Alexander William Williamson

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Alexander William Williamson.

Alexander William Williamson (born May 1, 1824 in Wandsworth ; † May 6, 1904 in Haslemere ) was a British chemist of the 19th century who was best known for the ether synthesis named after him .

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Williamson was born on May 1, 1824 in Wandsworth, a borough of London, the second of three children. After attending school in London , Dijon and Wiesbaden , he began studying medicine in Heidelberg in 1841 . Leopold Gmelin aroused his interest in chemistry there. 1844-1846 Williamson learned in the laboratory of Justus von Liebig in Giessen and received his doctorate there .

He then studied mathematics in Paris from 1846 to 1849; In addition, he set up a private laboratory and developed the first steps in ether synthesis there. In 1849 Williamson accepted the professorship for applied chemistry at University College London , from 1855 also for general chemistry. 1850-1851 published publications on the structure of alcohols and ethers, in which he shows the similarity of these substance classes with water . After investigations into the synthesis of ethers from ethyl iodide and sodium ethoxide as well as from ethanol with the addition of sulfuric acid , several publications appeared on this subject, in which Williamson contradicts his famous contemporaries Liebig, Alexander Mitscherlich and Jöns Jakob Berzelius and is ultimately right. The Briton was also one of the first to discover that many organic reactions are reversible depending on the conditions chosen.

From 1869 he studied what was then still a very young atomic theory and saw it as an excellent explanation of the connections he had discovered. In 1887 Williamson retired from active teaching and research.

In 1855 he became a member ( Fellow ) of the Royal Society . In 1862 he received the Royal Medal . In 1873 he became a corresponding member of the Académie des sciences . From 1874 he was a foreign member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences , from 1875 a corresponding member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences and from 1891 of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Saint Petersburg . In 1883 he became an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh .

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ WA Tilden: Famous Chemists . Ayer Publishing, 1977, ISBN 0-8369-0944-5 .
  2. ^ Williamson, Alexander William . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . 11th edition. tape 28 : Vetch - Zymotic Diseases . London 1911, p. 684 (English, full text [ Wikisource ]).
  3. ↑ J. Daintith: Biographical Encyclopedia of Scientists . CRC Press, 1994, ISBN 0-7503-0287-9 .
  4. ^ List of former members since 1666: Letter W. Académie des sciences, accessed on March 15, 2020 (French).
  5. ↑ Holger Krahnke: The members of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen 1751-2001 (= Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philological-Historical Class. Volume 3, Volume 246 = Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematical-Physical Class. Series 3, volume 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 260.
  6. ^ Members of the previous academies. Alexander William Williamson. Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences , accessed on June 28, 2015 .
  7. ^ Foreign members of the Russian Academy of Sciences since 1724. Alexander William Williamson. Russian Academy of Sciences, accessed October 28, 2015 .
  8. ^ Fellows Directory. Biographical Index: Former RSE Fellows 1783–2002. (PDF file) Royal Society of Edinburgh, accessed April 23, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Williamson, Alexander William
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British chemist
DATE OF BIRTH May 1, 1824
PLACE OF BIRTH London
DATE OF DEATH May 6, 1904
Place of death London