Visit our new beta site!
Home  >  Categories  >  Science and Technology  >  Biographies  >  Chemistry: Biographies
Categories:
  • Earth and the Environment
    • Atmosphere and Weather
    • Biographies
    • Ecology and Environmentalism
    • Geography
    • Geology and Oceanography
    • Minerals, Mining, and Metallurgy
  • History
    • Ancient Greece and Rome
    • Asia and Africa
    • Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific
    • Biographies
    • Historians and Chronicles
    • Latin America and the Caribbean
    • Modern Europe
    • United States and Canada
  • Literature and the Arts
    • Art and Architecture
    • Biographies
    • Classical Literature, Mythology, and Folklore
    • Fashion, Design, and Crafts
    • Journalism and Publishing
    • Language, Linguistics, and Literary Terms
    • Literature in English
    • Literature in Other Modern Languages
    • Performing Arts
    • Scholars and Historians
  • Medicine
    • Anatomy and Physiology
    • Biographies
    • Diseases and Conditions
    • Divisions, Diagnostics, and Procedures
    • Drugs
    • Psychology
  • People
    • History
    • Literature and the Arts
    • Medicine
    • Philosophy and Religion
    • Science and Technology
    • Social Sciences and the Law
    • Sports and Games
  • Philosophy and Religion
    • Ancient Religions
    • Biographies
    • Christianity
    • Eastern Religions
    • Islam
    • Judaism
    • Other Religious Beliefs and General Terms
    • Philosophy
    • The Bible
  • Places
    • Africa
    • Asia
    • Australia and Oceania
    • Britain, Ireland, France, and the Low Countries
    • Commonwealth of Independent States and the Baltic Nations
    • Germany, Scandinavia, and Central Europe
    • Latin America and the Caribbean
    • Oceans, Continents, and Polar Regions
    • Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, and the Balkans
    • United States and Canada
  • Plants and Animals
    • Agriculture and Horticulture
    • Animals
    • Biographies
    • Botany
    • Microbes, Algae, and Fungi
    • Plants
    • Zoology and Veterinary Medicine
  • Science and Technology
    • Astronomy and Space Exploration
    • Biochemistry
    • Biographies
    • Biology and Genetics
    • Chemistry
    • Computers and Electrical Engineering
    • Mathematics
    • Physics
    • Technology
  • Social Sciences and the Law
    • Anthropology and Archaeology
    • Biographies
    • Economics, Business, and Labor
    • Education
    • Law
    • Political Science and Government
    • Sociology and Social Reform
  • Sports and Everyday Life
    • Biographies
    • Crafts and Household Items
    • Days and Holidays
    • Fashion and Clothing
    • Food and Drink
    • Games
    • Manners and Customs
    • Social Organizations
    • Sports
Documents for "Chemistry: Biographies":
  • Abel, Sir Frederick Augustus 1826-1902, English chemist, an authority on explosives. He was professor of chemistry at the Royal Military Academy (1851-55) and chemist to the War Dept. and government referee (1854-88). Among...
  • Achard, Franz Karl 1753-1821, German chemist. He made pioneer use of the discovery by his countryman Andreas Marggraf of sugar in beetroots. The government granted him an estate in Silesia where, in 1806, he...
  • Alder, Kurt 1902-58, German chemist, educated at Berlin and at Kiel. He was on the research staff of the Bayer Dye Works (1936-40) before becoming (1940) professor of chemistry and director of the chemical...
  • Arrhenius, Svante August 1859-1927, Swedish chemist. He was a professor of physics in Stockholm in 1895 and became director of the Nobel Institute for Physical Chemistry, Stockholm, in 1905. For originating (1884, 1887)...
  • Aston, Francis William 1877-1945, English physicist and chemist. He was affiliated with the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge, from 1910. In 1922 he received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry mainly for his discovery of a...
  • Baekeland, Leo Hendrik 1863-1944, American chemist, b. Belgium, grad. Univ. of Ghent, 1882. In 1889 he emigrated to the United States. He founded (1893) and conducted, until 1899, when he sold the rights to Eastman, a...
  • Baeyer, Adolf von (Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Adolf von Baeyer) , 1835-1917, German chemist. He taught at Berlin and Strasbourg and in 1875 succeeded Liebig at Munich. For his work in organic chemistry, especially that on organic dyes and the hydroaromatic...
  • Barton, Derek H. R. 1918-98, British chemist, b. Gravesend, England, grad. Imperial College of Science and Technology (B.S. 1940, Ph.D. 1942, D.Sc. 1949). He was on the faculty of Imperial College (1945-50, 1957-78),...
  • Berthelot, Pierre Eugène Marcelin 1827-1907, French chemist. He was professor at the École Supérieure de Pharmacie (1859) and at the Collège de France from 1865. In 1900 he became a member of the French Academy. A founder of...
