Sophus Mads Jørgensen

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Sophus Mads Jørgensen

Sophus Mads Jørgensen (born July 4, 1837 in Slagelse , Zealand , † April 1, 1914 in Copenhagen ) was a Danish chemist.

Life

He was the son of a master tailor and studied chemistry in Copenhagen from 1857 with a master’s degree in 1863 and a doctorate in 1869. He was then an assistant at the university and from 1867 he taught chemistry at the Polytechnic. In 1871 he became a lecturer at the university and in 1887 professor of chemistry (retroactively since 1871). In 1908 he retired.

He mainly dealt with complex chemistry , especially those made of ammonia with metals (cobalt, chromium, rhodium, platinum), later complex compounds with water and nitrogen oxides. His extensive experiments provided the basis for the theory of complex compounds developed by the Nobel Prize winner Alfred Werner . Jørgensen was initially skeptical about this and debated with Werner, but recognized it from 1909.

He wrote several textbooks and trained many Danish chemists (such as Søren Sørensen , Niels Janniksen Bjerrum ).

From 1885 he was on the council of the Carlsberg Foundation, from 1874 member of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences (and 1899 its chairman) and from 1882 member of the Royal Physiographical Society in Lund and from 1899 member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences . In 1906 he received the Lavoisier and Berthelot Medal of the Académie des sciences and he was commander of the first degree of the Order of Dannebrog .

He worked on Gmelin's Handbook of Inorganic Chemistry . This also reflected his extensive knowledge in other areas of chemistry. He was also known for his accuracy and conscientiousness. He held various official positions in Denmark (sugar commission, pharmacopoeia commission, plaster commission (for obtaining plaster casts in museums), adviser to customs).

literature

  • Entry in Winfried Pötsch, Annelore Fischer, Wolfgang Müller: Lexicon of important chemists . Harri Deutsch 1989
  • George B. Kauffman: Sophus Mads Jørgensen, A Danish platinum metals pioneer . In: Platinum Metals Review , Volume 36, 1992, pp. 217-223.
  • George B. Kauffman: Sophus Mads Jørgensen and the Werner-Jørgensen Controversy . In: Chymia , Volume 6, 1960, pp. 180-204.
  • George B. Kauffman: Sophus Mads Jorgensen (1837-1914): A chapter in coordination chemistry history . In: Journal of Chemical Education , Volume 36, 1959, p. 521.
  • George B. Kauffman: Christian Wilhelm Blomstrand (1826-1897) and Sophus Mads Jørgensen (1837-1914). Their Correspondence from 1870 to 1897 . In: Centaurus , Volume 21, 1977, p. 44.
  • Helge Kragh : SM Jørgensen and his controversy with A. Werner: a reconsideration . In: British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 30, 1997, pp. 203-219.

Remarks

  1. 1869 a textbook of quantitative inorganic analysis, a textbook of organic chemistry (1880, 1906), a small textbook of inorganic chemistry (1888) and basics of chemistry (1902, 1913) (all in Danish)
  2. Sophus Mads Jørgensen . In: Theodor Westrin (Ed.): Nordisk familjebok konversationslexikon och realencyklopedi . 2nd Edition. tape 13 : Johan – Kikare . Nordisk familjeboks förlag, Stockholm 1910, Sp. 497 (Swedish, runeberg.org ).