The Most Influential People Across History
Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines
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List of the most influential people in Chemistry,
#6001
Otto Linné Erdmann
1804 - 1869 (65 years)
Otto Linné Erdmann was a German chemist. He was the son of Karl Gottfried Erdmann, the physician who introduced vaccination into Saxony. He was born in Dresden on 11 April 1804. In 1820 he began to attend the medico-chirurgical academy of his native place, and in 1822 he entered the University of Leipzig, where in 1827 he became an associate professor, and in 1830 a full professor of chemistry. This office he held until his death, which happened at Leipzig on 9 October 1869.
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Charles Loring Jackson
1845 - 1935 (90 years)
Charles Loring Jackson was the first significant organic chemist in the United States. He brought organic chemistry to the United States from Germany and educated a generation of American organic chemists.
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Theodor Förster
1910 - 1974 (64 years)
Theodor Förster was a German physical chemist known for theoretical work on light-matter interaction in molecular systems such as fluorescence and resonant energy transfer. Education and career Förster studied at the University of Frankfurt and received his Ph.D. at the age of only 23 under Erwin Madelung in 1933. In the same year he joined the Nazi Party and the SA. He then joined Karl-Friedrich Bonhoeffer as a research assistant at the Leipzig University, where he worked closely with Peter Debye, Werner Heisenberg, and Hans Kautzky. Förster obtained his habilitation in 1940 and became a lecturer at the Leipzig University.
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Cornelis Adriaan Lobry van Troostenburg de Bruyn
1857 - 1904 (47 years)
Cornelis Adriaan Lobry van Troostenburg de Bruyn was a chemist from the Netherlands. Biography De Bruyn was born on in Leeuwarden, where his father, Nicholaas Lobry van Troostenburg de Bruyn, was a physician in practice. The boy was in due time sent to the high school of the town , and subsequently for a year to a gymnasium. In 1875, he entered the University of Leiden, and in 1883, while acting as assistant to Professor Franchimont, he produced his dissertation and obtained his doctorate. The subject of this thesis was the interaction of the three dinitrobenzenes with potassium cyanide in al...
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Ernest Fourneau
1872 - 1949 (77 years)
Ernest Fourneau was a French pharmacist who graduated in 1898 for the Paris university specialist in medicinal chemistry and pharmacology. He played a major role in the discovery of synthetic local anesthetics such as amylocaine, as well as in the synthesis of suramin. He authored more than two hundred scholarly works, and has been described as having "helped to establish the fundamental laws of chemotherapy that have saved so many human lives".
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Raluca Ripan
1894 - 1972 (78 years)
Raluca Ripan was a Romanian chemist, and a titular member of the Romanian Academy. She wrote many treatises, especially in the field of analytical chemistry. Biography She was born in Iași, in the Moldavia region of Romania; her parents were Constantin and Smaranda Ripan, both originally from Huși. She attended the local girl's high school, after which she enrolled in the Faculty of Science of the University of Iași, graduating in 1919. For her graduate studies she went to the University of Cluj in Transylvania, obtaining her PhD in 1922 under the direction of Gheorghe Spacu, with thesis "Double amines corresponding to double sulphates in the magnesium series".
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Jan Czochralski
1885 - 1953 (68 years)
Jan Czochralski was a Polish chemist who invented the Czochralski method, which is used for growing single crystals and in the production of semiconductor wafers. It is still used in over 90 percent of all electronics in the world that use semiconductors. He is the most cited Polish scholar.
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Johann Wilhelm Ritter
1776 - 1810 (34 years)
Johann Wilhelm Ritter was a German chemist, physicist and philosopher. He was born in Samitz near Haynau in Silesia , and died in Munich. Life and work Johann Wilhelm Ritter's first involvement with science began when he was 14 years old. He became an apprentice to an apothecary in Liegnitz , and acquired a deep interest in chemistry. He began medicine studies at the University of Jena in 1796. A self-taught scientist, he made many experimental researches on chemistry, electricity and other fields.
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Johann Friedrich Gmelin
1748 - 1804 (56 years)
Johann Friedrich Gmelin was a German naturalist, chemist, botanist, entomologist, herpetologist, and malacologist. Education Johann Friedrich Gmelin was born as the eldest son of Philipp Friedrich Gmelin in 1748 in Tübingen. He studied medicine under his father at University of Tübingen and graduated with a Master's degree in 1768, with a thesis entitled: , defended under the presidency of Ferdinand Christoph Oetinger, whom he thanks with the words .
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Roland Scholl
1865 - 1945 (80 years)
Roland Heinrich Scholl was a Swiss chemist who taught at various European universities. Among his most notable achievements are the synthesis of coronene, the co-development of the Bally-Scholl synthesis, and various discoveries about polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.
