Archibald Scott Couper (March 31, 1831, Kirkintilloch, East Dunbartonshire, Scotland—March 11, 1892, Kirkintilloch) was the author of "On a New Chemical Theory", Philosophical Magazine 16, 104-116 (1858) excerpted in Alembic Club Reprint #21, On a New Chemical Theory and Researches on Salicylic Acid ^*

Friedrich August Kekulé von Stradonitz claimed to have solved the structure of Benzene in a dream. While his claims were well publicized and accepted, by the early 1920s Kekulé's biographer came to the conclusion that Kekulé's understanding of the tetravalent nature of carbon bonding depended on the previous research of Archibald Scott Couper (1831-1892); further, the German chemist Josef Loschmidt (1821-1895) had earlier posited a cyclic structure for benzene as early as 1862, although he had not actually proved this structure to be correct.

External links

• Archibald Scott Couper On a New Chemical Theory
• Annotated On a New Chemical Theory
• Sausage and Structural Formulae by August Kekulé
• Short biography of Couper
• Encyclopædia Britannica article

1831 births | 1892 deaths | Scottish chemists | Scottish scholars | University of Glasgow alumni | University of Paris alumni | University of Edinburgh