August KekuléReverie dated to the 1860s; told in 1890
Kekulé's snake biting its tail
A famous story about a dream that led to the ring structure of benzene. Historians disagree about how much of it to believe.
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El sueño
Narrado con nuestras propias palabras a partir de las fuentes indicadas abajo, sin citas textuales.
At a celebration in his honour in 1890, the chemist August Kekulé told his audience how some of his ideas had come to him. He described dozing in front of the fire while working on a textbook. Atoms danced before his eyes, long rows of them twisting like snakes, until one of the snakes seized its own tail.
He said he woke as if struck by lightning and spent the rest of the night working out the consequences. The ring of six carbon atoms he proposed for benzene in 1865 became one of the foundations of organic chemistry.
- Kekulé 1890
De dónde viene la historia
Kekulé told the story about twenty-five years after the discovery, in an after-dinner speech. He also described an earlier daydream on a London bus, in which atoms linked into chains. In his own words the experience was a half-sleep or reverie rather than a dream in the full sense.
Cómo se ha interpretado
Historia
The snake image has become the standard example of a dream solving a scientific problem. Taken carefully, it shows something more ordinary: an expert who has been thinking about a problem for years, half-dozing, seeing the pieces rearrange.
- Kekulé 1890
Preguntas para tus propios sueños
- Is there a problem you have been turning over for a long time?
- Have you noticed ideas arriving when you stop trying, just before sleep or on waking?
- How do you tell the story of a good idea afterwards, and what do you leave out?
Símbolos de este sueño
¿Has tenido un sueño que no has podido olvidar?
Contar mi sueñoFuentes
Todas las interpretaciones de esta página se basan en estas obras. Aún no se han comprobado todas las referencias a páginas; las pendientes están marcadas.
August Kekulé (1890). Speech at the Benzolfest, Berlin, 11 March 1890. Berichte der Deutschen Chemischen Gesellschaft 23.
dominio públicoteoría cuestionada
- Ubicación de la cita: Benzolfest speech, Berlin, 11 March 1890 (referencia aún sin comprobar)
- Ubicación de la cita: Benzolfest speech (referencia aún sin comprobar)
Kekulé's own after-dinner account, given about 25 years after his benzene paper. Historians debate how literally to take it.
Alan J. Rocke (2010). Image and Reality: Kekulé, Kopp, and the Scientific Imagination. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
citado, no reproducido
- Ubicación de la cita: chapters on Kekulé's reveries (referencia aún sin comprobar)
Historian of chemistry; discusses the reliability of Kekulé's reverie stories.