mass action, law

mass action, law of

Fundamental law of chemical kinetics (the study of rates of chemical reactions), formulated in 1864–79 by the Norwegian scientists Cato M. Guldberg (1836–1902) and Peter Waage (1833–1900). The law states that the reaction rate of any simple chemical reaction is proportional to the product of the molar concentrations of the reacting substances, each raised to the power corresponding to the number of molecules of that substance in the reaction.