Jöns Jakob Berzelius

Berzelius is a redirect to this article. Further meanings are listed under Berzelius (disambiguation) .

Jöns Jakob Berzelius

Berzelius in a lithograph from 1836

Jöns Jakob Berzelius [ jœns ˌʝɑːkɔb bæɹˈseːliɵs ] (born August 20, 1779 in Socken Väversunda , Östergötland , †  August 7, 1848 in Stockholm ) was a Swedish physician and chemist . He is considered the father of modern chemistry .

Berzelius introduced the chemical symbol language with the letters for the chemical elements and for the first time precisely determined a large number of the atomic masses of elements. Berzelius developed a first model for understanding electrolysis and the conversion of substances by assuming a positive and a negative charge in each particle (dualistic theory). He discovered the elements cerium , selenium and thorium , other elements were first represented by him in elemental form ( silicon , zirconium , titanium , tantalum , vanadium ).

Live and act

Jöns Jakob Berzelius lost his father, Samuel Berzelius (1743–1783), who died of tuberculosis, at the age of four. Samuel Berzelius was a pastor and teacher in Linköping , his mother Anna Christina came from the not far away Väversunda . In 1785 the mother married the pastor Anders Ekmarck from Norrköping, whom Berzelius attested an exemplary character in his autobiography and who awakened in him a love for nature (botany). After his mother's death in 1787, Berzelius' aunt Flora Sjösteen ran the household with eight children in Ekeby. When the stepfather remarried in 1791, Berzelius had to move with his sister to his uncle Magnus Sjösteen on an estate in Väversunda Sörgard. The uncle had seven children himself. Jöns' relationship with the often drunk aunt was not good and he suffered from the treatment of his cousins.

The name Berzelius is a Latinized form of the name Bergsäter or Bergsitzer; Originally the ancestors of Berzelius were called Hakannson and lived in the Bergsäter estate near Motala .

Jöns Jakob Berzelius was initially brought up by private tutors. From 1793 he attended the grammar school in Linköping. But since he was exposed to the rough treatment by his cousins ​​here too, he accepted a position as tutor at Norrköping for a year (1794/95), where he deepened his enthusiasm for nature studies with the help of his old tutor. After the end of the tutoring period, he returned to high school and moved to Uppsala after graduating in 1796 . From 1797 he began studying medicine at Uppsala University , which he soon interrupted for financial reasons and again became tutor, but was able to continue with a scholarship from 1798. Berzelius' interest in chemistry was initially not very pronounced, but was aroused by participating in electrical experiments by his stepbrother Kristofer Ekmarck . In 1801 Berzelius received his candidate and licentiate degree. His dissertation, entitled Effects of Galvanic Electricity on Patients, which he had already submitted in 1801, appeared in 1802. In this work he demonstrated that galvanism , which was then fashionable at the time , showed no practical medical benefit. For his dissertation, he started with electrochemical experiments and built a voltaic column (battery) for this. Johan Afzelius did not receive his doctorate in medicine until 1804.

Jacob Berzelius' tombstone in Solna kyrkogård cemetery

In the same year 1802 Berzelius became an unpaid employee (adjunct) in the surgical institute in Stockholm (since 1810 Karolinska institute ). Since he had hardly any income at the beginning, he stayed with the mineral water entrepreneur Lars Gabriel Werner, for whom he carried out investigations to compensate for board and lodging. Berzelius did not have a laboratory in the surgical institute. The mine owner Wilhelm Hisinger , who also experimented himself, made laboratory rooms available to him in which he could carry out the first internationally acclaimed experiments. In 1805 he became an assessor without earnings because his application to succeed Anders Sparrman was unsuccessful. At the same time he became a doctor for the poor in the eastern part of Stockholm, which he remained until 1810. In 1806, due to the sudden death of Sparrman's successor, he was appointed paid chemistry lecturer. In 1807 he became professor of medicine and pharmacy at the surgical institute. In 1808 he was admitted to the Swedish Academy of Sciences and became its president in 1810. With the founding of the Karolinska Institute, Berzelius' professorship was converted into chemistry and pharmacy. In 1812 he was able to go on a study trip to England for the first time. In 1817 Berzelius received a call to the University of Berlin as successor to Martin Heinrich Klaproth , which he turned down. From 1818 to 1819 Berzelius spent a year in Paris, where he met numerous important chemists. Also in 1818 he was raised to the nobility. In 1822 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . In 1832 he resigned from his position as professor. In 1835 he married the 24-year-old daughter of his friend, Cabinet Minister Gabriel Poppius, and at the same time was elevated to the baron status by the king. In 1847 he suffered a seizure that paralyzed his legs. Berzelius died on August 7, 1848 in Stockholm and was buried in Solna .

