Editing 1873 in science (section)

==Chemistry==
* [[Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff]] and [[Joseph Achille Le Bel]], working independently, develop a model of [[chemical bonds|chemical bonding]] that explains the chirality experiments of Pasteur and provides a physical cause for [[optical activity]] in chiral compounds<ref name="Profile">{{cite web|title=Jacobus Henricus van't Hoff|url=https://www.sciencehistory.org/historical-profile/jacobus-henricus-van%E2%80%99t-hoff|website=Science History Institute |accessdate=21 March 2018|date=June 2016}}</ref><ref name=Bowden>{{cite book|last1=Bowden|first1=Mary Ellen|title=Chemical achievers : the human face of the chemical sciences|url=https://archive.org/details/chemicalachiever0000bowd|url-access=registration|date=1997|publisher=Chemical Heritage Foundation|location=Philadelphia, PA|isbn=9780941901123|chapter=Jacobus Henricus van't Hoff|pages=[https://archive.org/details/chemicalachiever0000bowd/page/94 94–95]}}</ref>