An axiomatic basis for computer programming
Communications of the ACM
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1. Lavoisier and The Nomenclature of Chemistry. As a science matures, the language used by its practitioners evolves. Hogben (1) describes the evolution of the language of several sciences. Of particular interest is his description of the evolution of the language of chemistry. The clarity of thinking in chemistry, and the progress in the field took a sharp upturn after Lavoisier introduced revolutionary changes in the system of chemical nomenclature. Before Lavoisier, substances were generally known by names that might be called recipes or histories; somebody's notion or recollection of how they first encountered the substance. Methane was known as marsh gas, because it was first found bubbling up through the mud of marshes, as a result of the decay of organic materials under the mud. Hydrochloric acid was known as muriatic acid, from muria, the Latin name for brine, a common source of hydrochloric acid. Muria, in turn, comes from mare, Latin for sea. Chlorine was known to sixteenth century chemists and alchemists as dephlogisticated muriatic acid. The original process by which chlorine was manufactured, and still a common process, is by oxidation of the hydrogen in hydrochloric acid. Since oxidation was not yet understood at that time, it was called dephlogistication -- removal of the phlogiston. Lavoisier's new nomenclature describes substances not by their surmised origin, but by their present content, structure and condition.