Berzelius has been described as very temperamental, if not easily irritable. He worked closely with his former student Friedrich Wöhler . Christian Gottlob Gmelin , Heinrich and Gustav Rose , Friedrich Wöhler and Gustav Magnus were among his students in Stockholm .

Scientific work

Electrochemical Theory

In 1802, Berzelius and Hisinger investigated the decomposition of a salt solution using a voltaic column (electrolysis). He found that an alkali salt solution is converted into an acid and a base by the voltaic column. He assumed that groups of atoms would act like little magnets . A particle can react electropositive, electronegative or unipolar in a voltaic column. Berzelius assumed that all salts - inorganic and organic - would consist of a positive and a negative pole and were small, molecular magnets. In an electropositive molecular magnet the positive charge predominates, in an electronegative particle the negative charge. According to his theory, potassium sulfate consisted of the electropositively charged particles KO and the electronegatively charged SO ₃ . Berzelius 'publication on electrochemistry also influenced Humphry Davy , who successfully carried out electrochemical experiments in 1806, which, to Berzelius' disappointment, earned him much higher recognition (Davy received the French Volta Prize from Napoleon in 1807). With his friend Magnus Martin Pontin , he repeated Davy's experiments in isolating alkali metals, using a mercury electrode, which Davy then made new discoveries with.

The dualistic theory of chemical substances remained the dominant doctrine in chemistry for 20 years until Jean Baptiste Dumas discovered radical substitution for organic chemistry. Later Michael Faraday and Svante Arrhenius recognized the salts in aqueous solution as ions (e.g. K ⁺ ). This proved that the dualistic theory was wrong. Today one uses the knowledge of the dualistic theory in the creation of oxidation numbers for redox equations to indicate the number of charges of an atom in a part of the molecule. The terms “electropositive” and “electronegative” have also been used to denote a polarized bond in a molecule.

Atomic masses

For Berzelius, oxygen was the most negative element; According to him, all elements that are connected to oxygen must have an electropositive charge. Some elements like sulfur could sometimes be electropositive as well as electronegative (in sulfur dioxide the sulfur is electropositive, as metal sulfide is electronegative). He sorted the elements into a voltage series. For Berzelius, electronegative oxygen was the linchpin for his further experiments. The particularly important position of oxygen lay in its ability to produce easily determinable compounds with metals, and all acids and bases known at the time contained oxygen. Only Davy was able to present the first acid without oxygen, hydrochloric acid. Berzelius arbitrarily gave the atomic mass 100 and related all other atomic masses to the oxygen. Later he also chose hydrogen as a reference point. The atomic theory of John Dalton , the work of Carl Friedrich Wenzel (1740–1793) and the law of multiple proportions by Jeremias Benjamin Richter formed the basis for his precise investigations into the determination of atomic mass .

On the basis of precipitations to metal oxides and other precipitation reactions and subsequent mass determination, Berzelius was able to determine the atomic mass of 40 elements between 1808 and 1818. This work was a milestone in the development of chemistry. With some metal oxides (Fe ₂ O ₃ , Fe ₃ O ₄ ) no integral multiple of the metal atom was formed, with the ratios 2: 3 he assumed chemical mixtures of 1: 1 + 1: 2. He therefore calculated twice the atomic mass of these metal oxides . In 1827 Berzelius published an improved atomic mass table. It also contained the elements chlorine and nitrogen .

