Angina

What the chemist dreamed about and helped him discover benzene. Benzene formula: which spelling is correct? Kekule's snake ring

PPB on the way to the benzene formula. Our task now is to find out the hidden mechanism for overcoming the cognitive-psychological barrier as an obstacle standing in the way of scientific and technological progress. Let's start with science.

At the beginning of the second half of the 19th century century, the concept of valency, or atomicity, was introduced into organic chemistry. Elements such as hydrogen and chlorine were recognized as monoatomic; diatomic - oxygen, sulfur; triatomic - nitrogen, phosphorus and, finally, tetraatomic - carbon, silicon. According to the atomicity value, the corresponding number of dashes was added to the symbol of the element. The compound was written in such a way that the valence lines of the elements seemed to saturate each other.

As we can see, the compound was represented by a formula in the form of an open chain, and the properties of the agom inside the molecule were characterized by its position between other atoms and various connections with them.

Two more important circumstances were established: firstly, between two carbon atoms there could be not a simple bond, depicted by a single line, but a double bond (as in ethylene) or even a triple bond (as in acetylene); secondly, the chain could branch while remaining open and giving different isomers. This explained the structure of compounds of the fatty (aliphatic) series.

But already since the 40s of the 19th century in chemistry and the chemical industry everything big role Aromatic compounds have begun to play a role, which are involved in aniline dye, perfume and pharmaceutical production. These compounds are derivatives of the simplest parent substance benzene SbNb. This is its empirical formula. The building was not installed for a long time.

The fact is that all six carbon atoms included in the benzene molecule are exactly the same.

Likewise, all of its six hydrogen atoms are also the same. Meanwhile, the method of writing formulas in the form of open chains, which had become generally accepted and turned out to be a barrier, could not express this sameness of all carbon atoms of benzene, as well as the sameness of all its hydrogen atoms. In fact, the atoms at the edges of the chain will always and inevitably differ from the atoms contained within the chain. Therefore, all attempts to depict the formula of benzene in the form of an open chain invariably turned out to be untenable.

We can rightfully say that the way of depicting formulas organic compounds in the form of open chains was a special method applicable only to a special class of these compounds - to their fatty series (special). This particular was mistakenly universalized, elevated to the rank of universal, as a result of which it was turned into G1PB on the way to understanding the true structure of benzene and its derivatives - the aromatic series. The problem that arose could not be solved while remaining in the plane of singularity (open chains): chemists had to find a way out of the framework of this singularity and find some other, still unknown principle for constructing structural formulas, in addition to the accepted open chains.

The role of a “hint” or “springboard” in overcoming PPB. The historical and scientific episode we are analyzing is interesting in that it makes it possible to clarify not only the presence of PPB and its functioning in the course of the work of scientific thought, but also the internal mechanism of a kind of hint, which, regardless of the scientist himself, guided his thought to the desired solution, that is, helped to overcome the existing , but unconscious PPB.

As the author of the discovery, A. Kekule, later said, he for a long time I was racking my brains over how one could express the identity of all the carbon atoms in benzene and all its hydrogens. Tired, . he sat down by the blazing fireplace and dozed off. Chains of carbon and hydrogen atoms flashed before his mind's eye like bright snakes. They made various movements, and then one of them closed in a ring.

This is how A. Kekule came up with a “hint” for the desired formula of benzene: the formula must be ring - only in this case, all six carbon atoms included in the benzene molecule can be equivalent to each other, as well as the six hydrogen atoms connected to them. A. Kekule woke up, sat down and wrote down the ring model of the benzene molecule that he had dreamed of.

That's what he said himself. We will call this kind of hint a cognitive-psychological springboard (or, in short, a springboard). It guides the scientist’s thought to the right path to the truth, which until then was closed to him by an unconscious barrier that stood on this path. It does not destroy this barrier, but indicates how it can be overcome or bypassed by our thought.

Random and necessary when overcoming PPB. Let's add the following to the above story. Even as a child, A. Kekule was present at the trial, where the case of a man who served as a footman for the old countess was heard. He killed his owner and robbed her. Among her jewelry was a bracelet that fastened on her hand like a snake swallowing its tail. Therefore, some biographers of A. Kekule suggested that the idea of the ring formula of benzene could have been suggested to him by a childhood memory of this bracelet.

