Ten Great Chemistry Nerds

Science is a human enterprise. Scientists draw on their knowledge, training, intuition, and hunches. (And as I show you in Chapter 20, serendipity and luck come into play, also.) In this chapter, I introduce you to ten scientists vriio made discoveries that have advanced the field of chemistry. There are literally hundreds of choices, but these are mine for the top ten. 

In 1811, the Italian lawyer-tumed-scientist Avogadro was investigating the properties of gases when he derived his now-famous law Equal volumes of any two gases at the same temperature and pressure contain the same number of particles. From this law, the number of particles in a mole of any substance was determined. It was named Avogadro s number. Every chemistry student and chemist has Avogadro s number. Do you See Chapter 10 if you don t. 

Niels Bohr, a Danish scientist, used the observation that elements, if heated, emit energy in a set of distinct lines called a line spectrum to develop the idea that electrons can exist only in certain distinct, discrete energy leveis in the atom. Bohr reasoned that the spectral lines resulted from the transition between these energy levels. 

Bohr s model of the atom was the first to incorporate the idea of energy levels, a concept that s now universally accepted. For his work, Bohr received the Nobel Prize in 1922. 

Madame Curie was bom in Poland, but she did most of her work in France. Her husband, Pierre, was a physicist, and both were involved in the initial studies of radioactivity. Marie discovered that the mineral pitchblende contained two elements more radioactive than uranium. These elements turned out to be polonium and radium. Madame Curie coined the term radioactivity. She and her husband shared the Nobel Prize with Henri Becquerel in 1903. 

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In this part, I introduce you to ten great serendipitous chemical discoveries, ten great chemistry nerds (nerds ruleQ, and ten useful chemistry Internet sites. I started to put in my ten favorite chemistry songs, but I could only think of nine. Bummer. 

I also present ten great chemistry nerds and ten useful chemistry Web sites that you can use to expand your knowledge. 

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