New chemical elements

Berzelius also discovered and named new chemical elements. With Hisinger he discovered the oxide of the element cerium , this name was given in reference to the planet Ceres, newly discovered by the Italian Giuseppe Piazzi. In 1817 Berzelius discovered the element selenium (1818) (Greek selene "moon") in addition to tellurium (depicted by Martin Heinrich Klaproth ) during analyzes in the chemical factory near Gripsholm . His student Johan August Arfwedson discovered several new minerals ( petalite , spodumene , lepidolite ). A new element called lithium (Greek lithos "stone") was found in these minerals. He discovered thorium (named after the Germanic thunder god Thor ) in another mineral from Norway . He was able to obtain a number of other substances in elemental form through the action of potassium on the corresponding halides. These include silicon (1823), zirconium (1823), titanium , tantalum (1824), thorium (1826) and vanadium (from Vanadis, the Nordic goddess of beauty).

Chemical element symbols

Lavoisier and John Dalton had already developed chemical element symbols. Berzelius referred to the atoms with the first letter or the first and another letter from the Latin word. By adding the number of atoms after the atom, a chemical formula for a substance could be given, for example H ₂ O. In the case of double atoms in a formula, he sometimes crossed out the atom. Sometimes Berzelius put dots and lines in mineralogical information. The abbreviation after Latin names and the representation of the sum formula has established itself in the nomenclature and is still valid today.

Examples of element symbols from Berzelius:

• H for hydrogenium ( hydrogen )
• O for oxygenium ( oxygen )
• Fe for ferrum ( iron )
• Pb for plumbum ( lead )
• Hg for hydrargyrum ( mercury )

Others

Berzelius recognized that substances with the same composition could have different properties. He called this effect isomerism . He called the appearance of elements in different manifestations allotropy . In 1835 he named the accelerated material conversion discovered by Eilhard Mitscherlich , Humphry Davy , Andreas Libavius and Johann Wolfgang Döbereiner by means of an auxiliary substance that does not change in the process, the name catalysis . He classified the minerals , which were previously classified according to their external properties, according to their chemical composition. In organic chemistry he tried to support his dualistic principle of matter through his radical theory . However, the radical theory was later rejected by Jean-Baptiste Dumas . In 1834 he put the substitution theory in its place (see history of the substitution reaction ).

Berzelius first used the term " organic chemistry " (Organisk Kemi) . Between 1808 and 1830 the six volumes of his textbook for chemistry (Lärbok i kemien) were published . The textbook has been translated into many languages ​​and had a decisive influence on the development of chemistry in the 19th century. It was translated into German by Friedrich Wöhler with the assistance of Karl August Blöde and K. Palmstedt. From 1821 Berzelius published the annual reports on the progress of the physical sciences (Årsberättelse om framstegen i fysik och kemi) . He introduced the beaker , glass funnel , filter paper , rubber hoses, spirit burner (Berzelius lamp) , water bath and desiccator for the chemical laboratory. In 1838 he suggested the term protein to Gerardus Johannes Mulder .

Berzelius statue in Berzelii Park (Stockholm)

Honors and memberships

Berzelius in 1805 in the Masonic Lodge of St. John's Lodge St. Erik in the covenant of Stockholm Masonic added. In 1808 he became a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm. From 1819 until his death he was secretary of this academy, which he reformed thoroughly. In 1813 he was admitted as a Foreign Member to the Royal Society , which in 1836 awarded him the Copley Medal . From 1812 he was a corresponding member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences and since 1825 a foreign member . In 1816 he was accepted into the Académie des Sciences . In 1818 he was elected a member of the Leopoldina Academic Academy . The Bavarian Academy of Sciences , he belonged since 1820 as a foreign member. In 1820 he was elected as a member of the American Philosophical Society and an honorary fellow ( Honorary Fellow ) in the Royal Society of Edinburgh . In 1826 he became a foreign member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and in 1837 a member of the Swedish Academy . In 1842 he received the Prussian order Pour le Mérite for sciences and arts . In 1835 he became a baron .

