Berzelius, Jacob

Berzelius, Jacob. Lehrbuch der Chemie. 3rd ed. 10 vols. Dresden Arnold,... 

Silicon w is first isolated and described as an element in 1824 by Jdns Jacob Berzelius, a Swedish chemist. Silicon does not occur uncombined in nature, i.e.- as an element. It is found in practically aU rocks as well as in sand, clays, and soils, combined either with oxygen as silica (Si02= silicon dioxide) or with oxygen plus other elements (e.g., aliuninum, mcignesium, calcium, sodium, potassium, or iron) as silicates. Its compounds also occur in all natural waters, in the atmosphere (as siliceous dust), in many plants, and in the skeletons, tissues, and body fluids of some animals. 

Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) recognised meteorites as being a source of extraterrestrial material. Several well-known chemists carried out analyses of material from meteorites, starting at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Thus Louis-Jacques Thenard (1777-1857) found carbon in Alais meteorites these results were confirmed in 1834 by Jons Jacob Berzelius, who by dint of very careful work was also able to detect water of crystallisation in meteoritic material. 

Fig. 3.7 Jons Jacob Berzelius (1779-1848), professor of chemistry in Stockholm and discoverer of the elements selenium, silicon, thorium and zirconium. He introduced the modem chemical symbols and also the term organic chemistry . From the book Berzelius, Europaresendren by C. G. Bernhard with kind permission of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences...

The word, polymer, was introduced a century before in 1833 by Jons Jacob Berzelius in his famous book, the "Jahres-Bericht". He recognized the fact that two compounds may have the same composition yet differ in molecular weight. Thus, he classified this polymerism as a special type of isomerism. In order to prevent confusion, it should be pointed out that Berzelius had in mind a series of compound related to each other as acetylene C2H2, benzene CgHg, and styrene CgHg are related. 

Jons Jacob Berzelius. Chapter 30 in Great Chemists, E. Farber, ed., Interscience, New York, 1961, pp. 385-402. 

Berzelius, Jons Jacob. "Essay on the Cause of Chemical Proportions." Annals of Philosophy 23 (181314) 443454, 4352. 

Cerium (Ce, [Xe]4/ 15t/ 6.v2), name and symbol after the asteroid Ceres. Discovered (1803) by Jons Jacob Berzelius and Wilhelm Hisinger and independently by Martin Klaproth. 

Thorium (Th, [Rn]6<727.s 2/), name and symbol after Thor (the Norse God of thunder). Discovered (1828) by the Swedish chemist Jons Jacob Berzelius. 

Zirconium (Zr, [Kr]4<725s2), name and symbol from the gemstone zircon (from the Persian zargun, gold like). The element was discovered (1789) by Martin H. Klaproth, the metal first prepared (1824) by Jons Jacob Berzelius. Greyish-white metal. 

This leads to the question of who should be considered the ultimate discoverer of a chemical element Should it be the first person to describe the initial properties, the one who found the oxide or the metal, the one who separated the element or the first one to publish their results On the matter of publication, the Swedish chemist Jons Jacob Berzelius published an annual review (equivalent to our present abstract service) during the early nineteenth century. Berzelius usually cited articles published in other journals, but he also reported on the work in his laboratory which had not yet been published. This enabled his assistant Carl-Gustav Mosander to receive early credit for work that Mosander chose not to formally publish until many years later after he had worked out all of the details. In the element review, we shall see that the answer to the above questions would be any of the above criteria could qualify for discovery of particular elements. 

Calcium - the atomic mmiber is 20 and the chemical symbol is Ca. The name derives from the Latin calx for lime (CaO) or limestone (CaCOj) in which it was foimd. It was first isolated by the British chemist Humphry Davy in 1808 with help from the Swedish chemist Jons Jacob Berzelius and the Swedish court physician M.M. af Pontin, who had prepared calcimn amalgam. 

Selenium - the atomic number is 34 and the chemical symbol is Se. The name derives from the Greek Selene, who was the Greek goddess of the moon because the element is chemically found with tellurium (Tellus - the Roman goddess of the earth). It was discovered by the Swedish chemist Jons Jacob Berzelius in 1817, while trying to isolate tellurium in an impure sample. 

Silicon - the atomic number is 14 and the chemical symbol is Si. The name was originally silicium because it was thought to be a metal. When this was shown to be incorrect, the name was changed to silicon, which derives from the Latin silex and silicis for flint . Amorphous silicon was discovered by the Swedish chemist Jons Jacob Berzelius in 1824. CiystalUne silicon was first prepared by the French chemist Henri Sainte-Claire Deville in 1854. 

Zirconium - the atomic number is 40 and the chemical symbol is Zr. The name derives from the Arabic zargun for gold-like . It was discovered in zirconia by the German chemist Martin-Heinrich Klaproth in 1789. Zirconium was first isolated by the Swedish chemist Jdns Jacob Berzelius in 1824 in an impure state and finally by the chemists D. Lely Jr. and L. Hamburger in a pure state in 1914. 

Zirconium was isolated from other compounds in 1824 by Baron Jons Jacob Berzelius (1779-1848), a Swedish chemist, but it was not produced in pure form until 1914 because of the difficulty in separating it from hafnium. 

ORIGIN OF NAME Named for the Greek word selene, meaning "moon." Jons Jacob Berzelius (1779-1848) discovered selenium and named it after the mineral called "eucairite," which in Greek means "just in time."... 

Jons Jacob Berzelius is mostly known for his discovery of Si however, he was the first person who more than likely synthesized SiC. In 1824 he published a paper where he speculated that there was a chemical bond between Si and carbide (C) in... 

Jons Jacob Berzelius, 1779-1848. Professor of chemistry and medicine at the Stockholm Medical School. He determined the atomic weights of most of the elements then known, discovered selenium and the earth ceria, and isolated silicon, thorium, and zirconium. Among his students may be mentioned Wohler, Heinrich and Gustav Rose, Mosander, Sefstrom, and... 

The discoverer of selenium was the illustrious Swedish chemist, Jons Jacob Berzelius, who was bom in Vaversunda, a village in Ostergotland, on August 20, 1779. When he was four years old his father died of tuberculosis. Two years later his mother married Anders Ekmarck, pastor of a German congregation at Norrkoping, whom Berzelius described long... 

Soderbaum, H. G., Jons Jacob Berzelius, Autobiographical Notes, Williams... 

Winderlich, Rudolf, Jons Jacob Berzelius, ]. Chem. Educ., 25, 500-05... 

Rheinboldt, Heinrich, A vida e obra de Jons Jacob Berzelius, Selecta... 

Svenska Veteuskapsakademien, P. A. Norstedt and Sons, Stockholm, 1901, p. 84 Laesell, Olof, Jons Jacob Berzelius. Autobiographical Notes. Williams Wilkins Co., Baltimore, Md., 1934, p. 114. 

J5ns Jacob Berzelius, 1779-1848. He was one of the last chemical authorities to be convinced of the elementary nature of chlorine. 

Dalton s work on relative weights, multiple proportions, and the atomic theory did not have an immediate effect on chemists of his day. Dalton s ideas did provide a framework for determining the empirical formula of compounds, but his table of relative weights was not accurate enough to give consistent results. Many scientists still debated the existence of atoms in the second half of the nineteenth century. Still, little by little, the atomic theory was adopted by chemists as a valid model for the basic structure of matter. While Dalton continued his life as a humble tutor in Manchester, other chemists used Dalton s ideas to establish the atomic theory. Foremost among these was Jons Jacob Berzelius (1779-1848) of Sweden, the foremost chemical authority of the first half of the nineteenth century. 

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