Johan Gottschalk Wallerius
Johan Gottschalk Wallerius (born July 11, 1709 in Stora Mellösa , Närke ; † November 16, 1785 in Uppsala ) was a Swedish chemist , metallurgist and mineralogist .
Live and act
Wallerius began studying mathematics , physics and medicine at Uppsala University in 1725 . 1731 he became the philosophical master doctorate. He continued his medical training in Lund , where he became an adjunct in 1732 and a doctor of medicine in 1735 .
Wallerius was the first to receive the newly established chair for chemistry , metallurgy and pharmacy at Uppsala University in 1749 . Two years later, he coined the now established conceptual distinction between the sciences in a pure and an applied form. Due to an illness he had to give up the chair in 1767. In relation to chemistry, he created the pair of terms chemia pura and chemia applicata . In doing so, he succeeded in taking an important step towards upgrading chemistry, which had hitherto been derogatory as “purely craftsmanship” and “dirty”, both at the university and socially.
The historical significance of this distinction only becomes clear against the background of the social upheavals during the Enlightenment , in which the old, purely spiritual ideal of science gave way to a new, bourgeois concept of science. The idea of a practical science was more compatible with the new, rational ideas of “active progress” and the public utility of knowledge than the sharp separation of pure science and art that had been customary up to then. Wallerius thus played a major role in the solution of the methodological dispute in the 18th century over the new legitimation of the sciences.
As the owner of a country estate near Alsike , in today's municipality of Knivsta , he was intensively involved in agriculture . His statistical work Observationer vid åkerbruket gjorda i 30 år (“Observations in agriculture carried out over 30 years”, 1747–1777) with tables on sowing time, harvest time and yield explained his success, although some farms in the area also recorded bad harvests.
Wallerius was a member of the Swedish Academy of Sciences (since 1750), the Society of Sciences in Uppsala (since 1763) and the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg (since 1776). In 1748 he became a member of the Leopoldina . In 1756 he was rector of Uppsala University.
Crystal classes
Based on the classification of biological systems by Carl von Linné , Wallerius established a system for the inanimate world in his work Mineralogia in 1747 . There were four main classes: earth , stones , minerals and concretions . These classes can then be further subdivided. This classification system, based on rudimentary chemical knowledge, was widespread in collections and museums. It was later replaced by René-Just Haüy's system , which is based on the symmetry of crystals.
Other works (selection)
- Mineralogia, eller mineralriket indelt och beskrifvet , 1747
- Agriculturæ fundamenta chemica , 1761
- elementa metallurgiae speciatim chemicae, 1770
- Tankar om verldenes i synnerhet jordenes danande och ändring , 1776
Individual evidence
- ^ Foreign members of the Russian Academy of Sciences since 1724. Johan Gottschalk Wallerius. Russian Academy of Sciences, accessed August 9, 2015 (in Russian).
- ↑ Member entry by Johan Gottschalk Waller at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on February 2, 2016.
- ↑ Michel Delon: Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment . Routledge, New York 2013, ISBN 978-1-57958-246-3 , pp. 835 .
- ↑ Teylers Museum: Het verdwenen museum . V + K Publishing, Blaricum 2002, ISBN 90-74265-42-1 , pp. 10 .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Wallerius, Johan Gottschalk |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Swedish chemist and mineralogist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 11, 1709 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Stora Mellösa , Narke , Sweden |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 16, 1785 |
| Place of death | Uppsala , Sweden |