Stanislao Cannizzaro in Italy. He is best known for his contribution to the then-existing debate over atoms, molecules, and atomic weights. He championed Amedeo Avogadro's notion that equal volumes of gas at the same pressure and temperature held equal numbers of molecules or atoms, and the notion that equal volumes of gas could be used to calculate atomic weights. In so doing, Cannizzaro provided a new understanding of chemistry. Stanislao Cannizzaro Stanislao Cannizzaro FRS (13 July 1826 – 10 May 1910) was an Italian chemist. He is remembered today largely for the Cannizzaro reaction and for his influential role in the atomic-weight
Thermodynamic temperature two-way exchange of kinetic energy between internal motions and translational motions with each molecular collision. Accordingly, as energy is removed from molecules, both their kinetic temperature (the temperature derived from the kinetic energy of translational motion) and their internal temperature simultaneously diminish in equal proportions. This phenomenon is described by the equipartition theorem, which states that for any bulk quantity of a substance in equilibrium, the kinetic energy of particle motion is evenly distributed among all the active (i.e. unfrozen) degrees of freedom available to the particles. Since the internal temperature of molecules is usually equal to their kinetic temperature,