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Lawrence O. Brockway
1907 - 1979 (72 years)
Lawrence Olin Brockway was a physical chemist who spent most of his career at the University of Michigan, where he developed early methods for electron diffraction. Early life and education Brockway was born on September 23, 1907, in Topeka, Kansas. He attended the University of Nebraska and received his B.S. in 1929 and his M.S. a year later. He then moved to the California Institute of Technology, where he was one of the first graduate students of Linus Pauling. He and Pauling were interested in the physics of interatomic interactions and focused their efforts on the structure of chalcopyri...
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Wilhelm Biltz
1877 - 1943 (66 years)
Wilhelm Biltz was a German chemist and scientific editor. In addition to his scholarly work, Biltz is noted for commanding the principal German tank involved in the first ever tank-on-tank battle in history at the Second Battle of Villers-Bretonneux.
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John Ulric Nef
1862 - 1915 (53 years)
John Ulric Nef was a Swiss-born American chemist and the discoverer of the Nef reaction and Nef synthesis. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences.
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Heinrich Limpricht
1827 - 1909 (82 years)
Heinrich Limpricht was a German chemist. Limpricht was a pupil of Friedrich Wöhler; he worked on the chemistry of furans and pyrroles, discovering furan in 1870. In 1852 he became lecturer and in 1855 extraordinary professor at the University of Göttingen. In 1860, he became ordinary professor at the Institute for Organic Chemistry at the University of Greifswald. His oldest daughter Marie married in 1875 to Protestant theologian Julius Wellhausen.
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Fritz Feigl
1891 - 1971 (80 years)
Fritz Feigl was a Jewish Austrian-born chemist. He taught at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. Biography Feigl was born and studied in Vienna, but owing to his military service in the First World War he had to interrupt his studies. He received his Ph.D. for work with Wilhelm Schlenk in 1920. After his habilitation in 1928 he became a professor at the University of Vienna. He was forced to retire after the Nazi occupation of Austria in 1938.
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Samuel William Johnson
1830 - 1909 (79 years)
Samuel William Johnson was an American agricultural chemist. He promoted the movement to bring the sciences to the aid of American farmers through agricultural experiment stations and education in agricultural science.
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Donald L. Katz
1907 - 1989 (82 years)
Donald Laverne Katz was an American chemist and chemical engineer. The 1983 National Medal of Science was presented to Katz by President Ronald Reagan "for solving many practical engineering problems by delving into a wide group of sciences and making their synergistic effects evident." Katz was also noted for developing a hazard rating system for dangerous bulk cargoes. The New York Times called Katz an "oil expert". The National Academy of Engineering called him a "world leader" in reservoir engineering.
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Heinrich Hörlein
1882 - 1954 (72 years)
Philipp Heinrich Hörlein , was a German entrepreneur, scientist, lecturer, and Nazi Wehrwirtschaftsführer. He was tried for war crimes for his involvement in the Holocaust and his knowledge of medical experimentation on concentration camp prisoners, but he was ultimately acquitted and released.
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Alfred Wohl
1863 - 1939 (76 years)
Alfred Wohl was a German chemist. Several chemical reactions are named after him, including the Wohl degradation, Wohl-Aue reaction and the Wohl-Ziegler reaction. Life Wohl studied chemistry at the University of Heidelberg from 1882 until 1886. He received his Ph.D 1886 for work on Hexamethylenetetramine with August Wilhelm von Hofmann. He became an assistant of Hermann Emil Fischer at the University of Berlin from 1886 until 1891, where he also received his habilitation. He became professor at the University of Berlin in 1901, but he left for the Technical University of Danzig in 1904. He retired because of antisemitic pressure in 1933, but worked in his lab until 1937.
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Friedrich Hoffmann
1660 - 1742 (82 years)
Friedrich Hoffmann or Hofmann was a German physician and chemist. He is also sometimes known in English as Frederick Hoffmann. Life His family had been connected with medicine for 200 years before him. Born in Halle, he attended the local gymnasium where he acquired that taste for and skill in mathematics to which he attributed much of his later success. Beginning at age 18, he studied medicine at the University of Jena. From there, in 1680, he went to Erfurt, to attend Kasper Cramer's lectures on chemistry. Next year, returning to Jena, he received his doctor's diploma, and, after publishing a thesis, was permitted to teach.
