BOYLE, Robert (1627-1691) Irish physicist and chemist

Boyle was clever at experiments to show that everything is made of atoms. In 1661, he defined an element as ´any material that contains only one kind of atom´. He also worked with gases and liquids. In 1662, his assistant, R.Towneley, discovered the relationship between the volume of a gas and its pressure. This became known as Boyle´s law.

Mikhail (Mikhaylo) Vasilyevich Lomonosov (1711–1765) was a Russianpolymath, scientist and writer, who made important contributions to literature, education, and science. Among his discoveries was the atmosphere of Venus. His spheres of science were natural science, chemistry, physics, mineralogy, history, art, philology, optical devices and others. Lomonosov was also a poet, who created the basis of the modern Russian literary language.

Henry Cavendish (1731 – 1810) was a Britishscientist noted for his discovery of hydrogen or what he called "inflammable air". He described the density of inflammable air, which formed water on combustion, in a 1766 paper "On Factitious Airs". Antoine Lavoisier later reproduced Cavendish's experiment and gave the element its name. Cavendish is also known for the Cavendish experiment, his measurement of the Earth's density, and early research into electricity.

LAVOISIER, Antoine Laurent (1743-1794) French chemist

His experiments were some of the first proper chemical experiments involving careful measurements. For example, in chemical reactions he carefully weighed reactants and products. This was an important advance over the work of earlier chemists.

Working with his wife Marie-Anne,( She was well educated and translated documents and illustrated his scientific texts with great skill) Lavoisier showed that the quantity of matter is the same at the end as at the beginning of every chemical reaction. Working with other French chemists, Lavoisier invented a system of chemical names which described the structure of chemical compounds. Many of these names are still in use, including names such as sulfuric acid and sulfates.

Lavoisier studied burning. He proved that when a material burns, it combines with a gas he named „oxygine“ but we call it oxygen. He showed that when hydrogen is burnt, it combines with oxygen to form water. He also discovered that animals use up oxygen according to their degree of activity. This led to the study of metabolism in humans.

Dalton John, (1766 – 1844) was an Englishchemist, meteorologist and physicist.

He was born in the Lake District in England. His father was a weaver who taught John at home before sending him to school. John was amazingly clever- by the time he was 12 he was teaching other children. He was interested in almost everything. He made observations of the weather as well as being the first person to study colour-blindness. He was colour-blind himself. (His theory of colour blindness proved incorrect)

But Dalton is best-remembered for his ideas about chemistry- and in particular his theories about atoms. As a result of a great deal of work, Dalton suggested that:

  • All matter is made up of invisible particles called atoms.
  • Atoms of the same element are similar in mass and shape but different from the atoms of other elements.
  • Atoms cannot be created or destroyed.
  • Atoms join together to form compound atoms (what we would now called molecules) in simple ratios.

Dalton´s statements were backed up with much research, even though not all of it was accurate. For example, he insisted that one hydrogen atom combined with one oxygen atom to form water. However, most of his research reflected the same results as other scientists of the time were getting.

Dalton´s atomic theory explained much of what scientists were seeing, and so his idea of atoms was accepted relatively quickly and became the basis of much of the chemistry done in the rest of the 19th and early 20th centuries.

FARADAY, Michael (1791-1867)English physicist and chemist

He came from very humble beginnings, but his work on electricity and chemistry still affects our lives today. His achievements were acknowledged when his portrait was included on the £20 note in 1991.

Faraday taught himself science while working as a bookbinder. Later, he assisted Humphry Davy. In 1831, he discovered that moving a wire through a magnetic field produces electricity. This is called electromagnetic induction and Faraday used it to make the first dynamo- a device that generates electricity.After much work on electricity, Faraday turned his attention to electrolysis. He produced an explanation of what happens when we use an electric current to split up a chemical compound. Not only did Faraday explain what happens, he also introduced the words we still use today- electrolysis, electrolyte and electrode.He developed theories of electrical and mechanical energy, corrosion, batteries, and electrometallurgy.

Liebig, J. von (1803-1873) investigated photosynthesis reaction and soil chemistry. First proposed use of fertilizers. Discovered chloroform and cyanogen compounds.

PASTEUR, LOUIS, (1822-1895)a French chemist and bacteriologist. Pasteur established that microorganisms reproduce and cause decay. He also discovered that moderate heating kills bacteria in milk. This is now called pasteurisation(heat-sterilization of wine and milk). Pasteur knew that other people had found ways to vaccinate people against a terrible disease called smallpox. He developed injections using weakened germs to protect people and animals against other disease such as anthrax and rabies.