  • Berthollet, Claude Louis, Comte 1748-1822, French chemist. His contributions to chemistry include the analysis of ammonia and prussic acid and the discovery of the bleaching properties of chlorine. He collaborated with Antoine...
  • Berzelius, Jöns Jakob, Baron 1779-1848, Swedish chemist, M.D. Univ. of Uppsala, 1802. He was noted for his work as teacher at the medical school and other institutions in Stockholm and for his discoveries in diverse fields of...
  • Black, Joseph 1728-99, Scottish chemist and physician, b. France. He was professor of chemistry at Glasgow (1756-66) and from 1766 at Edinburgh. He is best known for his theories of latent heat and specific...
  • Boisbaudran, Paul Émile Lecoq de 1838-1912, French discoverer of the elements gallium, samarium, and dysprosium. He also made contributions in the field of spectroscopy, including his experimentation with the rare-earth metals.
  • Boltwood, Bertram Borden 1870-1927, American chemist and physicist, b. Amherst, Mass., grad. Sheffield Scientific School, Yale, 1892. After graduate study at Leipzig and Yale (Ph.D., 1897), he taught at Yale until his...
  • Boussingault, Jean Baptiste Joseph Dieudonné 1802-87, French agricultural chemist. He was professor of chemistry at Lyons and later professor of agriculture and analytical chemistry at the Paris Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers. He is known...
  • Boyle, Robert 1627-91, Anglo-Irish physicist and chemist. The seventh son of the 1st earl of Cork, he was educated at Eton and on the Continent and conducted most of his researches at his own laboratories at...
  • Brown, Herbert Charles 1912-2004, American chemist, b. London, Ph.D. Univ. of Chicago, 1938. A professor at Wayne State Univ. (1943-47) and Purdue Univ. (1947-78), he shared the 1979 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Georg Wittig. Brown developed boron-containing compounds as important reagents in organic synthesis. These organoborones provided an inexpensive means of making organic chemicals used in agricultural,...
  • Buchner, Eduard 1860-1917, German chemist. He taught at Berlin, Breslau, and, from 1911, at Würzburg. He discovered (1896) that alcoholic fermentation of sugars is caused by yeast enzymes and not by the yeast...
  • Bunsen, Robert Wilhelm 1811-99, German scientist, educated at the Univ. of Göttingen, where he received his doctorate in 1830. He served on the faculties of several universities and was at Heidelberg from 1852 to 1889...
  • Butlerov, Aleksandr Mikhailovich 1825-86, Russian chemist. As professor at the Univ. of Kazan he founded the first school of Russian chemists and directed research designed to confirm the classical theory of chemical structure,...
  • Calvin, Melvin 1911-97, American organic chemist and educator, b. St. Paul, Minn., grad. Michigan College of Mining and Technology, 1931, Ph.D. Univ. of Minnesota, 1935. In 1937 he joined the faculty at the Univ...
  • Cannizzaro, Stanislao 1826-1910, Italian chemist. From 1861 he was professor at Palermo and from 1871 at Rome, where he was also a member of the senate and of the council of public instruction. He is known for his...
  • Carothers, Wallace Hume 1896-1937, American chemist, b. Burlington, Iowa. He received his doctorate at the Univ. of Illinois in 1924, then taught organic chemistry there and at Harvard. In 1928 he was made head of the...
  • Caventou, Joseph Bienaimé 1795-1877, French chemist. He was professor at the École de Pharmacie, Paris. With P. J. Pelletier he isolated quinine (from cinchona bark), strychnine, and brucine and studied the green pigment...
  • Chevreul, Michel Eugène 1786-1889, French chemist. He studied under L. N. Vauquelin, was director of the Gobelin tapestry works, and from 1830 was professor, and from 1860 to 1879 director, at the natural history museum...
  • Coolidge, William David 1873-1975, American physical chemist, b. Hudson, Mass., grad. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1896. He joined the General Electric Company in 1905 and served as director of its research...
  • Cornforth, Sir John Warcup 1917-, Australian chemist, Ph.D. Oxford Univ., 1941. Although Cornforth suffered a hearing loss from childhood, he was aided in communicating by his wife and co-researcher Rita Harradence. His...
  • Cram, Donald James 1919-2001, American chemist, b. Chester, Vt., Ph.D. Harvard, 1947. A professor at the Univ. of California at Los Angeles, Cram expanded on the work of Charles J. Pedersen by synthesizing three-dimensional...
  • Crookes, Sir William 1832-1919, English chemist and physicist. After serving at the Radcliffe Observatory, Oxford, and teaching chemistry at Chester Training College, he retired to work in his own laboratory in London...
