|
( Jöns Jakob Berzelius)
Friherre Jöns Jacob Berzelius (20 August 1779 – 7 August 1848) was a Swedish chemist. He invented the modern chemical notation, and is together with John Dalton, Antoine Lavoisier, and Robert Boyle considered a father of modern chemistry.[1] Berzelius was born at Väversunda in Östergötland in Sweden. He lost both his parents at an early age. He was taken care of by relatives in Linköping where he attended the school today known as Katedralskolan. Thereafter he enrolled at the Uppsala University where he learned the profession of medical doctor from 1796 to 1801. He was taught chemistry by Anders Gustaf Ekeberg, the discoverer of tantalum. He worked as apprentice in a pharmacy and with a physician in the Medevi mineral springs. During this time he conducted analysis of the spring water. For his medical studies he examined the influence of galvanic current on several diseases. He worked as physician near Stockholm until the mine owner Wilhelm Hisinger discovered his analytical abilities and provided him with a laboratory. In 1807 Berzelius was appointed professor in chemistry and pharmacy at the Karolinska Institute. Not long after arriving to Stockholm he wrote a chemistry textbook for his medical students, from which point a long and fruitful career in chemistry began. While conducting experiments in support of the textbook he discovered the law of constant proportions, which showed that inorganic substances are composed of different elements in constant proportions by weight. Based on this, in 1828 he compiled a table of relative atomic weights, where oxygen was set to 100, and which included all of the elements known at the time. This work provided evidence in favour of the atomic theory proposed by John Dalton that inorganic chemical compounds are composed of atoms combined in whole number amounts. In discovering that atomic weights are not integer multiples of the weight of hydrogen, Berzelius also disproved Prout's hypothesis that elements are built up from atoms of hydrogen.
|
Jöns Jakob Berzelius Subcategories
Jöns Jakob Berzelius Articles
|
| 