The lunar crater Berzelius and the asteroid (13109) Berzelius are named after him, as well as the two minerals Berzelianite and Berzeliite .

The plant genus Berzelia Mart is also named after him . from the family of the foxtail plants (Amaranthaceae).

Fonts (selection)

• De electricitatis galvanicæ apparatu cel. Volta excitæ in corpora organica effectu (Latin), 1802 ( scanned online available )
• Review of the advances and the present state of animal chemistry. 1810.
• The saidschitzer bitter water: chemically examined. Haase, Prague 1840 ( urn : nbn: de: hbz: 061: 2-14327 )
• Föreläsningar in djurkemien (lectures on animal chemistry), part 1, 1806
• J. Jakob Berzelius: Textbook of Chemistry.  - Internet Archive , Volume 1.1. (2nd ed. 1825), translated by F. Wöhler
• J. Jakob Berzelius: Textbook of Chemistry. Volume 1 (5th edition 1856), German
• J. Jakob Berzelius: Textbook of Chemistry.  - Internet Archive , Volume 2.1. (1st edition 1826), translated by F. Wöhler
• J. Jakob Berzelius: Textbook of Chemistry.  - Internet Archive , Volume 2.2. (1st edition 1826), translated by F. Wöhler
• J. Jakob Berzelius: Textbook of Chemistry. Volume 2 (5th edition 1856), German
• J. Jakob Berzelius: Textbook of Chemistry. Volume 3.1 (1st edition 1827), translated by F. Wöhler
• J. Jakob Berzelius: Textbook of Chemistry. Volume 3.2 (1st edition 1828), translated by F. Wöhler
• J. Jakob Berzelius: Textbook of Chemistry. Volume 3 (5th edition 1856), German
• J. Jakob Berzelius: Textbook of Chemistry. Volume 4.1 - Thierchemie (1st edition 1831), translated by F. Wöhler
• J. Jakob Berzelius: Textbook of Chemistry. Volume 4.2 - Chemical operations and equipment (1st edition 1831), translated by F. Wöhler
• J. Jakob Berzelius: Textbook of Chemistry. Volume 4 (5th edition 1856), German
• J. Jakob Berzelius: Textbook of Chemistry. Volume 5 (5th edition 1856), German
• J. Jakob Berzelius: Textbook of Chemistry. Volume 6 (3rd edition 1837), translated by F. Wöhler
• J. Jakob Berzelius: Textbook of Chemistry. Volume 7 (4th edition 1838), translated by F. Wöhler
• J. Jakob Berzelius: Textbook of Chemistry.  - Internet Archive , Volume 8. (4th ed. 1839), translated by F. Wöhler
• J. Jakob Berzelius: Textbook of Chemistry. Volume 9 (4th ed. 1840), translated by F. Wöhler
• J. Jakob Berzelius: Textbook of Chemistry. Volume 10 (3rd edition 1841), translated by F. Wöhler
• J. Jakob Berzelius: Autobiographical records. In: Georg Kahlbaum (Ed.): Monographs from the history of chemistry. Issue 7, Barth, Leipzig 1903, ( archive.org ).

