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Wilder Dwight Bancroft
(1 Oct 1867 - 7 Feb 1953)
American physical chemist. American physical chemist who introduced a number of thermodynamic and colloid-chemical concepts into American physicochemistry.
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Science Quotes by Wilder Dwight Bancroft (2)
There is one experiment which I always like to try, because it proves something whichever way it goes. A solution of iodine in water is shaken with bone-black, filtered and tested with starch paste. If the colorless solution does not turn the starch blue, the experiment shows how completely charcoal extracts iodine from aqueous solution. If the starch turns blue, the experiment shows that the solution, though apparently colorless, still contains iodine which can be detected by means of a sensitive starch test.
— Wilder Dwight Bancroft
Applied Colloid Chemistry (1921), 111.
We can distinguish three groups of scientific men. In the first and very small group we have the men who discover fundamental relations. Among these are van't Hoff, Arrhenius and Nernst. In the second group we have the men who do not make the great discovery but who see the importance and bearing of it, and who preach the gospel to the heathen. Ostwald stands absolutely at the head of this group. The last group contains the rest of us, the men who have to have things explained to us.
— Wilder Dwight Bancroft
'Ostwald', Journal of Chemical Education, 1933, 10, 612.
See also: | Men Of Science (59)
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) --