Using his experimental results, he determined the atomic weights of nearly all the elements then known. Students working in his laboratory also discovered lithium, vanadium, and several rare earths. His interest in all sorts of compounds led to his discovery of a number of new elements, including cerium, selenium, and thorium. 1, 1808), Berzelius began the series of experiments for which he became most famous-those definitively establishing that the elements in inorganic substances are bound together in definite proportions by weight (the law of constant proportions). In preparing a chemistry textbook for his medical students ( Lärboki Kemien, vol. Courtesy Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences The Law of Constant Proportions and Other Discoveries Presumed to be a portrait of Berzelius at some time between 18. A year later he began his long association with the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. In 1807 he was made a professor at the Medical College in Stockholm, which soon after became the Karolinska Institute. Even though he reported no improvement in his patients, his interest in electrochemical topics continued. His thesis for his medical degree was on the effect of electric shock on patients with various diseases. While in medical school at the University of Uppsala, he read about Alessandro Volta’s “electric pile”-an early type of battery-and immediately constructed one for himself. Backgroundīerzelius was born into a well-educated Swedish family, but he experienced a difficult childhood because first his father and then his mother died. He was a contemporary and rival of Humphry Davy, another electrochemical pioneer, but unlike Davy, Berzelius was much more systematic: he was given to running programs of hundreds of experiments and then deriving organized generalizations from them. He is considered one of the founders of modern chemistry.īerzelius was an accomplished experimenter in many fields, including electrochemistry and atomic and molecular theory. Science History InstituteĪn avid and methodical experimenter, Jöns Jakob Berzelius (1779–1848) conducted pioneering experiments in electrochemistry and established the law of constant proportions, which states that the elements in inorganic substances are bound together in definite proportions by weight. Berzelius, book on Swedish chemist Jöns Jakob Berzelius, 1901.
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