Top 10 Most Famous Chemists of all time
During our more than two thousand year history, we have come a long way in science. For example, we no longer think that everything is made of water or fire, or that the human body is made up of only four things. The field of chemistry has contributed to this development, and it has given us some basic knowledge of the world. Not only that, chemistry has revolutionized the way we live. Top10theworld.com presents to you the Top 10 Most Famous Chemists of all time. Let’s watch together!
Marie Curie (1867 – 1934)
First in the Top 10 Most Famous Chemists of all time is chemist Marie Curie. Marie Curie is a Polish chemist and physicist. She was a pioneer in the study of radioactivity and was the first person to receive two Nobel Prizes in both chemistry and physics. Together with Henri Becquerel and her husband Pierre Curie, she was awarded the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics. She was the only person to receive the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1911 for the discovery of two chemical elements, radium and polonium. . She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, and she is the only woman to have won in two different fields.
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During World War I, Marie Curie, with the help of her daughter Irène, devoted herself to the development of the use of X-rays. One of Marie Curie’s outstanding achievements was understanding the need to accumulate high-intensity radioactive sources. A few months after this discovery, Marie Curie died of radiation-induced aplastic anemia. Marie Curie’s ashes are preserved in the Panthéon in Paris; She is the first woman to receive this honor for her own achievements. Her office and laboratory in the Curie Gallery of the Radium Institute are preserved as the Curie Museum. The application of two chemical elements, radium and polonium, in real life has been of great significance to help create a heat source to keep warm or suddenly generate heat. Besides, they are also raw materials for making batteries for electronic devices and for nuclear power production.
Louis Pasteur (1822 – 1895)
Louis Pasteur is the next famous chemist in the Top 10 Most Famous Chemists of all time, and he is also a French microbiologist who has made important contributions to medicine and chemistry. He was the first to invent vaccines against rabies and anthrax that helped reduce the mortality rate for many people. Louis Pasteur is famous for his discoveries on the principles of vaccination, microbial fermentation and pasteurization. His name is given to a string of institutes in countless languages. He studied the bacteriology of the French economy and cuisine, and wine, and was awarded a medal by Emperor Napoleon III for his efforts.
Louis Pasteur’s first step on the path to fame was the result of his work studying the crystallography of tartar, which led to advances in racemic acid research. Pasteur was so excited by his discovery that he rushed out of his laboratory, caught the first passerby and told him all about it. His most important discovery in the field of chemistry was the molecular basis for the asymmetry of certain crystals and racemization. His outstanding work was his work on souring milk and preserving milk by heating, laying the foundation for the science of bacteriology. Two important research works that have made a big impact are providing practical proofs of germ theory and discovering the effectiveness of attenuated vaccines in building resistance to infectious diseases.
John Dalton (1766 – 1844)
Next in the Top 10 Most Famous Chemists of all time is chemist John Dalton. John Dalton was an English meteorologist, chemist, and physicist who became famous for his contributions to atomic theory and the study of color blindness. Dalton gained practical knowledge in the construction and use of meteorological instruments and instruction in daily weather recording from amateur meteorologists in the Lake District. Dalton remained interested in meteorological measurements for the rest of his life.
In 1808, John Dalton proposed the atomic theory to explain the law of conservation of mass and the law of the proportions of substances in chemical reactions. By far Dalton’s most influential work in the field of chemistry was the atomic theory. All of his theories are based on the following five hypotheses:
o The first hypothesis states that all matter is made up of atoms.
o The second hypothesis is that atoms of the same element will have the same structure and properties.
o The third hypothesis is that atoms cannot be divided, created or destroyed.
o The fourth hypothesis is that atoms of different elements combine to form compounds.
o The fifth hypothesis is that in chemical reactions atoms can combine, split, or rearrange.
Mario Molina ( 1943 – 2020)
Mario Molina is a Mexican-American chemist who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1995 as one of three people who studied the formation and decomposition of the ozone layer. Mario Molina was the first to realize that chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) could destroy ozone. In 1974, he and Rowland identified CFCs capable of destroying the ozone layer. CFCs are used as refrigerants, aerosols, and plastic foamers. This is an important basis so that today’s refrigerators do not use this refrigerant.
