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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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O sonho

Recontado com nossas próprias palavras a partir das fontes abaixo, sem citação literal.

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.

De onde vem a história

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.

Como foi interpretado

História

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.

Perguntas para seus próprios sonhos

  1. Is there a problem you have been turning over for a long time?
  2. Have you noticed ideas arriving when you stop trying, just before sleep or on waking?
  3. How do you tell the story of a good idea afterwards, and what do you leave out?

Símbolos neste sonho

Teve um sonho que marcou você?

Quero contar meu sonho

Fontes

Todas as interpretações desta página vêm destas obras. Ainda há referências de páginas que não foram conferidas; elas estão sinalizadas.

  1. August Kekulé (1890). Speech at the Benzolfest, Berlin, 11 March 1890. Berichte der Deutschen Chemischen Gesellschaft 23.

    domínio públicoteoria contestada

    • Local da citação: Benzolfest speech, Berlin, 11 March 1890 (referência ainda não conferida)
    • Local da citação: Benzolfest speech (referência ainda não conferida)

    Kekulé's own after-dinner account, given about 25 years after his benzene paper. Historians debate how literally to take it.

  2. Alan J. Rocke (2010). Image and Reality: Kekulé, Kopp, and the Scientific Imagination. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    citado, não reproduzido

    • Local da citação: chapters on Kekulé's reveries (referência ainda não conferida)

    Historian of chemistry; discusses the reliability of Kekulé's reverie stories.