Prime Matter: Pantogen

My introductory chemistry courses begin with the following question: “What is matter and why does it matter?” We consider several ideas from the ancient Greek philosophers, before a final compare-and-contrast of Democritus’ Atomic theory and the Four Element system championed by Aristotle. Is matter fundamentally made up of atoms – discrete indivisible particles too small to observe? Or is matter a continuous blend of principles – embodied by the ‘elements’ earth, water, air, fire? In the alchemists' view, matter can be transmuted – you could turn lead into gold with the right ingredients in the right proportions.

We then jump almost two thousand years to Dalton’s Atomic theory, and define terms that are used in modern chemistry: element, atom, molecule, compound. The periodic table is introduced and elements are distinguished by their number of protons. Since the protons reside in a tiny nucleus not subject to chemical reactions (which involve only the movement of electrons on the atoms periphery), transmutation is very difficult unless very high energies are involved that allow nuclear reactions to take place. We do discuss spontaneous transmutation via radioactive decay.

Once the basics of how electrons arrange themselves in atoms is established, we can start discussing chemical properties of elements and how they are arranged in the periodic table. The history of how the periodic table came to be has many twists and turns. Among several early attempts at formulating periodic law that I discuss briefly in class, one that throws the students for a loop (pun intended) is Hinrichs’ spiral. However, I had never delved further into his other ideas until reading about Hinrichs in The Lost Elements.

Apparently in the mid-1850s, Hinrichs developed a theory of prime matter based on a universal element he called pantogen. According to Hinrichs, what we call chemical elements are simply different combinations of pantogen. In his scheme, pantogen had a relative atomic weight of 1/128 compared to hydrogen. In a nod to Lavoisier, he utilized precision measurements of experimental relative atomic weights to make his case: “…if, from a liter of pantogen weighing 0.697 mg, one were to subtract the observed experimental weights of 1 liter of O, H, N, and C (gases), the new atomic weights of these elements would turn out to be the whole numbers 16, 1, 14, and 12, respectively.” (These are the atomic numbers of those four elements.)

One thing I try and emphasize in introductory chemistry is the strangeness of our model of the atom. Hydrogen, the simplest atom, has a positively charged proton that’s tiny in size, yet 1840 times more massive than the negatively charged electron that roams around in mostly empty space – like a bee in a cathedral. That’s actually a very counter-intuitive idea. Hinrichs thought that hydrogen is made up of 128 atoms of pantogen. He didn’t know about protons and electrons. However, his idea isn’t too far-fetched given that after protons and electrons were discovered, there was a proposal that the hydrogen nucleus was actually made up of approximately 1840 ‘plus-trons’ and 1839 electrons; a single electron happened to have escaped from the nucleus. (I named these hypothetical particles ‘plus-trons’ so as not to confuse them with positrons.)

The pantogen scheme did not catch on, apparently because very few people actually read Hinrichs’ work. You, dear reader, have probably never heard of pantogen. Apparently very few people read the work of Nikolai Morozov either, because otherwise our subatomic elements might be anodium, cathodium, and archonium – instead of the proton, electron, and neutron. A Google search on any of these terms gives you results unrelated to the theory of matter. I suppose they no longer matter.