Ionic concentrations and hydration numbers of "supporting electrolytes"

Eight decades ago, Peter Zuman was born when the first polarograms of aqueous "supporting electrolytes" had just been recorded. Around that period, the pioneering idea of partial dissociation due to Arrhenius was unfortunately replaced by that of 'complete dissociation' and empirical mean ionic activities. Over the next decades, as the theory of electrolytes became too complicated to be meaningful, it became clear that the earlier ideas of partial dissociation and hydration were correct. Here, it is shown that solution properties of electrolytes can be explained quantitatively using simple mathematical expressions involving concentrations and volumes of ions and ion-pairs and hydration numbers. Five tables of degrees of dissociation and hydration numbers of many strong electrolytes are provided in the Appendix.