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Sergey Nametkin
1876 - 1950 (74 years)
Sergey Semyonovich Nametkin was a Soviet and Russian organic chemist, a prominent researcher in terpene chemistry, the cracking of petrochemicals, and rearrangement of camphenes. Biography Nametkin was born in Kazan and orphaned at an early age. He was educated at a gymnasium in Moscow, after which he earned a living as a private tutor. He studied chemistry and became a lecturer in organic chemistry at the Moscow University but quit in 1911 to oppose the policies of L.A. Kasso. He then studied under N.D. Zelinsky, and received a doctorate in 1917. In 1927 he went to the Moscow Mining Academy ...
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Paul Schlack
1897 - 1987 (90 years)
Paul Schlack was a German chemist. He completed his studies at the Technical University of Stuttgart in 1921 and worked as a research chemist in Copenhagen for a year, before returning to Stuttgart. He received his PhD in 1924. Around this time he developed a keen interest in amide chemistry. He synthesized Nylon 6, widely known by its tradename Perlon, on 29 January 1938 whilst working for IG Farben.
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Ivan Ostromislensky
1880 - 1939 (59 years)
Ivan Ivanovich Ostromislensky was a Russian organic chemist. He is credited as the pioneer in studying polymerization of synthetic rubber as well as inventor of various industrial technologies for production of synthetic rubber, polymers and pharmaceuticals.
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Hermann Wilhelm Vogel
1834 - 1898 (64 years)
Hermann Wilhelm Vogel was a German photochemist and photographer who discovered dye sensitization, which is of great importance to photography. Academic career After finishing school in Frankfurt , he studied at the Royal Industrial Institute of Berlin, earning his Ph.D. with Karl Friedrich August Rammelsberg in 1863. Vogel's thesis, which was published in Poggendorffs Annalen , had the title: Über das Verhalten des Chlorsilbers, Bromsilbers und Iodsilbers im Licht und die Theorie der Photographie . This marked the beginning of his research into the photographic process.
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Johann Friedrich August Göttling
1755 - 1809 (54 years)
Johann Friedrich August Göttling was a notable German chemist. Gottling developed and sold chemical assay kits and studied processes for extracting sugar from beets to supplement his meagre university salary. He studied the chemistry of sulphur, arsenic, phosphorus, and mercury. He wrote texts on analytical chemistry and studied oxidation of organic compounds by nitric acid. He was one of the first scientists in Germany to take a stand against the phlogiston hypothesis and be in favor of the new chemistry of Lavoisier.
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Aleksei Chichibabin
1871 - 1945 (74 years)
Alekséy Yevgényevich Chichibábin was a Soviet/Russian organic chemist, born , Kuzemin village, current Sumy Oblast, Ukraine, died in Paris, France, 15 August 1945. His name is also written Alexei Yevgenievich Chichibabin and Alexei Euguenievich Tchitchibabine.
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Adolf Pinner
1842 - 1909 (67 years)
Adolf Pinner was a German chemist. Early life and education He was educated at the Jewish Theological Seminary at Breslau and at the University of Berlin . In 1871, he became privat-docent at the University of Berlin. In 1873, he became assistant professor of chemistry at the University of Berlin, and in 1874 professor of chemistry at the veterinary college of that city. In 1884, he was appointed a member of the German patent office, and in the following year, of the technical division of the Prussian Department of Commerce. He has received the title "Geheimer Regierungsrat".
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Adolf Miethe
1862 - 1927 (65 years)
Adolf Miethe was a German scientist, lens designer, photochemist, photographer, author and educator. He co-invented the first practical photographic flash and made important contributions to the progress of practical color photography.
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Rudolf Brill
1899 - 1989 (90 years)
Rudolf Friedrich Heinrich Erhard Ernst Brill was a German chemist. Education and career Brill was born in Eschwege in 1899 as the son of a businessman. From 1918 to 1922, he studied chemistry at the Technical University of Berlin. On May 13, 1922, he earned the diploma in engineering here. On October 15, 1923, he was promoted to PhD with the dissertation title Röntgenographische Untersuchungen. Ein Beitrag zur chemischen Konstitution des Seidenfibroins. His supervisor was Reginald Oliver Herzog at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute.
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Carl Schmidt
1822 - 1894 (72 years)
Carl Ernst Heinrich Schmidt , also known in Russia as Karl Genrikhovich Schmidt , was a Baltic German chemist from the Governorate of Livonia, a part of the Russian Empire. Biography Schmidt received his PhD in 1844 from the University of Gießen under Justus von Liebig. In 1845, he first announced the presence in the test of some Ascidians of what he called "tunicine", a substance very similar to cellulose. Tunicine now is regarded as cellulose and correspondingly a remarkable substance to find in an animal.
