December in Chemistry

Today in Chemistry
On December 1st
1743, Martin
Klaproth was born.
By purifying
pitchblende he
discovered the
important
radioactive
element uranium,
U. He also
discovered
zirconium, Zr,
cerium, Ce and
chromium, Cr.

Today in Chemistry
Scientists under the leadership of
Enrico Fermi produced the first self-
sustaining nuclear fission reaction at
3.45 pm on December 2nd 1942. The
‘pile’ – a noncommittal code name that
did not give away its function – was
built in one of the University of
Chicago’s squash courts.

Today in Chemistry
In the early
hours of the
morning on
December 3rd
1984, one of the
worst ever
chemical
accidents
occurred at
Bhopal, India. A
small cloud of methyl isocyanate was
released from the Union Carbide plant
and over 4,000 people in the
surrounding area were killed. Today
there are much more stringent health
and safety regulations to prevent
anything like this happening again.

Today in Chemistry
The United
Nations
Educational,
Scientific and
Cultural
Organisation
(UNESCO) was
established on
December 4th
1946, with
headquarters in
Paris.

Today in Chemistry
Friday December 5th 1952 was the first
of five days of ‘Killer Fog’ in central
London. The fog was mostly due to
smoke from coal fires. People didn’t
panic at the
time
because the
city often
got foggy.
It was not
until several
weeks later
that medical statisticians realised that
the fog had killed thousands of
Londoners. Air quality was improved
dramatically by the 1956 Clean Air Act.

Today in Chemistry
Nicolas Leblanc, discoverer of the
Leblanc Process for making sodium
bicarbonate (NaHCO3) from common
salt (sodium chloride, NaCl), was born
on December 6th 1742.

Today in Chemistry
On December 7th 1909 the first man-
made plastic, Bakelite, was patented. It
is a thermosetting plastic (once it has
been heated and cooled it cannot be re-
moulded). This old telephone is made of
bakelite.

Today in Chemistry
Thomas Cech was
born on December
8th 1947. He won
the Nobel Prize for
Chemistry in 1989
for discovering how
ribonucleic acid
(RNA) functions
inside our cells.

Today in Chemistry
On December 9th 1868,
Fritz Haber was born. He
was awarded the Nobel
Prize for Chemistry in 1918.
He discovered the Haber
Process – the industrial synthesis of
ammonia using high pressure and an iron
catalyst – during World War I.
Although the ammonia produced by the
Haber Process can be used to make
fertilizers, it was used by Germany to
manufacture explosives. So Fritz
Haber’s discovery
may well have
prolonged the First
World War, costing
millions of lives.

Today in Chemistry
Alfred Nobel died on December 10th
1896 and on December 10th 1901 the
first Nobel Prizes were awarded. The
categories are: Chemistry, Physics,
Medicine, Literature and Peace.

Today in Chemistry
A petrol storage depot at Buncefield in
Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire
caught fire and exploded at 6.00am on
December 11th 2005. About 300 tonnes
of petrol overflowed from a storage
container, evaporated and formed a
cloud of flammable petrol vapour. It
was the
biggest
explosion in
peacetime
Europe. The
picture shows
the depot
before the
explosion.

Today in Chemistry
On December
12th 1980,
Leonardo da
Vinci’s 36-
sheet
manuscript,
known as the
Codex
Leicester was
sold for $4.5
million. At the
time it was the
most expensive book ever sold, although
Bill Gates paid $30.8m for it in 1994! It
shows that Leonardo was a great
scientific thinker as well as an artist
and inventor.

Today in Chemistry
On December 13th
1780, Johann
Wolfgang
Dobereiner was
born. He is famous
for noticing that
certain elements
had very similar
physical and
chemical properties.
For example lithium, sodium and
potassium are all soft, grey metals that
react vigorously with water to form an
alkaline solution. Dobereiner’s Triads
was one of the first steps in the
development of the Periodic Table.

Today in Chemistry
On December
14th 1900
Max Planck
first
suggested a
hypothesis
that light
energy was
quantized
(could only
have certain
values). This
led to the theory of quantum mechanics.

Today in Chemistry
Antoine-Henri
Becquerel, the
discoverer of
radioactivity,
was born on
December 15th
1852. He was
awarded the
Nobel Prize
for Physics in
1903.

