The discussion revolves around the concept of "Arrhenius behavior," particularly in the context of chemical reactions and physical phenomena. Participants explore its meaning, implications, and related empirical relationships, focusing on the temperature dependence of reaction rates and the role of ions in solutions.
Participants generally agree on the connection between Arrhenius behavior and reaction rates, particularly in relation to temperature. However, there are nuances in understanding its implications and applications, indicating that the discussion remains somewhat unresolved regarding the broader context of the term.
Some assumptions about the applicability of the Arrhenius relationship to various types of reactions and conditions remain unaddressed, and the discussion does not resolve the complexities involved in defining Arrhenius behavior across different contexts.
The most important idea in the dissertation was his explanation of the fact that neither pure salts nor pure water is a conductor, but solutions of salts in water are.
Arrhenius' explanation was that in forming a solution, the salt dissociates into charged particles (which Michael Faraday had given the name ions many years earlier). Faraday's belief had been that ions were produced in the process of electrolysis; Arrhenius proposed that, even in the absence of an electric current, solutions of salts contained ions. He thus proposed that chemical reactions in solution were reactions between ions. For weak electrolytes this is still believed to be the case, but modifications (by Peter J. W. Debye and Erich Hückel) were found necessary to account for the behavior of strong electrolytes.
MATLABdude said:Perhaps you're thinking of the Arrhenius relationship?
http://www.weibull.com/AccelTestWeb/arrhenius_relationship_chap_.htm
A e^{-\frac{E_{A}}{k_{B} T}}
Empirical relationship saying that things happen faster when it gets hotter (k_{B}, Boltzmann's constant multiplied by Temperature), and faster when there's a low activation energy / energy barrier (E_{A}).