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Heinrich Biltz
1865 - 1943 (78 years)
Heinrich Biltz was a German chemist and professor. Life and career Heinrich Biltz was the son of Karl Friedrich Biltz who was a literary scholar and theatre critic His brother Wilhelm Biltz was also a noted chemist.
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Thomas Andrews
1813 - 1885 (72 years)
Thomas Andrews FRS FRSE was an Irish chemist and physicist who did important work on phase transitions between gases and liquids. He was a longtime professor of chemistry at Queen's University of Belfast.
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Hans Hübner
1837 - 1884 (47 years)
Hans Hübner was a German chemist. He was the son of painter Julius Hübner . He studied chemistry at the University of Göttingen, receiving his doctorate in 1859 with a dissertation on acrolein. Following graduation, he continued his education at the University of Heidelberg with Robert Bunsen and at the University of Ghent under August Kekulé. In 1863 he obtained his habilitation at Göttingen, where from 1864 he worked as an assistant at the institute of chemistry under Friedrich Wöhler. In 1870 he became an associate professor, followed by a full professorship in 1874. In 1882 he succeeded W...
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Hermann Franz Moritz Kopp
1817 - 1892 (75 years)
Hermann Franz Moritz Kopp , German chemist, was born at Hanau, where his father, Johann Heinrich Kopp , a physician, was professor of chemistry, physics and natural history at the local lyceum. After attending the gymnasium of his native town, he studied at Marburg and Heidelberg, and then, attracted by the fame of Liebig, went in 1839 to Gießen, where he became a privatdozent in 1841, and professor of chemistry twelve years later. In 1864 he was called to Heidelberg in the same capacity, and he remained there until his death.
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Franz Sondheimer
1926 - 1981 (55 years)
Franz Sondheimer FRS was a German-born British professor of chemistry. In 1960, he was awarded the Israel Prize for his contributions to science. Biography Franz Sondheimer was born in Stuttgart on 17 May 1926, the second son of Max and Ida Sondheimer. His father ran the family glue manufacturing business. His elder brother, Ernst, was Professor of Mathematics at Westfield College. Having business connections in England, Max Sondheimer managed to get his family to London in September 1937. Sondheimer, knowing no English, began his schooling in England first at Southend and then at Hailey School in Bournemouth.
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Ernst Otto Beckmann
1853 - 1923 (70 years)
Ernst Otto Beckmann was a German pharmacist and chemist who is remembered for his invention of the Beckmann differential thermometer and for his discovery of the Beckmann rearrangement. Scientific work Ernst Otto Beckmann was born in Solingen, Germany on July 4, 1853, to a family headed by Johannes Friedrich Wilhelm Beckmann, a manufacturer. The elder Beckmann's factory produced mineral dyes, pigments, abrasives, and polishing material, and it was there that the younger Beckmann conducted his early chemical experiments. At the age of 17, Beckmann was persuaded by his father to study pharmacy instead of chemistry, and so in 1870 an apprenticeship was arranged in Elberfeld.
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Wilhelm Körner
1839 - 1925 (86 years)
Wilhelm Körner, later a.k.a. Guglielmo Körner , was a German chemist. Life Körner studied chemistry at Giessen, where he graduated in 1860. In 1866, he became assistant to Kekulé at Ghent. In 1867, when Kekulé was called to Bonn, Körner left Ghent for Palermo where entered the laboratory of Stanislao Cannizzaro, and occupied himself with the study of the aromatic compounds. Besides his work on aromatic compounds, his interest in botany led him to the study of many vegetable substances. In 1870, he accepted the chair of organic chemistry at "Scuola Superiore di Agricoltura" , where he retained ...
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Oscar Loew
1844 - 1941 (97 years)
Oscar Loew was a German agricultural chemist, active in Germany, the United States, and Japan in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Biography Loew was born in Marktredwitz, Bavaria, where his father was a pharmacist. He studied at the University of Munich under the noted chemist Justus von Liebig; he was Liebig's last student. Loew was an assistant in plant physiology at the City College of New York and participated in four expeditions to the southwestern United States in 1882 before returning to Munich, Germany, where he collaborated with Carl Nägeli. Loew became associate professor at Munich University in 1886.
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Thomas Edward Thorpe
1845 - 1925 (80 years)
Sir Thomas Edward Thorpe CB, FRS HFRSE LLD was a British chemist. From 1894 to 1909 he was Chief Chemist to the British Government, as Director of the Government Laboratory. Early life and education Thorpe was born at Barnes Green in Harpurhey, Manchester, the son of George Thorpe, a cotton merchant at Trafford Bank, and his wife Mary Wilde. He was educated at Hulme Grammar School.