Today in Chemistry
On December 16th 1776, Johann Ritter,
the first person to electrolyse water,
was born. He made the water (H2O)
split up into hydrogen and oxygen by
passing electricity through it.
2H2O(l) 2H2(g) + O2(g)

Today in Chemistry
On December 17th
1778, Humphry Davy,
discoverer of barium,
calcium, magnesium,
potassium, sodium
and strontium, was
born.
Davy’s pupil, Michael
Faraday, published
his first law on
electrolysis on
December 17th 1832:
"Chemical power, like
magnetic force, is in
direct proportion to the absolute
quantity of electricity which passes”.

Today in Chemistry
On December 18th 1856, J.J. Thomson
was born. Thomson won the Nobel Prize
for Physics in 1906 for discovering the
electron. He also put forward the ‘Plum
Pudding Model’ of the atom.

Today in Chemistry
English inventor and manufacturer
Frederick Walton patented linoleum on
December 19th 1863. It is used as a
floor covering and also by artists for
printmaking.

Today in Chemistry
Famous English chemist Humphrey Davy
published a paper ‘On Electric
Phenomena Exhibited in Vacuo’ on
December 20th 1821. It described how a
bright light could be produced by
passing electricity through mercury
vapour. It’s a shame he didn’t try
sodium vapour too, otherwise he might
have invented the street lamp!

Today in Chemistry
On December 21st 1641, the alchemist
John Mayow was baptized. He was the
first person to establish that air was a
mixture of at least two gases, one of
which supports life and combustion.

Today in Chemistry
The Swiss chemist and physicist Raoul
Pierre Pictet made liquid oxygen for the
first time on 22nd December 1879. He
sent a telegram to the French Academy
of Sciences which read:
‘Oxygen liquefied today under 320-atm
and 140 degrees of cold by combined
use of sulphurous and carbonic acid.’

Today in Chemistry
William Prout ascertained that stomach
acid was in fact hydrochloric acid on
December 23rd 1823.

Today in Chemistry
Michael Faraday planned a crucial
experiment on December 24th 1832. He
wondered whether an electric current
could decompose solid substances (e.g.
ice). From February to April 1833 he
tested over 130 substances.

Christmas in
Chemistry
One of the greatest
scientists of all time,
Isaac Newton, was
born on Christmas
Day 1642. Although
best known for his
contributions to
physics and maths,
Newton was an
enthusiastic alchemist, who had his own
chemical laboratory. He was also
friends with the leading chemist of his
day, Robert Boyle.

Today in Chemistry
Marie Curie
discovered the
element radium,
Ra, on December
26th 1898, while
experimenting
with uranium ore
(pitchblende).

Today in Chemistry
On December 27th 1845,
ether was first used
during childbirth as an
anaesthetic. Dr
Crawford Long
administered it to his
wife, who gave birth to
their second child. They called the child
Fanny.

Today in Chemistry
Harvard University was founded on
December 28th 1636, making it the
oldest educational institution in the US.
Harvard has produced many
distinguished chemists, including the
winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize for
Chemistry, Roger Tsien.

Today in Chemistry
The Scottish
chemist, Charles
Macintosh, was
born on December
29th 1766. After
20 years in the
textile industry,
he invented a
method of coating
cotton fabric with
rubber to make it
waterproof. He
named the new, waterproof coat after
himself – the macintosh.

Today in Chemistry
Robert Boyle died
on 30th December
1691. He moved
chemistry on
from the hocus-
pocus of alchemy
to the status of a
proper
experimental
science.

Today in Chemistry
On December 31st 1808, Joseph Louis
Gay-Lussac discovered that when gases
reacted together, they do so in simple
proportions. This steered chemists
towards the powerful ideas of chemical
formulae and balanced chemical
equations.

December in Chemistry
Written and compiled by
Anthony Hardwicke
Thanks to Nigel Freestone,
Northampton University
Acknowledgements for Pictures
3, 13, 20 www.SciencePhoto.com
8 Howard Hughes Medical Institute
2, 5, 6, 16, 19, 26, 27
www.ScienceandSociety.co.uk
23, 25, 29, 31 www.JIUnlimited.com
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