literature

• Berzelius, Jakob . In: Herman Hofberg, Frithiof Heurlin, Viktor Millqvist, Olof Rubenson (eds.): Svenskt biografiskt handlexikon . 2nd Edition. tape 1 : A-K . Albert Bonniers Verlag, Stockholm 1906, p. 85-86 (Swedish, runeberg.org ).
• Henry M. Leicester: Berzelius, Jöns Jacob . In: Charles Coulston Gillispie (Ed.): Dictionary of Scientific Biography . tape 2 : Hans Berger - Christoph Buys Ballot . Charles Scribner's Sons, New York 1970, p. 90-97 .
• Lothar Dunsch: Jöns Jacob Berzelius. Teubner 1986.
• Georg Lockemann: History of chemistry in a nutshell. 2. From the discovery of oxygen to the present day. Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin 1955, p. 29 ff.
• Paul Walden : On the 100th anniversary of Jöns Jakob Berzelius' death on August 7, 1948 . In: The natural sciences . 34, No. 11, 1947, pp. 321-327. doi : 10.1007 / BF00644137 .
• James E. Marshall, Virginia R. Marshall: Rediscovery of the Elements . Hexagon 2007, pp. 70-76.
• HG Söderbaum: Jacob Berzelius. Levnadsteckning, 3 volumes, Uppsala, 1929 to 1931 (standard biography, Swedish).
• HG Söderbaum: Berzelius Becoming and Growing 1779–1821. Leipzig, 1899.
• Wilhelm Prandtl: Humphry Davy, Jöns Jacob Berzelius. Stuttgart, 1948.
• J. Erik Jorpes: Jacob Berzelius, His Life and Work. Stockholm, Almqvist & Wiksell 1966, reprinted by University of California Press 1970.
• Arne Holmberg: Bibliografi över Berzelius. Volume 1, 1933, with Supplement 1 (1936) and 2 (1953), Volume 2, 1936, with Supplement 1 (1953), Uppsala / Stockholm, Royal Sweden. Akad. Wiss. (Directory of his publications).
• Olof Larsell (translator): Jöns Jacob Berzelius Autobiographical Notes. Baltimore, 1934.
• JR Partington: History of Chemistry. Volume 4, Macmillan 1964.

Web links

Wikisource: Jöns Jakob Berzelius  - Sources and full texts

Wikisource: Jöns Jacob Berzelius  - Sources and full texts (Latin)

Commons : Jöns Jakob Berzelius  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Jöns Jakob Berzelius in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about Jöns Jakob Berzelius  in the German Digital Library
• Article by / about Jöns Jakob Berzelius in the Polytechnisches Journal

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Berzelius comments on this in his autobiography, quoted in Dunsch, p. 31.
2. ↑ Information on the curriculum vitae based on Dunsch's biography
3. ↑ Tabular biography in German of the Theoretical Chemistry Genealogy Project, University of Hanover
4. ↑ Schweiggers Journal. Volume 6, 1812, p. 119, references to digital copies at Wikisource
5. ^ Klaus Koschel: The development and differentiation of the subject chemistry at the University of Würzburg. In: Peter Baumgart (Ed.): Four hundred years of the University of Würzburg. A commemorative publication. Degener & Co. (Gerhard Gessner), Neustadt an der Aisch 1982 (= sources and contributions to the history of the University of Würzburg. Volume 6), ISBN 3-7686-9062-8 , pp. 703–749; here: p. 714.
6. ^ William R. Denslow, Harry S. Truman: 10,000 Famous Freemasons from A to J, Part One. Kessinger Publishing, ISBN 1-4179-7578-4 .
7. ^ Entry on Berzelius; Jons Jakob (1779–1848) in the Archives of the Royal Society , London
8. ^ Members of the previous academies. Johann Jakob, Baron Berzelius. Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities , accessed on February 21, 2015 . 
9. ↑ Member entry of Jöns von Berzelius (with picture) at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on February 8, 2016.
10. ↑ Member entry by Jöns Jakob Freiherr von Berzelius at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences , accessed on January 3, 2017.
11. ↑ Member History: JJ Berzelius. American Philosophical Society, accessed May 1, 2018 . 
12. ^ Biographical Index: Former RSE Fellows 1783–2002. Royal Society of Edinburgh, accessed October 9, 2019 . 
13. ↑ 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, Vol. 246 = Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematical-Physical Class. Episode 3, vol. 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 38.
14. ^ Orden Pour le Mérite for sciences and arts (ed.): The members of the order . tape 1: 1842-1881 . Gebr. Mann Verlag, Berlin 1975, ISBN 3-7861-6189-5 ( orden-pourlemerite.de [PDF; accessed on September 18, 2011]).
15. ↑ Lotte Burkhardt: Directory of eponymous plant names - Extended Edition. Part I and II. Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin , Freie Universität Berlin , Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-946292-26-5 doi: 10.3372 / epolist2018 .