Molina’s work is hypothetical based on computer modeling, but his results suggest that CFCs could theoretically destroy an oxygen compound called ozone under conditions that exist in the upper atmosphere. . According to Molina’s theory, the same photons from ultraviolet light that can break down oxygen molecules to produce oxygen atoms can also break down CFCs to release chlorine atoms, among the products. other. Over the next two decades, he and Molina became the voices warning the world about the dangers of CFCs and ozone depletion. They are not always noticed. The ban on CFCs in aerosols went into effect first in the United States in 1978 and later in Canada, Norway and Sweden.
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Mexico City is the case study for this project and is also home to the headquarters of Centro Mario Molina, which specializes in finding solutions to challenges related to climate change, sustainable development and energy use. effective quantity. Scientists, activists, politicians, and CFC production companies debated for years the merits of Molina’s theories. In 2013 Molina was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Barack Obama for his contributions as a “visionary chemist and environmental scientist”. When it comes to Top 10 Most Famous Chemists of all time, Mario Molina is indispensable.
Michael Faraday (1791 – 1867)
Michael Faraday is an English chemist and physicist who has made contributions in the fields of Electromagnetism and Electrochemistry. Faraday became one of the greatest scientists of the 19th century, starting his career as a chemist. He wrote a manual on practical chemistry that showed his mastery of the technical aspects of his art, discovered several new organic compounds, among them benzene, and was the first person to liquefy a “permanent” gas (i.e. a substance that is said to be incapable of liquefaction).
Michael Faraday’s major contributions were in the field of electricity and magnetism. He was the first to generate electric currents from the magnetic field, invented the first electric motor and dynamo, demonstrated the relationship between electricity and chemical bonding, discovered the effect of magnetism on light, detect and name magnetism, the special behavior of certain substances in strong magnetic fields. He provided the experiment and many theories, the foundation upon which James Clerk Maxwell built the classical electromagnetic field theory. In 1820, he produced the first known compounds of carbon and chlorine. These compounds are made by substituting chlorine for hydrogen in “olefin gas” (ethylene), the first substitution reaction produced. In 1825, as a result of his research on illuminating gases, Faraday isolated and described benzene. During the 1820s, he also conducted investigations into steel alloys, helping to lay the groundwork for metallurgical science and metallography. Because of his great contributions, he deserves to be named in the Top 10 Most Famous Chemists of all time.
Alfred Nobel (1833 – 1896)
Have you heard of the Nobel Prize? Yes, this award is named after chemist Alfred Nobel, one of the Top 10 Most Famous Chemists of all time. Alfred Nobel was born in Stockholm, Sweden, is a Swedish chemist, industrialist, inventor of dynamite and a millionaire. His family descended from Olof Rudbeck, Sweden’s most famous engineering genius in the 17th century, an era when Sweden was a great power in Northern Europe. He is the founder of the prestigious Nobel Prize for outstanding contributions of scientists around the world. Nobel was fluent in several languages, writing poetry and plays. Nobel was also very interested in issues related to society and peace, and had views that were considered radical in his day.
In 1863, Alfred Nobel invented a practical explosive device consisting of a wooden plug inserted into a larger quantity of nitroglycerin held in a metal box; the plug’s explosion of small charged black powder particles serves to detonate a much stronger charge of liquid nitroglycerin. This detonator marked the beginning of Nobel’s reputation as an inventor as well as as a maker of explosives. In 1865, Nobel invented an improved fuse known as the detonator cap; it consists of a small metal cap containing an electrically charged mercury fulminate which can be detonated by shock or moderate heat. The invention of the explosive caps opened the way for the modern use of high explosives.
Besides explosives, Nobel also made many other inventions, such as rayon and leather.
Rosalind Franklin (1920 – 1958)
The next person in the Top 10 Most Famous Chemists of all time is Rosalind Franklin. Rosalind Franklin was an English-Jewish chemist and biophysicist, best known for her contributions to the discovery of the molecular structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), a component of chromosomes used to code genetic information. Franklin also contributed new insights into the structure of viruses, helping to lay the groundwork for the field of structural virology. From 1947 to 1950, she worked with Jacques Mesring at the State Chemical Laboratory in Paris, researching X-ray diffraction technology. That work led to her research on structural changes. caused by the formation of graphite in heated carbons – work that has proven valuable to the coking industry.
