**Part 1**

**Introduction to Chemical Kinetics** 

**1**

*Italy* 

 Stefano Zambelli *University of Padova,* 

**Chemical Kinetics, an Historical Introduction** 

This Chapter would provide a methodological analysis of the historical developments of chemical kinetics from the beginnings to the achievements of Transition state theory and Kramers-Christiansen approach. Chemical kinetics is often treated as a side issue of the most important disciplines of chemical science. Students in most of the cases gain knowledge of Kinetics as part of Physical Chemistry introductory courses and find it again

Despite that, it would necessitate a fundamental and main teaching course as we will see in the course of this chapter. This didactical and academic approach could have many reasons. A general one may be the philosophical and psychological disposition to put our attention

In Science History there are many examples of this tendency: the transmission of heat and electromagnetic waves are good examples. Phlogiston and Luminiferous Aether represents a materialization of processes that processes themselves do not need to be studied, however

This represents a fundamental issue of scientific method: to do Science we need to go beyond banality and perception. The development of Chemical Kinetics is deeply involved in the counterfactual approach that brought from Alchemy to Chemistry as for Physics form

The chemical affinity principle, developed during the seventeenth century, derives from the alchemical concept of chemical wedding: similar substances will interact so we can categorize them. The real innovation at the end of 17th and during the 18th centuries was the application of that concept not only as a taxonomic principle but also for the comprehension

The interaction of bodies is simpler when there is a similitude between them, this is the base idea of Chemical Affinities and come from ancient and medieval alchemy and naturalism doctrine. At the end of 17th century this intuitive principle become a theory, although

In the same period also the observation of time become important for the determination of the nature of chemical reactions. Time of decurrence was clearly contemplated for the

qualitative, that justify and classify interactions between different substances.

our mind need this primitive objectivization to grasp the concept in a simpler way.

**2. Origins of chemical kinetics: The declinations of affinity** 

**1. Introduction** 

applied in many other contests.

of chemical reactivity.

more on objects rather than concepts, matter over processes.

Aristotelic Natural Philosophy to Galilean Science.
