Dr. A. G. Vernon Harcourt, F.R.S

Abstract

DY the death of A. G. Vernon Harcourt, on August 23, in his eighty-fifth year, there has passed away a chemical teacher endeared to many generations of Oxford students, a singularly skilful experimenter, and a pioneer in the new domain of physical chemistry. He was one of the first who planned experiments to enable him to follow the course of a chemical change, to measure the velocity of a reaction, and to study the conditions that determine it; he rebelled against the idea that chemists had to concern themselves only with the preparation of new substances and the elucidation of their properties—for him the interesting thing was how the change happened, not what was the result.