A. Kekule himself had a cheerful character, was a joker and an inventor. He set out to create another version of how he came up with the idea of a carbon chain closing into a ring. He said that he was riding in London in an omnibus on the roof and saw that a cage of monkeys was being taken down the street to the circus, which were grabbing each other with their paws and waving their tails, and he supposedly thought that these were carbon atoms (tetraatomic), and their tails are hydrogens. Suddenly the grappling monkeys formed a ring, and he guessed that the formula of benzene must be a ring.

One can easily imagine many other versions of a similar nature, for example: weaving a wreath with a floral strip closed into a ring; rolling a twig into a ring; closing thumb hands with one of the others, etc.

In all these cases, only one thing is essential and important: that the process of closing the two ends of some fairly straightforward object into a ring is observed. Observation of such a process, completely independent of what the object itself is, the ends of which are closed, and can serve as a hint or imitation of the solution to the problem.

Note that it was not necessary for the scientist to see any of the processes in at the moment, and it is enough to remember it and the memory of such an image could serve him as a hint, and one to which he could not pay any attention at all and completely forget about it during the subsequent development of his discovery.

All the above versions are purely random, external to the creative process, nothing connected with his being. However, what they had in common was that each of these random events in its own way imitated the same necessary process: closing an open circuit into a ring.

Here we see that the noted necessity was realized through an accident, which suggested to the scientist the path to solving the problem facing him. Other

In other words, chance here appeared as a form of manifestation of necessity, as a form of its identification and capture.

At the same time, what is important for the course of scientific knowledge is, strictly speaking, the necessity itself, and not how randomly the scientist came to the discovery of this necessity.

Apparently, in the history of many scientific discoveries, a clue could explicit form not recorded by the scientist himself and erased from his memory without a trace. Nevertheless, such clues have taken place in the history of science for much longer. more, rather than they were recorded by the scientists themselves, and even more so than they were told about them, as in the case of A. Kekule.

Another aspect of the accidental and the necessary in scientific discovery. So, the first condition for a good hint is the presence of an imitation of the essence of the upcoming discovery. Therefore, chance in these conditions acts as a form of manifestation of necessity and an addition to it.

But we can approach operating with the same categories of chance and necessity from the other side, as the French mathematician O. Cournot and the Russian Marxist V. Plekhanov did. To the question “what is randomness?” they answered: “Chance arises at the point of intersection of two independent necessary series.”

This approach is the best way to reveal and understand the internal mechanism of the emergence of a clue in the course of a scientific discovery. This can be shown by finding the formula for benzene using a hint, according to any of the above random versions. Here there really is an intersection of two completely independent necessary rows, and the hint itself is born exactly at the point of their intersection.

One of these series is associated with an intense search for an answer to the question posed by science itself about the structural formula of benzene. These searches within organic chemistry take place in the mind of A. Kekule as a necessary logical process for quite a long time and so far to no avail. thought process not only is it not interrupted at the moment when a random process of an external nature wedges itself into the life of a scientist occurs, but, on the contrary, continues - *

as persistently as before. The process external to it, in turn, is just as necessary in itself. For example, a bracelet is made only to be fastened (closed) on the hand. Or, say, the delivery of monkeys to the London circus was necessary for the operation of this circus.

When both necessary and completely unrelated processes randomly intersected, then at the point of their intersection a hint just as randomly appeared: the open circuit must be closed into a ring. This is how it is revealed in in this case Another side of the mechanism is the formation of a kind of springboard in the course of a scientific discovery.

Here we are dealing with the second condition for the occurrence of a hint. The condition must be met so that the search thought, aimed at solving an unsolved problem, is not interrupted at this moment, so that it persistently works on solving the unsolved problem. Only in this case can the second, that is, extraneous, external process serve as a hint (form a springboard) for overcoming the existing PPB.

In fact, A. Kekule undoubtedly remembered from childhood the image of a bracelet in the form of a snake swallowing its tail. But this memory itself did not tell him anything about the structural formulas of organic compounds. Only one thing is important here: what similar images came to his mind at the very moment when he was puzzling over the formula of benzene, in other words, that both independent processes coincided with one another, intersected with each other, and this intersection gave a new direction to the scientist’s research thought. In this case, we repeat, it does not matter at all whether the scientist observed any material process or only remembered it or even simply imagined it in his imagination.

