Kanonnikov, Innokentii

Born May 16 (28), 1854, in Irkutsk; died March 2 (15), 1902, in Kazan. Russian chemist. He taught at the University of Kazan after his graduation (1875); he became a professor there in 1886.

In 1884, Kanonnikov demonstrated that the specific refraction of a solution is equal to the sum of the specific refractions of the solute and the solvent. He established the cyclic structure of certain terpenes, the existence of a double bond in maleic acid, and the bicyclic structure of the camphor molecule. He also discovered the relationship between the angle of rotation of the plane of polarization and the minumum angle of deflection of a refracted beam. In 1860 he showed that the specific rotation for a mixture of substances is the mean of the values for the specific rotation of the constituents.