  • Döbereiner, Johann Wolfgang 1780-1849, German chemist. From 1810 he was professor of the Univ. of Jena. He is known especially for his discovery of similar triads of elements, a step in the development of the periodic law. He...
  • Dalton, John 1766-1844, English scientist. He revived the atomic theory (see atom ), which he formulated in the first volume of his New System of Chemical Philosophy (2 vol., 1808-27). He had already applied the concept to a table of atomic weights (1803), in a paper (1805) on the absorption of gases, and in developing his famous law of partial pressures, known...
  • Davy, Sir Humphry 1778-1829, English chemist and physicist. The son of a woodcarver, he received his early education at Truro and was apprenticed (1795) to a surgeon-apothecary at Penzance. While director...
  • Dewar, Sir James 1842-1923, British chemist and physicist, b. Scotland. He was professor of chemistry (from 1877) at the Royal Institution, London, and later was director of the Davy-Faraday Research Laboratory...
  • Draper, John William 1811-82, American scientist, philosopher, and historian, b. near Liverpool, England, M.D. Univ. of Pennsylvania, 1836. In 1839 he became professor of chemistry at the Univ. of the City of New York...
  • Dumas, Jean Baptiste André 1800-1884, French organic chemist. He was distinguished for his researches on atomic weights, esters, vapor densities, the oxidation products of alcohols, and the laws of substitution. He taught...
  • Erlenmeyer, Richard A. C. E. 1825-1909, German chemist. He studied at Giessen under Justus von Liebig and at Heidelberg under Friedrich Kekulé, both German chemists. Erlenmeyer was professor of chemistry at the Munich...
  • Fischer, Emil 1852-1919, German organic chemist. He is especially noted for his researches on the structure and synthesis of sugars and of purines and purine base derivatives, e.g., caffeine; for this work he...
  • Fourcroy, Antoine François, comte de 1755-1809, French chemist. He was a pioneer in animal and plant chemistry and collaborated with Lavoisier and others in reforming the system of chemical nomenclature. He was professor from 1784 at...
  • Frankland, Sir Edward 1825-99, English chemist. He studied under Bunsen and Liebig and taught at several English institutions. In working on the synthesis and isolation of compounds he evolved the theory of valence. He...
  • Fukui, Kenichi 1918-98, Japanese chemist, b. Nara, Japan, Ph.D. Kyoto Univ., 1948. As a professor at Kyoto Univ., Fukui developed the theory that during chemical reactions molecules share loosely bonded...
  • Gay-Lussac, Joseph Louis 1778-1850, French chemist and physicist. He was professor in Paris at the Sorbonne, at the Polytechnic School, and at the Jardin des Plantes. Gay-Lussac made two balloon ascensions in 1804,...
  • Geoffroy, Étienne François 1672-1731, French physician and chemist, also known as Geoffroy the Elder. He became a pharmacist in 1694 and received an M.D. at Paris in 1704. He was professor of medicine at the Collège Royal...
  • Gerhardt, Charles Frédéric 1816-56, French chemist, b. Strasbourg. He revived the theory of acid radicals, which he called the theory of residues, and did valuable research in organic chemistry, especially on the anhydrides...
  • Giauque, William Francis 1895-1982, American chemist, b. Niagara Falls, Ont., Canada, grad. Univ. of California (B.S., 1920; Ph.D., 1922). A member of the faculty of the Univ. of California from 1922, he became professor...
  • Glauber, Johann Rudolf 1604-70, German alchemist. A forerunner of scientific chemists, Glauber made many practical advances in analytical chemistry; he devised new procedures and was the first to prepare several...
  • Graham, Thomas 1805-69, Scottish chemist, best known for research in diffusion in both gases and liquids that led to his formulation of Graham's law. His discovery that certain substances (e.g., glue, gelatin, starch) pass through a membrane more slowly than others (inorganic...
  • Grignard, Victor 1871-1935, French chemist. He shared the 1912 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work in organic synthesis based on his discovery (1900) of the Grignard reagent. He taught at the Univ. of Nancy (1909-19)...
  • Guyton de Morveau, Louis Bernard, Baron 1737-1816, French chemist and lawyer. He wrote the chemical section of the Encyclopédie méthodique (Vol. I, 1786) and collaborated with Lavoisier and others in establishing a system of chemical nomenclature. He taught chemistry (1794-1811) at the École Polytechnique, Paris, served in the...
  • Haber, Fritz 1868-1934, German chemist. He was a professor of physical chemistry at Karlsruhe and became director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute at Dahlem in 1911. During World War I he directed Germany's...
  • Hahn, Otto 1879-1968, German chemist and physicist. His important contributions in the field of radioactivity include the discovery of several radioactive substances, the development of methods of separating...