The third is essential an important condition is that the scientist himself possesses in a developed form associative thinking. Only in this case would he be able to catch, feel, notice some completely casual connection(association) between the scientific problem that tormented him and a completely unrelated, insignificant event of an everyday nature.

Only by possessing associative thinking to the proper degree is a scientist able to respond to a hint that comes to his aid and see in it the springboard he needs. Otherwise, he will pass by it without realizing that he could have used it.

Finally, the fourth condition is for the corresponding hint (springboard) to lead to positive result and really indicated the right path to the upcoming discovery, it is necessary that the scientist’s thought struggle for a long enough time in search of a solution to the problem at hand, so that it tries everything possible options her decisions and one by one checked and rejected all the unsuccessful ones.

Thanks to this, the cognitive-psychological soil for making the only correct decision turns out to be sufficiently prepared in order to pick up the hint it needs, falling on a completely prepared soil. Otherwise, the scientist’s thought may ignore the hint given to her. As happens in the history of science, we saw A. Kekule in his long search for the formula of benzene. The same thing happened with D. Mendeleev, who for almost a year and a half (from the autumn of 1867 to the spring of 1869) tried to stubbornly adhere to Gérard’s ideas about the atomicity of elements and from these positions wrote the entire first part of “Fundamentals of Chemistry”.

These are the four necessary conditions the success of the functioning of the springboards when overcoming the PPB, the implementation of which is completed scientific discovery. The latter acts in this case as a way out from the sphere of the unconscious into the sphere of the conscious, similar to suddenly falling from darkness into an illuminated place, as a kind of insight.

Analyzing the action of a hint (springboard) in the process of overcoming the hitherto unconscious PPB and linking this action with the presence and manifestation of associative thinking of a scientist, we have come close to analyzing the actual cognitive-psychological problems of scientific creativity. While we were considering the functions of the barrier and its action, we remained all the time in the sphere of the unconscious, because until the PPB is overcome, the scientist does not even know about its existence. Looking for solutions to the problem that confronts him, the scientist, as if in the dark, gropes towards the truth and comes across some strange obstacle. When, out of nowhere, a springboard suddenly appears and takes him onto the path

to a decision, then it turns out to be like a suddenly flashing ray of light, indicating the way out of the darkness.

The scientist himself notes this moment, comparing it with an unexpected insight, enlightenment, or even inspiration (sometimes as if it came from above). With the words “a thought flashed,” “an idea flashed,” etc., the scientist actually states the moment when, from the darkness of the unconscious, his thought immediately emerged into the light of the conscious and saw a way to overcome a hitherto incomprehensible barrier standing on the path to the truth. Thus, the PPB, perceived for the first time, moves from the darkness of the unconscious into the realm of the conscious.

Dream Interpretation "redov"

The person who "saw" in dream formula benzene, which all his colleagues had been looking for for many years, was called Friedrich August Kekule. There could be no question of building new science, just with great difficulty cleared of the alchemical inheritance, on the basis dreamed a snake biting its own tail. Without knowing it, Kekule touched a delicate chord... which continues to resonate to this day.

Dream Interpretation "dreams-vision.onbog"

Dream German chemist Friedrich Kekul about formula benzene. By the sixties of the 19th century, it was known that the ratio of the number of carbon atoms and hydrogen atoms in a molecule benzene similar to that of acetylene, and empirical formula them - CnHn. Later to him dreamed about it another dream, who helped him discover that the molecule benzene, unlike other known organic compounds, has a ring structure rather than a linear one.
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Dream Interpretation "adme"

dreams dreamed about it dreamed about it formula benzene in dream composed a play, and Voltaire dreamed about it dreams.
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Dream book "earth-chronicles"

Cyclic structural formula benzene in dream: formula benzene Watts dreamed about it dream: He walks in the rain, but instead of drops of water, lead balls fall on him. Then the mechanic decided to conduct an experiment by melting small quantity lead and throwing it from the bell tower into a barrel of water.
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Dream Interpretation "vova-91.livejournal"

dreamed formula benzene, shaped like a regular hexagon, Kekule saw in dream: formula benzene appeared in the form of snakes biting each other's tails.
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Dream Interpretation "youson"

