Ionesco (b. 1912)
“Both place and time were changed, and I dwelt nearer to those parts of the universe and to those eras in history which had most attracted me.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)