Thomas Graham

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Graham, Thomas

 

Born Dec. 20, 1805, in Glasgow; died Sept. 11, 1869, in London. British chemist; one of the founders of colloid chemistry.

From 1837 to 1855, Graham was a professor at University College, London, and later director of the mint. In 1836 he was made a fellow of the Royal Society. Graham was one of the founders of the London Chemical Society, and he was elected its first president in 1841. In 1829, Graham discovered the law that the rate of diffusion of a gas is inversely proportional to the square root of its density. In 1833 he disproved, on the basis of the three forms of phosphoric acid (ortho, pyro, and meta), the view that all acids are monobasic. He established the presence of internal friction in gases (1846–49). In 1861 he showed that, according to their capacity to diffuse through a parchment membrane (dialysis), all substances fall into one of two classes—crystalloids or colloids.

WORKS

“On the Law of Diffusion of Gases.” Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 1834, vol. 12.

REFERENCE

Moore. F. J. Istoriia khimii. Moscow-Leningrad. 1925. Pages 142— 45. (Translated from English.)

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.