In 1951, Franklin joined the Biophysics Laboratory at King’s College, London, as a Research Fellow. There she applied X-ray diffraction to study DNA. However, she soon discovered the density of DNA and, more importantly, determined that the molecule existed in a helical form. Her work to clarify X-ray patterns of DNA molecules laid the groundwork for James Watson and Francis Crick in 1953 suggesting that the structure of DNA is a double helix polymer, a spiral consisting of two DNA strands wrapped around each other. She collaborated on studies showing that the ribonucleic acid (RNA) in that virus is embedded in its protein, not in its central cavity, and that the RNA is a single helix, not a helix. are found in the DNA of viruses, bacteria and higher organisms.
Antoine Lavoisier (1743 – 1794)
Antoine Lavoisier was the famous French chemist in the Top 10 Most Famous Chemists of all time and a leading figure in the 18th century chemical revolution who developed an experimentally based theory of chemical reactions. the chemistry of oxygen and co-authored the modern system for naming chemicals. He made extremely important contributions in the field of chemistry such as finding the law of conservation of mass, in 1777 formulated the theory of the oxidation of substances. With those contributions, he is known as the father of modern chemistry.
Lavoisier began to pursue scientific research and in 1768 he was admitted to France’s leading natural philosophy society, the Academy of Sciences in Paris. Lavoisier believed that matter was neither created nor destroyed in chemical reactions, and in his experiments he sought to prove that this belief was not violated the assertion that mass is conservation in chemical reactions, an assumption made by Enlightenment researchers. It took Lavoisier many years and the considerable help of others to achieve this goal.
Ahmed Zewail (1946 – 2016)
Ahmed Zewail is an Egyptian-American chemist. In 1999, he won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for being a pioneer in the investigation and study of basic chemical reactions, using extremely short lasers on the time scale. time in which the reactions take place. He carried out his graduate work on new spectroscopy, including optically detected magnetic resonance, with Robin Hochstrasser at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. His postdoctoral work is on coherence in multidimensional systems and energy transfer in solids, with Charles B. Harris at the University of California, Berkeley.
Throughout the 1980s and most of the 1990s, Ahmed Zewail led his team to conduct experiments on ‘feminisation’ – his coinage to induce and monitor reactions using pulses. light lasts less than a picosecond (a millionth of a millionth of a second). This is the time of chemical reactions at the molecular level – the time of nuclear oscillations and motions. For this work, he became the only recipient of the 1999 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Before the advent of such ultrafast lasers in the 1970s, chemists’ idea of the dynamics of particles molecules in the excited state were very different from what they are today. With these great contributions, he was named in the Top 10 Most Famous Chemists of all time.
Dmitri Mendeleev (1834-1907)
Last in the Top 10 Most Famous Chemists of all time is the great chemist Mendeleev. Dmitri Mendeleev is a Russian chemist and inventor, he made a major turning point in the history of chemical research when he created the periodic table of chemical elements, thereby predicting the properties of unknown elements. detected. Funded by a government scholarship, he studied abroad for two years at the University of Heidelberg. Instead of working closely with prominent university chemists, including Robert Bunsen, Emil Erlenmeyer and August Kekulé, he set up a laboratory in his own apartment.
He also discovered the critical boiling point. Mendeleev found that, when all the chemical elements were arranged in order of increasing atomic mass, the resulting table displayed the periodicity or periodicity of the properties in the element groups. In his version of the periodic table in 1871, he left gaps in places where he believed unknown elements would find their place. He even predicted the possible properties of three of the potential elements. Subsequent evidence of his many predictions during his lifetime brought Mendeleev fame as the founder of the periodic law.
In conclusion, chemistry has been a vital field of study since ancient times, and it has contributed significantly to the development of our modern world. The top 10 most famous chemists on this list have made significant contributions to the field, and their discoveries have had a significant impact on society.
From Michael Faraday, who discovered benzen, to Marie Curie, who discovered radium and polonium, these chemists have paved the way for future generations to continue exploring and discovering the mysteries of the chemical world. Their achievements serve as an inspiration to aspiring chemists and scientists, reminding us of the power of determination, innovation, and perseverance in the pursuit of knowledge.