Interesting facts O dream. Everyone knows that many creative people in the past came up with amazing ideas. in dream. When a person is constantly tormented by the same problem, and he cannot solve it, then salvation most often comes in time. sleep. Come on, remember - Mendeleev with his table chemical elements, chemist August Kekule, to whom dreamed about it formula benzene, Beethoven, who in dream composed a play, Voltaire and his poem.
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Dream Interpretation "ainger"

2) Dream Descartes: to him dreamed about it open book, which he called for himself scientia mirabilis - the sum of all sciences. This concept turned out to be very important for the formation of his worldview and laid the foundations of the modern scientific method.4) Dream German chemist Friedrich Kekule. He struggled for a long time with the structural formula benzene, Bye in dream the image of a snake biting its own tail did not appear to him.
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Dream Interpretation "sna-kantata"

August Kekule dreamed about it structural formula benzene dream and realized that the structure benzene in dream.
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Dream Interpretation "grc-eka"

What in dream answers come to the questions facing us in real life, has been known for a long time. Only someone for some reason immediately understands what it’s about dream, but it’s hard for some to guess. For example, the discovery story formulas benzene. Mr Kekule could not compose formula benzene, suffered until I got tired. Fell asleep. In dream dreamed about it a snake that wriggled furiously. In anger, the snake bit its own tail. The snake immediately turned into a ring. This is how the benzene ring appeared.
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Dream Interpretation "smartnews"

Cyclic structural formula benzene, shaped like a regular hexagon, Kekule saw in dream: formula benzene appeared in the form of snakes biting each other by the tail. To the scientist dreamed as if he were on a sun of burning gas, around which the planets associated with him revolved thin threads. Suddenly the gas solidified and the sun and planets shrank. Waking up, Bohr realized what he had just seen in dream the structure of the atom: its core appeared in the form of a motionless sun around which the “planets” revolved...
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Dream Interpretation "lib100"

Kekule dreamed about it formula benzene. The literature describes hundreds and hundreds of cases of amazing discoveries made in dream. But the conclusion that biased readers usually draw from these observations is amazing in its stupidity: to do something like this in dream, you must sleep. So that your dream“worked”, you need to work. And only then you will dream table, formula, idea or business plan.
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Dream Interpretation "zvonoknaurok"

Opening in dream. Kekule himself claimed that the structure of the benzene ring dreamed about it to him as he rested in a chair in front of the fireplace. Exactly 25 years after this discovery, when German chemists celebrated the “Holiday benzene", the scientist described the birth of the famous formulas: “...My laboratory was located in an alley and even during the day it was in twilight.
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Dream Interpretation "All-Yoga"

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Dream Interpretation "interesnyjfakt"

The great Russian chemist Mendeleev, in his words, in dream dreamed about it periodic table of chemical elements. Thinking for a long time about how to arrange the elements, Mendeleev long time spent without sleep, and when I finally fell asleep, I saw in dream the same table. Another chemist Kekule, using sleep opened formula benzene.
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Dream Interpretation "storm777"

Exactly in dream he suddenly saw absolutely clearly the basic scheme embedded in the immortal periodic table. Having woken up, Mendeleev immediately wrote down dreamed diagram. One snake grabbed its tail, continuing to spin. And suddenly in a dream I inevitably felt: formula molecules benzene should be closed, like a snake seen in dream. With further development, this assumption was confirmed.
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Dream Interpretation "litmir"

dreamed formulas benzene. “One day after hard work,” says the chemist, “I decided to relax near the fireplace and dozed off. And suddenly in dream I inevitably felt: formula molecules benzene should be closed, like the snake seen in a dream.
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Dream Interpretation "psixology"

Even the most die-hard scientists who do not believe myths at all are amazed at how in dream the mind sometimes finds ideal solutions. In 1865 German chemist August Kekule worked on the structural formula benzene, an important industrial mixture, chemical composition which puzzled scientists and technologists of the time. Kekule in dream I saw a snake biting its own tail.
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Dream Interpretation "surfingbird"

