Talk:The Sceptical Chymist

This article appears to owe much to Partington, J. R. (1951). A Short History of Chemistry. Macmillan. p. 67. (2nd edition). Expert attention would be appreciated. - Astrochemist (talk) 19:19, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, Partington tends to overstate the chemistry achievements of his countrymen, although he is more moderate in this respect than previous British historians of science. For example, Partington was also among the few scholars that in the latter half of the 20th century still hung to the idea that Roger Bacon had a formula for gunpowder. Bert S. Hall wrote this in his 1999 introduction to the reprint of Partington's History of Greek Fire and gunpowder:

“ It seems strange that Partington, a skeptic and a man of considerable intellectual rigor, would have bought Hime's load of rubbish, but he did. After reviewing the evidence he concludes, against the opinions of Bacon scholars and editors, that the whole of the Letter is genuine, and also that Hime's reconstruction is "reasonable and sensitive". Anagrams should always stir the suspicion of historians, since they can be made to say almost anything the investigator wants them to say, and there can be no doubt that Hime very much wanted his fellow countryman Bacon to have detailed knowledge of gunpowder. Also the MS containing the suspect passages are all far too late to stand as credible early witnesses. It is questionable whether Partington, whose central expertise lay elsewhere, should really have challenged the judgements of trained philologists and paleographers on such points, but he did. Moreover, even if one puts aside such objections, the Hime formula yields a gunpowder far too weak in nitrates (about 41 percent) to explode at all. Both Hime the artillery expert and Partington the chemist were fully capable of recognizing this elementary difficulty, and yet both seem to have passed over it in silence. ”

Aye, Have mörser, will travel (talk) 08:32, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

speculating about the fundamentals of matter? This guys sounds more like a "physicist" to me xD DarkShroom (talk) 18:54, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Influence

It would be nice to expand the influence subsection. In modern chemistry books, Robert Boyle is often touted as one of the "modern" chemists, but apparently there is like a ... 300 years gap onward. So how did his book influence chemists past 1700? That would be nice to see, if anyone can expand on this subsection. 2A02:8388:1600:A880:BE5F:F4FF:FECD:7CB2 (talk) 20:46, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Original book

Where is the book kept today? Is it still available in original form? The main article could show this information. 2A02:8388:1600:A880:BE5F:F4FF:FECD:7CB2 (talk) 20:47, 8 February 2016 (UTC)