Jeremiah Benjamin Richter

Jeremiah Benjamin Richter (1762-1807) was a German chemist.

To him we owe the notion of equivalent weight and the law that bears his name:

The elements are combined in proportion to their equivalent weights, multiplied by whole and small numbers.

This law, the last of the so-called stoichiometric laws, allowed the final Christianization of chemical nomenclature, and should be considered as a link between Dalton's ancient Atomic Theory and the modern Atomic-Molecular Theory.

This theory says that:

• The matter is formed by vacuum and atoms.
• Crystals and molecules are associations of atoms, different or equal, which are always in the same number.
• Chemical elements are substances that are made up of equal atoms.
• Compounds are substances created by molecules or crystals with different atoms.