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Dream Interpretation "babyblog"

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Dream Interpretation "sna-kantata"

August Kekule dreamed about it structural formula benzene in the form of six fire snakes, forming a large rotating ring and devouring each other's tails. Waking up, he realized dream and realized that the structure benzene represents closed loop with six carbon atoms. Otto Levi, an Austrian scientist, was awarded Nobel Prize in 1936 for his discovery, which came to him in dream.
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Dream Interpretation "bookitut"

Upon waking up, Mendeleev immediately wrote down dreamed diagram. The German chemist Kekule made a genuine revolution in organic chemistry with the discovery formulas benzene.One snake grabbed its tail, continuing to spin. And suddenly in dream I inevitably felt: formula molecules benzene should be closed, like the snake seen in a dream. With further development, this assumption was confirmed.
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Dream Interpretation "mukachevo"

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Dream Interpretation "econet"

But somehow Dr. Otto Lewy dreamed about it unusual dream, which he wrote down on paper while half asleep. In the morning, after re-reading his notes, Levi realized that the work nervous system based on chemical reactions. This discovery subsequently earned him the Nobel Prize. Benzene. The chemist Friedrich Kekule saw dream O formula benzene. He recalled: “I dreamed of two snakes.
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Dream Interpretation "AstroMeridian"

Dream Interpretation Formula– Output independently in dream formula- this means that in reality you are in a state of search for happiness and you believe that there is some secret, after learning which you will be able to change your life. Moreover, you decide what is yours life experience enough to find this secret on your own, or at least understand what it really is.
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Dream Interpretation "genadiafanassjev.blogspot.co"

To him dreamed about it sleep showed him the truth formula benzene in dream dreamed.
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Dream Interpretation "nlo-mir"

To him dreamed about it a snake coiled up and eating its own tail. The next moment the chemist woke up: plot sleep showed him the truth formula benzene– a ring of six carbon atoms. In 1866, he presented the discovery to the scientific community. And then one day in dream he clearly understood what the problem was. The scientist jumped out of bed and began feverishly writing down in a notebook what dreamed.
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Dream Interpretation "softmixer"

What do you need dreaming, gentlemen? The nature of things dreams to this day neither doctors nor esotericists can explain. But the fact remains: to many famous people who worked hard on an idea, namely in dream a solution to the problem came...He dreamed about it a snake coiled up and eating its own tail. The next moment the chemist woke up: plot sleep showed him the truth formula benzene– a ring of six carbon atoms.
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Dream Interpretation "medicinkoff"

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Dream Interpretation "horo"

There are cases in history when such dreams really had great value. Mendeleev dreamed about it table of chemical elements, chemist August Kekula dreamed about it formula benzene, which he worked on for a long time, Beethoven in dream composed a play, and Voltaire dreamed about it a whole poem. In addition, Charles Dickens took the plots of many of his works from his own dreams.

In 1865, the outstanding German chemist August Kekule, after a long and painful search, established the first structural formula benzene This discovery was extremely important: to a first approximation, the structure of the benzene molecule was revealed, and with it all its derivatives, which play an extremely significant role in organic chemical production. This class organic matter(aromatic) for a long time stubbornly resisted theory chemical structure. And only thanks to Kekule’s discovery this scientific bastion was taken.

Kekule's formula has undergone many changes over time, but the basis, the very principle of its construction - its cyclical nature - remains unchanged. Only its details have varied and will probably change more than once.

Let us now try to analyze the mechanics of Kekule’s discovery and, by comparing it with other discoveries similar to it in the sense of logical construction, to clarify some general paths of scientific creativity.

What is the decisive stage of scientific discovery?

The essence of Kekule's discovery

Back in the 50s of the 19th century, Kekule established three important theoretical principles concerning the structure of organic (carbon) compounds:
1) tetravalency of carbon (C).
2) the ability of carbon atoms to connect with each other and form open chains.

