Technikatörténeti szemle 20. (1993)

TANULMÁNYOK - Tansjö, Levi. The Fictitious Kekulé-dream

have answered: No! Instead, he said that he didn't know very well what „Genie" and „genial" mean. Then he revealed that during the 1850's and 1860's he often, when he dozed off, in dream-like visions saw the atoms gamboling before his eyes. Before the trip on top of the bus In London in 1854 or 1855 nothing of scientific value had come out of the visions, but now he saw, he said, identical atoms form a chain. When be had finished his report of that dream, he added: „So entstand die Structurtheorie". In front of so many prominent chemists from many countries and before A. W. von Hofmann as the chairman, he said: „So entstand die Structurtheorie". After C.W. Biomstrand's book, „Die Chemle der Jetztzeit", published in Heidelberg in 1869 (3) and after Kekule's controversy with Kolbe in the early 1880's on the development of modern chemistry, these words were as preposterous as even C. Gerhardt's words on his death-bed in 1856:„J'ai avance la chimie de cinquante ans" (4). Then Kekule told the audience that once, when he had dozed off in front of the fireplace in his bachelor's apartment in Ghent and the atoms again were gamboling before him, his mental eye had become so acute by repeated visions of this kind that he could distinguish larger structures of manifold conformation: long chains of atoms, twining and twisting in snake-like motion. But look! One of the chains of atoms closed. That is my idea of what Kekule on 11 March in 1890 really tried to say and a few weeks later on tried to write about his vision in Ghent almost 30 years before. He never intended to say that there were snakes in it. He just used the word „Schlange" as a synonymous and allegorical description of a twining and twisting chain of atoms. With that word „Schlange" his account of the vision may of course be misunderstood, since „Schlange" in German also means „snake". And if „Schlange" is translated into „snake" his account must be misunderstood in English. I believe that the dream of a snake swallowing its own tail is a fictitious Kekule-dream. There has, as far as I understand, never been a solid ground for associating the great chemist August Kekule with the old, famous alchemical symbol Ouroboros, the self-devouring snake. Wotiz and Rudolfsky (5) have certainly stated that Kekule's son Stephan Kekule von Stradonitz in 1927 ..claimed that the vision of the snake (ring formation) was mentioned by his father in the smallest circle of his family", but that is misleading. The passage in Stephan's paper they refer to reads: (6) „My father several times In my presence told the story about the 'Vision der Ringbildung' not only in the smallest circle of wife and children but also before friends, especially colleagues". There is no snake!