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William C. Boyd
1903 - 1983 (80 years)
William Clouser Boyd was an American immunochemist. In the 1930s, with his wife Lyle, he made a worldwide survey of the distribution of blood types. Biography Born in Dearborn, Missouri, Boyd was educated at Harvard and Boston University. His career led to appointment as Professor of Immunochemistry at Boston University.
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Louis Camille Maillard
1878 - 1936 (58 years)
Louis Camille Maillard was a French physician and chemist. He made important contributions to the study of kidney disorders. He also became known for the "Maillard reaction", the chemical reaction which he described in 1912, by which amino acids and sugars react in foods via contact with fats, giving a browned, flavorful surface to everything from bread and seared steaks to toasted marshmallows.
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Nikolai Kurnakov
1860 - 1941 (81 years)
Nikolai Semyonovich Kurnakov was a Russian chemist, who is internationally recognized as the originator of physicochemical analysis. He also was one of the principal founders of the platinum industry in the Soviet Union. A chemical reaction that he pioneered, known as the Kurnakov test, is still used to differentiate cis from trans isomers of divalent platinum and is his best-known contribution to coordination chemistry.
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Percy F. Frankland
1858 - 1946 (88 years)
Percy Faraday Frankland CBE FRS was a British chemist. He was the second son and youngest child of Edward Frankland, chemist, and Sophie Fick, sister of Adolf Eugen Fick. He was born at 42 Park Road, Haverstock Hill, Hampstead, on 3 October 1858. Michael Faraday was his godfather.
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Vojtěch Šafařík
1829 - 1902 (73 years)
Vojtěch Šafařík was a Czech chemist, specialising in inorganic chemistry. Šafařík was the son of Pavel Jozef Šafárik, a Slovak philologist and historian. The crater Šafařík on the Moon is named after him, and so is the minor planet 8336 Šafařík .
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Umetaro Suzuki
1874 - 1943 (69 years)
was a Japanese scientist, born in what is now part of Makinohara, Shizuoka, Japan. He was a member of the Imperial Academy, and a recipient of the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Sacred Treasure and the Order of Culture. His research was among the earliest of modern vitamin research.
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Thomas Anderson
1819 - 1874 (55 years)
Thomas Anderson was a 19th-century Scottish chemist. In 1853 his work on alkaloids led him to discover the correct formula/composition for codeine. In 1868 he discovered pyridine and related organic compounds such as picoline through studies on the distillation of bone oil and other animal matter.
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Nikolai Shilov
1872 - 1930 (58 years)
Nikolai Alexandrovich Shilov was a Russian and Soviet chemist who studied reactions, catalysis, and induction. Shilov was born in Moscow and graduated in 1895 after which he worked in Leipzig in Wilhelm Ostwald's laboratory on chemical kinetics. In 1910 he became a professor of inorganic chemistry at the Moscow Technical College. During World War I he was involved with studies on gas warfare and developed along with N. D. Zelinsky charcoal adsorption masks for the protection of the Russian army. He studied oxidation reactions and introduced several terms including inductor, acceptor, and induction factor.
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Jędrzej Śniadecki
1768 - 1838 (70 years)
Jędrzej Śniadecki was a Polish writer, physician, chemist, biologist and philosopher. His achievements include being the first person who linked rickets to lack of sunlight. He also created modern Polish terminology in the field of chemistry.
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J. Norman Collie
1859 - 1942 (83 years)
Professor John Norman Collie FRSE FRS , commonly referred to as J. Norman Collie, was an English scientist, mountaineer and explorer. Life and work He was born in Alderley Edge, Cheshire, the second of four sons to John Collie and Selina Mary Winkworth. In 1870 the family moved to Clifton, near Bristol, and John was educated initially at Windlesham in Surrey and then in 1873 at Charterhouse School. The family money had been made in the cotton trade, but in 1875 the American Civil War resulted in their financial ruin when their American stock was burnt. Collie had to leave Charterhouse and transfer to Clifton College, Bristol where he realised he was completely unsuited for the classics.
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Victor Mordechai Goldschmidt
1853 - 1933 (80 years)
Victor Mordechai Goldschmidt was a German mineralogist, natural philosopher, and art collector. Life Born 1853 in Mainz, Goldschmidt attended the Bergakademie Freiberg in Saxony and graduated in engineering in 1874. He received his doctorate in 1880 in Heidelberg for his work on mechanical rock analysis and continued his studies in Vienna from 1882 to 1887. In 1888 he wrote his habilitation about "Projektion und graphische Krystallberechnung" under the same supervisor as his doctoral dissertation. He founded the Institut für Mineralogie und Kristallographie in Heidelberg in association wit...
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