Nobel, Alfred (1833-1896) invented dynamite, smokeless powder, and blasting gelatin. Established international awards for achievements in chemistry, physics, and medicine (Nobel Prize).

MendeleyevDmitri Ivanovich, (1834– 1907), was a Russian chemist and inventor. Mendeleyev arranged all the known chemical elements as a table. He positioned them in the order of increasing atomic weight. For the table to make sense, Mendeleyev left spaces and predicted that elements would be discovered to fill the gaps. He was right. Today, the Periodic Table is plotted in the order of atomic number rather than weight.

Carl Wilhelm Scheele(1742 – 1786) was a German-Swedish pharmaceutical chemist. Isaac Asimov called him "hard-luck Scheele" because he made a number of chemical discoveries before others who are generally given the credit. For example, Scheele discovered oxygen (although Joseph Priestley published his findings first), and identified molybdenum, tungsten, barium, and chlorine before Humphry Davy.

CurieMarie, (1867 –1934) was a Polish-born Frenchphysicist and chemist famous for her work on radioactivity.She was a pioneer in the field of radioactivity and the first person honored with two Nobel Prizes—in physics and chemistry. She was also the first female professor at the University of Paris.

She was born Maria Skłodowska in Warsaw in Poland and lived there until she was twenty-four. In 1891 she followed her older sister to study in Paris, where she obtained her higher degrees and conducted her subsequent scientific work. She founded the Curie Institutes in Paris and Warsaw. Her husband Pierre Curie shared her Nobel Prize in physics. Her daughter Irène Joliot-Curie and son-in-law, Frédéric Joliot-Curie, also shared a Nobel Prize. She was the sole winner of the 1911 Nobel Prize for Chemistry. Curie was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, and she is the only woman to win the award in two different fields.

Her achievements include the creation of a theory of radioactivity), techniques for isolating radioactive isotopes, and the discovery of two new elements, polonium and radium. Under her direction, the world's first studies were conducted into the treatment of neoplasms (cancers) using radioactive isotopes.

While an actively loyal French citizen, she never lost her sense of Polish identity. She named the first new chemical element that she discovered polonium (1898) for her native country, and in 1932 she founded a Radium Institute (now the Maria Skłodowska–Curie Institute of Oncology) in her home town, Warsaw, headed by her physician sister Bronisława.

HahnOtto,(1879 – 1968) was a Germanchemist and Nobel laureate who pioneered the fields of radioactivity and radiochemistry. He is regarded as "the father of nuclear chemistry" and the "founder of the atomic age". Hahn was a courageous opposer of Jewish persecution by the Nazis and after World War II he became a passionate campaigner against the use of nuclear energy as a weapon

Roentgen, W.K. (1845-1923)discovered x-radiation (1895). Nobel Prize in 1901.

Lord Kelvin (1838)described the absolute zero point of temperature. Stated the second law of thermodynamics

Becquerel, H. (1851-1908)discovered radioactivity of uranium (1896) and deflection of electrons by magnetic fields and gamma rays. Nobel Prize in 1903 (with the Curies).

Arrhenius, Svante (1859-1927)researched rates of reaction versus temperature (Arrhenius equation) and electrolytic dissociation. Nobel Prize in 1903.

Rutherford, Sir Ernest (1871-1937)was responsible for producing the evidence that completely changed our ideas about the structure of atoms. He was born and educated in New Zealand. Later he worked and studied in England and Canada. discovered that uranium radiation is composed of positively charged 'alpha' particles and negatively charged 'beta' particles . First to prove radioactive decay of heavy elements and to perform a transmutation reaction (1919). Discovered half-life of radioactive elements. He showed that the structure of the atom consists of a tiny positively charged nucleus that makes up nearly all of the mass of the atom. The nucleus is surrounded by a vast space which contains the electrons- but most of the atom is simply empty space. Rutherford received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1908.

Lewis, Gilbert N. (1875-1946)proposed electron-pair theory of acids and bases.

Fleming, Sir Alexander (1881-1955) discovered the antibiotic penicillin (1928). Nobel Prize in 1945.

Chadwick, Sir James (1891-1974)Discovered the neutron (1932). Nobel Prize in 1935.

Roentgen, Wilhelm (1895 – 1923))discovered that certain chemicals near a cathode ray tube glowed. Found highly-penetrating rays that were not deflected by a magnetic field, which he named 'x-rays'.

CZECH CHEMISTS

PreslJan Svatopluk, (1791–1849) was a Bohemian natural scientist. He is the author of Czech scientific terminology of various branches of science, including the Czech chemical nomenclature.

