Svante August Arrhenius (February 19, 1859 - October 2, 1927) was a Swedish scientist, originally a physicist, but often referred to as a chemist, and one of the founders of the science of physical chemistry. His work focused on the conductivities of elec
Svante August Arrhenius (February 19, 1859 - October 2, 1927) was a Swedish scientist, originally a physicist, but often referred to as a chemist, and one of the founders of the science of physical chemistry. His work focused on the conductivities of electrolytes. In 1884 he submitted a 150 page dissertation on electrolytic conductivity to Uppsala for the doctorate. It did not impress the professors. Later, extensions of this very work would earn him the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The most important idea in the dissertation was his explanation of the fact that neither pure salts nor pure water is a conductor, but solutions of salts in water are. In 1889 he explained the fact that most reactions require added heat energy to proceed by formulating the concept of activation energy, an energy barrier that must be overcome before two molecules will react. The Arrhenius equation gives the quantitative basis of the relationship between the activation energy and the rate at which a reaction proceeds. 1900, he became involved in setting up the Nobel Institutes and the Nobel Prizes. For the rest of his life, he would be a member of the Nobel Committee on Physics and a de facto member of the Nobel Committee on Chemistry. In 1902 he began to investigate physiological problems in terms of chemical theory. He determined that reactions in living organisms and in the test tube followed the same laws. In 1903 he became the first Swede to be awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry. He also turned his attention to geology (the origin of ice ages), astronomy, physical cosmology, and astrophysics, accounting for the birth of the solar system by interstellar collision. In his last years he wrote both textbooks and popular books. In 1927, he came down with an attack of acute intestinal catarrh, and died at the age of 68.
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