Based on these provisions, in 1861 A. M. Butlerov created a theory of chemical structure. The whole series of fatty compounds obeyed her. But here's a series aromatic compounds, it would seem, fell out of the circle of new ideas. Its simplest and most important representative, benzene, exhibited a strange feature: its molecule consisted of six carbon atoms and six atoms, and all of its monosubstituted ones did not produce isomers. In other words, no matter what hydrogen in benzene was replaced by, say, chlorine (during the chlorination of benzene) or a nitro group (during its nitration), the result was always the same chlorobenzene or the same nitrobenzene.

This meant; that in benzene all six hydrogen atoms are completely identical to each other, unlike, for example, pentane, where when replacing one hydrogen with chlorine, three different isomers can be formed.

All attempts to present the structure of benzene, based on the already accepted theoretical positions, ended in vain. If there are six carbon atoms, then, obviously, 18 valency units go to their mutual saturation, and the remaining 6 units go to the connection with six hydrogen atoms.

However, it is easy to notice that in all these cases the condition of equivalence of all six hydrogen atoms in the benzene molecule is not satisfied, since the hydrogen atoms located at the carbon atoms inside the chain will always be different from the hydrogen atoms located at the carbon atoms at its edges. Nevertheless, organic chemists, including Kekule himself, persistently sought a solution to the problem in the plane of one or another chain-like structure of benzene.

As soon as it arose new idea about the carbon ring, the very solution to the problem that had tormented the minds of chemists for so long came immediately. In fact, we must immediately accept that at least two valence units of each carbon atom go to form bonds with neighboring carbon atoms in the benzene ring (this is, at a minimum, necessary for a ring to form); the third unit of each carbon, obviously, must go to combine with hydrogen.

The fourth valence unit remains unbound as yet. However, taking into account the ability of carbon to form double bonds, it is easy to assume that the remaining 6 valence units of carbon are mutually saturated in pairs and form three double bonds, alternating with three single bonds. From here the final formula is derived. The result was strict six-axis symmetry for all six carbon atoms, and therefore complete equivalence of all six hydrogen atoms.

Thus one of the most remarkable discoveries in the history of organic chemistry was made. Later, variants of this formula were proposed that tried to eliminate its shortcomings, but they were all based on Kekule’s formula.

According to statistics, modern people sleep less than the body needs, which is why the percentage of nervous disorders and neuroses is growing. In addition, sleep is not only a necessary rest for the body, but also an opportunity to find right decision, idea or response to difficult question.

Folk wisdom says: the morning is wiser than the evening. And science confirms the fact that sometimes long hours of continuous work do not give desired results, leading astray. During sleep, the brain continues to work continuously, formatting the received data: all unnecessary information is discarded, and important data is logically structured. Sometimes in a dream they come and brilliant ideas.

MENDELEEV'S PERIODIC TABLE

Perhaps the most famous case great idea that came in a dream. Allegedly, this version of the opening of the table was distributed among students by Professor A.A. Inostrantsev, as an example psychological influence intensive work on the human brain. However, it is a mistake to believe that a brilliant solution that changed the entire course of science was given so easily to a scientist. Mendeleev pondered his table of chemical elements for many years, but for a long time he could not present them in the form of a logical and visual system. “Everything came together in my head, but I can’t express it in a table,” said the great scientist, who often worked “without sleep or rest.” Shortly before the opening of the table, or rather, its systematic generalization, Mendeleev worked for three days in a row, when he closed his eyes, he saw in a dream several missing elements and a diagram of their arrangement. When Mendeleev woke up, he immediately wrote down what he saw on a piece of paper. It is known that the chemist himself did not really like it when people recalled the story about the table in a dream: “I’ve been thinking about it for maybe twenty years, and you think: I was sitting and suddenly... it’s ready.”

BENZENE FORMULA

The structure of benzene was first established in 1865 by the German chemist Friedrich August Kekule. By that time, it had already been possible to synthesize benzene, however exact formula substance was unknown. Kekule saw the cyclic structural formula of benzene, which looks like a regular hexagon, in a dream: the benzene formula appeared in the form of snakes biting each other’s tails. According to one version, this idea was inspired by a ring in the form of two intertwined snakes made of gold and platinum; according to another, it was the pattern of a Persian carpet. Waking up, Kekule spent the rest of the night developing a hypothesis and concluded that the structure of benzene was a closed cycle with six carbon atoms. Interestingly, several years earlier the chemist had already seen strange dream, dozing off in an omnibus in London, where he was doing analysis medicines. Then, half asleep, “atoms frolicking before our eyes appeared before Kekule. Two small atoms paired up, and the larger one accepted the smaller ones. Another larger one holds three or four smaller ones.” Waking up, the scientist concluded that carbon atoms can combine into long chains. It is believed that this dream laid the foundations of organic chemistry.

