Gadolin, Johan

Johan Gadolin became an expert in the chemistry of the elements known as the lanthanide series of elements. From 1775 to 1779 he studied mathematics, then chemistry, in Abo, Finland. From 1779 to 1782 he studied chemistry in Uppsala, Sweden. He received a master of science degree at the age of twenty-two, in 1782. During his Uppsala years he became friends with the Swedish chemists Carl Wilhelm Scheele (1742-1786) and Johan Gottlieb Gahn (1745-1818). 

In 1786 he undertook a grand tour of Denmark, Germany, Holland, England, and Ireland. In Germany he met Lorenz Crell (1744-1816), the editor of the journal Chemische Annalen. They became friends, and it was in Crell s journal that many of Gadolin s research papers were eventually published in an international forum. In Ireland Gadolin worked with the Irish 

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