Votoček Emil, (1862 – 1950)was a chemist, composer and music theorist. He is noted for his chemistry textbooks and multilingual dictionaries in both chemistry and music.

Votoček studied at the Czech Institute of Technology later in Mulhouse and received his PhD with Bernhard Tollens at the University of Göttingen for his chemistry of sugar.

In 1895 he returned to the Czech Institute of Technology where he became lecturer and professor in 1907. His academic career ended with the closure of the institute by the Nazis in 1939. He held six honorary doctorates and was an honorary member of various corporations and societies.

HeyrovskýJaroslav, (1890 –1967) was a Czech chemist and inventor. Heyrovský was the inventor of the polarographic method, father of the electroanalytical method, and recipient of the Nobel Prize in 1959. His main field of work was polarography.

WichterleOtto, (1913 -1998) was best known for his invention of modern contact lenses.After finishing high school, Wichterle chose science for his career and began to study at the Chemical and Technological Faculty of the Czech Technical University (now the independent Institute of Chemical Technology in Prague). He graduated in 1936 and stayed at the university until further activity was blocked by the Protectorate regime in 1939. However, Wichterle was able to join the research institute at Baťa's works in Zlín and continue his scientific work. There he led the technical preparation of plastics, namely polyamide and caprolactam. In 1941, Wichterle's team invented the procedure to throw and spool polyamide thread thus making the first Czechoslovaksynthetic fiber under the name silon (the invention came independently of the original American nylon procedure in 1938). Wichterle was imprisoned by the Gestapo in 1942 but was released after a few months.After World War II, Wichterle returned to the university, specializing in organic chemistry and was active in teaching and writing a textbook of organic chemistry. In 1953 he became the chief of the new Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. In the institute, he planned to continue his research on the polymerization of lactams and on the use of thinly cross-linking hydrogels that he had patented earlier. As the institute was only being constructed at that time, Wichterle carried out the first experiments at home. By late 1961 he succeeded in producing the first four hydrogel contact lenses on a home-made apparatus built using a children's building kit (Merkur). Thus, he invented a new way of manufacturing the lenses using a centrifugal casting procedure. The Academy, without Wichterle's knowledge, sold the patent rights to the United States National Patent Development Corporation. Actual mass production of contact lenses took place mostly abroad, mainly in the United States.In 1970, Wichterle was expelled from his position in the institute, this time for signing "The Two Thousand Words" — a manifesto asking for the continuation of the democratization process begun in 1968 during the Prague Spring. Punishment by the regime included removing him from his executive positions and making his research more and more difficult mainly by cutting off contacts from abroad and limiting his teaching opportunities. Full recognition did not come until the Velvet Revolution in 1989. In 1990, he was made president of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences.The asteroid number 3899 was named after Wichterle in 1993

HolýAntonín,(1936). Since 1976 he has cooperated on the development of important antiretroviral drugsused in thetreatment of HIV and hepatitis B. He was involved in the creation of the most effective drug (as of early 2009) in the treatment of AIDS. Antonín Holý is the author of more than 400 scientific discoveries and holds 60 patents. In 2008 he received an Honorary Professorship at the University of Manchester's School of Chemistry.Several antiretroviral drugs based on Holý's discoveries have been licensed.Born in Prague, Czechoslovakia, Antonín Holý studied organic chemistry from 1954 to 1959 at the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics of Charles University in Prague. From 1960 he trained at the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry (IOCB) of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences in Prague and has been a researcher there since 1963. He became the Institute's lead scientist in 1967, and from 1983 headed its working group for nucleic acids. In 1987 he became chief of the Department of Nucleid Acid Chemistry and from 1994 to 2002 he was head of the IOCB.

ŠormFrantišek,(1913 -1980) was a chemist known for synthesis of natural compounds, mainly terpenesand biologically active components of plants. Šorm was the founder of the Institute for Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences.Šorm studied at the Faculty of Chemistry of the Czech Technical University (later Institute of Chemical Technology, VŠCHT) absolving the studies in 1936. During the war Šorm worked in a chemical laboratory. After the war he returned to the university and in 1946 was named professor at the VŠCHT. In 1950 Šorm was named professor of organic chemistry at the Charles University in Prague.In 1952 Šorm became the director of the Institute for Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry, part of the newly established Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, and General Secretary of the Academy. In 1968 he supported the reform politics of Prague Spring. After the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia (which he protested against) Šorm was removed from his administrative positions, was forbidden to attend conferences abroad and was, at age of 60, forced into early retirement. Later he lived in seclusion and died of heart attack.

Šorm was the author or co-author of a large number of scientific publications and patents and was highly cited. He also co-authored several chemistry textbooks.

1