Ytterbium history

The Swiss chemist Jean Charles Galissard de Marignac (1817-1894), was the first in applying these spectroscopic methods. He was 23 years old when he embarked upon his quest for new rare-earth elements. He demonstrated in 1878 that "erbia was a complex mixture of at least two rare-earth elements, erbium and "ytterbium (Yb), by heating "erbium nitrate and extracting the decomposed salt with water. The little Swedish village Ytterby thus holds a distinguished place in the history of the rare-earth elements. 

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