For nearly a hundred years chemists wrote and accepted this equation;
innumerable times it has been experimentally proved by combining 4 parts
of hydrogen and 32 parts of oxygen to 36 parts of water vapor; so that
this chemical equation would appear as correct and unquestionable as
anything can be.
Nevertheless, it is wrong, or rather incomplete. It does not give the
whole event, but omits an essential part of it, and now we write it:
(2) 2H_{2} + O_{2} = 2H_{2}O + 293,000 J., which means:
The matter _and energy_ of 2 gram molecules of hydrogen, and the matter
_and energy_ of 1 gram molecule of oxygen, combine to the matter _and
energy_ of 2 gram molecules of water vapor and 293,000 joules, or units,
of _free energy_.
For a hundred years the chemists thus saw only the material
transformation as represented by equation (1), but overlooked and did
not recognize the energy transformation coincident with the
transformation of matter, though every time the experiment was made, the
293,000 J. of energy in equation (2) made themselves felt as flame, as
heat and mechanical force, sometimes even explosively shattering the
container in which the experiment was made.
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