  • Hare, Robert 1781-1858, American chemist, b. Philadelphia. He was professor of chemistry (1819-47) at the medical college of the Univ. of Pennsylvania. Hare made important contributions to early American...
  • Hassel, Odd 1897-1981, Norwegian chemist, b. Christiania (now Oslo), grad. Oslo Univ. (1920), Ph.D. Univ. of Berlin (1924). After pursuing X-ray crystallographic studies in Germany, in 1925 he joined the...
  • Hauptman, Herbert Aaron 1917-, American chemist, b. New York City, grad. City College of New York (B.S., 1937) and Univ. of Maryland (Ph.D., 1955). In 1985, Hauptman and former undergraduate classmate Jerome Karle were awarded...
  • Helmont, Jan Baptista van 1577-1644, Flemish physician, chemist, and physicist. He attributed physiological changes to chemical causes, but his conclusions were colored by his speculative mysticism. He discovered carbon...
  • Herschbach, Dudley Robert 1932-, American chemist, b. San Jose, Calif., Ph.D. Harvard, 1958. In 1986, Herschbach shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Yuan T. Lee and John C. Polanyi for helping to apply the technology...
  • Hevesy, Georg von 1885-1966, Hungarian physicist and chemist. He received the 1943 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on the use of isotopes as tracers in studying chemical processes. Hevesy was the first to...
  • Higgins, William b. 1762 or 1763, d. 1825, Irish chemist. After study at Oxford he became supervisor of the Royal Dublin Society's mineralogical collection and in 1800 the Society's professor of chemistry. He...
  • Hoffmann, Roald 1937-, American chemist, b. Złoczów, Poland (now Zolochiv, Ukraine), Ph.D. Harvard, 1962. After receiving his degree and working with Robert Woodward at Harvard (1962-65), he became (1965) a...
  • Hofmann, August Wilhelm von 1818-92, German organic chemist. He was professor at the Univ. of Berlin from 1865 and was a founder (1868) of the German Chemical Society. He studied the constitution of aniline and was the first...
  • Huber, Robert 1937-, German biochemist. After receiving his doctorate at Munich Technical Univ., he worked both there and at the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry. With Hartmut Michel and Johann Deisenhofer...
  • Jabir or Geber , fl. 8th cent., Arab alchemist and physician, originally named Jabir ibn Hayyan. He is believed to have lived at Kufa and at Baghdad. A great number of works on alchemy, many of them unpublished,...
  • Kekulé von Stradonitz, Friedrich August 1829-96, German organic chemist. He was professor at Ghent (1858-65) and at Bonn from 1865. He made studies of various carbon compounds, especially benzene , for the molecular structure of which he...
  • Klaproth, Martin Heinrich 1743-1817, German chemist. He is often referred to as the father of analytic chemistry. He recognized (1789) the presence of zirconium in the ore zirconia and of uranium in a precipitate of...
  • Kopp, Hermann Franz Moritz 1817-92, German physical chemist and historian of chemistry. His research concerned the connection between the physical properties and the chemical structure of compounds. He continued Jöns...
  • Kuhn, Richard 1900-1967, Austrian chemist, director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, Heidelberg. For his research on the carotinoids (he prepared eight of them in pure form) and on vitamins (he isolated...
  • Lémery, Nicolas 1645-1715, French chemist. He was a pharmacist and lecturer in Paris and was the author of a standard textbook in chemistry (1675) and of a treatise on antimony (1707).
  • Langmuir, Irving 1881-1957, American chemist, b. Brooklyn, N.Y. Associated (1909-50) with the research laboratory of the General Electric Company, he introduced atomic-hydrogen welding, invented a gas-filled...
  • Laurent, Auguste 1808-53, French organic chemist. He devised a systematic nomenclature for organic chemistry. His studies on naphthalene and its chlorination products led him to propose a nucleus theory that...
  • Lavoisier, Antoine Laurent 1743-94, French chemist and physicist, a founder of modern chemistry. He studied under eminent men of his day, won early recognition, and was admitted to the Academy of Sciences in 1768. Much of...
  • Le Bel, Joseph Achille 1847-1930, French chemist. He was educated at the École polytechnique and carried out much of his research in his own private laboratory. He theorized (1874) that optical activity—the presence of...
  • Le Châtelier, Henri Louis 1850-1936, French industrial chemist. He made many contributions to industrial chemistry, but is best known for his work on the structure of alloys and for his enunciation of Le Châtelier's principle. This fundamental contribution to chemical thermodynamics had been anticipated in part by J. W. Gibbs, whose work Le Châtelier helped to spread in France. Toward the end of his life he wrote on...
  • Lee, Yuan Tseh 1936-, Taiwanese-American chemist, Ph.D. Univ. of California at Berkeley, 1965. In 1986, Le