METHOD FOR PRODUCING FRACTIONS

The modern method of producing shot was invented by William Watts, a plumber from Bristol, in 1872. Watts had a dream: he was walking in the rain, but instead of drops of water, lead balls were falling on him. Then the mechanic decided to conduct an experiment by melting a small amount of lead and throwing it from the bell tower into a barrel of water. When Watts poured the water out of the barrel, he discovered that the lead had hardened into small balls. It turned out that during the flight, drops of lead acquire a regular round shape and harden. Before Watts's discovery, the production of lead bullets and shot for guns was an extremely expensive, time-consuming and labor-intensive business. The lead was rolled into a sheet, which was then cut into pieces. Or the shot was cast in molds, each separately.

ARMENIAN ALPHABET

The need for a national alphabet arose in Armenia in 301 AD, after the adoption of Christianity. This is precisely what Mesrop Mashtots, a missionary and preacher of Christianity, who was later ranked among the Armenian Church to the saints. Faced with difficulties during sermons, when he had to be both a reader and a translator at the same time, otherwise no one would understand him, he decided to invent a written language for the Armenian language. For these purposes, Mesrop went to Mesopotamia, where he studied different alphabets and writing in the library in the city of Edessa, but could not imagine everything in the form of a system. Then Mesrop began to pray, after which he saw a dream: a hand writing on a stone. “The stone, like snow, retained traces of the markings.” After the vision, the preacher finally managed to put the letters in order and give them names. The Armenian alphabet created by Mashtots is still used today practically unchanged. The current alphabet consists of 39 letters.

AN-22 "ANTEY"

The design of the Soviet giant aircraft, namely the idea of its tail, came to aircraft designer Oleg Antonov, by his own admission, in a dream. The designer spent a long time drawing, sketching, trying to apply a special approach, but nothing worked. “One night, in a dream, the tail of an airplane, unusual in shape, clearly appeared before my eyes.” The dream was so unexpected that the designer woke up and sketched an unusual design on a piece of paper. Waking up in the morning, Antonov could not understand why the idea had not occurred to him earlier. Thus, the world's first wide-body aircraft appeared in the USSR, setting more than 40 world records.

INSULIN

The idea of producing the hormone insulin, which has been saving the lives of patients with diabetes for 80 years, came to Canadian physiologist Frederick Banting in a dream. Banting was obsessed with the idea of beating diabetes; his childhood friend died of the disease at a young age. By that time, diabetes had already been studied, and the role of insulin in treating the disease was known, but until now no one had been able to synthesize insulin. One day Bunting came across an article in one medical journal about the connection between diabetes and the pancreas, after which, waking up in the middle of the night, the scientist wrote down: “ligate the pancreatic ducts in dogs. Wait six to eight weeks. Remove and extract." After this dream, Banting conducted experiments on dogs: on July 27, 1921, a dog with a removed pancreas was injected with an extract from the atrophied pancreas of another dog. The dog recovered and her blood glucose level dropped to normal. A little later, Banting managed to obtain insulin from the bovine pancreas, and in 1922 insulin was first used for treatment diabetes mellitus in humans: Banting injected a seriously ill 14-year-old boy, Leonard Thompson, and thereby saved his life. Banting received the Nobel Prize for his discovery.

Computer-generated image of six insulin molecules associated in a hexamer.

ATOMIC STRUCTURE

The founder of atomic physics, the Danish scientist Niels Bohr, made a discovery in 1913 that changed the scientific picture of the world and brought world recognition to the author himself. The scientist dreamed that he was in a sun made of burning gas, around which planets revolved, connected to it by thin threads. Suddenly the gas solidified and the sun and planets shrank. Waking up, Bohr realized that he had just seen in a dream the structure of an atom: its core appeared in the form of a motionless sun, around which “planets” - electrons - revolved.