January in Chemistry

Today in Chemistry
A Dutch amateur scientist, Antonius van
den Broek was the first person to
realise the very important fact that the
number of an element in the Periodic
Table corresponds to the number of
electrons (and protons) in an atom of
that element. He published a short
letter in the journal Nature on January
1st 1913. A year later, Henry Moseley
verified van den Broek’s idea
experimentally. Moseley called the
number of protons in an atom the
‘atomic number’.

Today in Chemistry
On January 2nd
1920, the
biochemist and
author Isaac
Azimov was
born. He has
written
hundreds of
science fiction
novels and also
some very good
non-fiction
books. Azimov’s New Guide to Science
makes excellent background reading and
comes highly recommended.

Today in Chemistry
The Open
University
was founded
on January
3rd 1971.
Regular
courses
commenced
the following
Sunday (10th
January
1971).

Today in Chemistry
Henry Dow, founder of the
Dow Chemical Company first
extracted bromine from sea water on
January 4th 1891.

Today in Chemistry
Max Born
died at the
age of 88 on
January 5th
1970. His
early work
on crystals
resulted in
the
theoretical
Born-Haber
cycle for
the
calculation of the stability of ionic
compounds. He received the Nobel Prize
for Physics in 1954 for his work on
quantum mechanics.

Today in Chemistry
On January 6th 1913, the American
chemist William M Burton patented a
process that he called thermal cracking.
Unwanted lubricating oil from oil
refineries could be converted into
petrol by heating. It doubled the
industrial production of petrol and made
Burton’s fortune. In 1937 the process
was improved by adding a catalyst.

Today in Chemistry
John Walker, who won the Nobel Prize
for Chemistry in 1997 for the discovery
of how the
body makes a
chemical
called
adenosine
triphosphate
(ATP), was
born on
January 7th
1941.

Today in Chemistry
Stephen W Hawking was born on
January 8th 1942. Despite being
confined to a wheelchair because of Lou
Gehrig’s disease (similar to multiple
sclerosis), he has made a huge
contribution to cosmology and
theoretical physics. He also wrote a
bestselling science book, A Brief
History of Time.

Today in Chemistry
On January 9th 1868
the Danish chemist
Soren Sorensen, was
born. He introduced
the concept of pH
as a measure of
hydrogen ion
concentration.

Today in Chemistry
On January 10th 1877 F.G. Cottrell,
inventor of the Cottrell precipitator,
was born. The Cottrell precipitator uses
an electrostatic charge to remove
particles from gases. It can be used to
remove dust particles from air, or
smoke particles from smoke. Since 1907
it has dramatically reduced air pollution
from factories.

Today in Chemistry
Although Humphry Davy
discovered sodium and
potassium, it is the Davy
Safety Lamp that he is best
remembered for. On January
11th 1816, he presented his
new design to the Royal
Society. Miners worked by
the light of candles, or other
naked flames in the 18th
century, but these often
caused underground explosions. After a
particularly tragic accident, in which 92
men and boys were killed, Davy was
asked to come up with a solution to the
problem. He did so by surrounding the
flame with a wire sieve.

Today in Chemistry
On January 12th 1716, Antonio de Ulloa,
who discovered the element platinum,
Pt, was born in Seville, Spain.

Today in Chemistry
On January 13th 1993, The Chemical
Weapons Convention, a major arms
treaty prohibiting the manufacture and
use of chemical weapons was signed in
Paris by 130 nations.

Today in Chemistry
The results of
trials of a new
drug, L-dopa
were announced
on January 14th
1970. The
startling affect of the drug on patients
with encephalitis lethargica is
described in the 1990 film Awakenings.
More importantly, it reverses the
progress of Parkinson’s disease in about
5% of patients.

Today in Chemistry
On January 15th 1784, Henry Cavendish
announced to the Royal Society that he
had determined that water was made up
of two parts hydrogen and one part
oxygen.

Today in Chemistry
On January 16th 1953,
Glenn Seaborg and co-
workers at the
University of California,
Berkeley first isolated
the element fermium,
Fm, using ion-exchange
chromatography

Today in Chemistry
The American scientist Benjamin
Franklin was born on January 17th 1706.
He was the first person to collect what
he called ‘marsh gas’, produced in ponds.
He described the gas to Joseph
Priestley, who went on to work out that
marsh gas was in fact methane.

Today in Chemistry
On January
18th 1825,
Edward
Frankland,
co-
discoverer
of helium,
He, was
born. He also
came up with the
idea of valency, for
working out the
formula of chemical
compounds.

Today in Chemistry
On January 19th 1813 Henry Bessemer,
was born. He invented a new process for
making steel which is still used today.
The picture above shows Bessemer’s
original converter on display in the
Science Museum.

Today in Chemistry
On January 20th
1633 Galileo Galilei,
aged 68, was
arrested at his
home in Florence.
What had he done
wrong? Using a
telescope to
observe the motion
of Venus, Jupiter
and Saturn, he provided strong evidence
that the Earth revolved about the sun.
However, this contradicted the Roman
Catholic dogma that the Earth was the
centre of the universe. After five
months of interrogation, he renounced
his scientific beliefs.

Today in Chemistry
On January 21st 1941, the Dow
Chemical Company in Freeport, Texas,
extracted a metal, magnesium, from sea
water for the first time.

Today in Chemistry
On January 22nd 1561, the early English
scientist Francis Bacon, was born.

Today in Chemistry
Marie Curie’s nomination to the French
Academy of Sciences was rejected on
23rd January 1911 - probably because
she was a woman. More recently women
have fared better; Marianne Grunberg
was elected president of the academy
in 1994.

Today in Chemistry
On January 24th 1848, John Sutter
struck gold at Sutter’s Mill, California,
triggering the 1849 Gold Rush.

Today in Chemistry
Robert Boyle was born on January 25th
1627. He made some important
discoveries about gases, including
Boyle’s law (the volume of a gas is
inversely proportional to pressure).

Today in Chemistry
Edmund Davy, cousin of Sir Humphry
Davy announced the discovery of
acetylene (more properly called ethyne)
to the Royal Dublin Society on January
26th 1836. He
thought its
formula as
C2H, although
we now know
that it has
the formula
C2H2.
Acetylene is
used in
welding.

Today in Chemistry
August Kekule presented his ring
structure of benzene to the Societe
Chimique, Paris on January 27th 1865.

Today in Chemistry
The organic chemist
Robert Holley was born
on January 28th 1922. He
determined the structure
and worked out the
function of transfer RNA
and won
the Nobel
Prize for
Medicine
in 1968
for this
work.

Today in Chemistry
On January 29th 1863 R.C. Bottinger
announced that he had detected tiny
quantities of the highly toxic metal,
thallium in tobacco, chicory and
beechwood. Farmers once used thallium
compounds to kill rats.

Today in Chemistry
On January 30th
1949, Peter
Agre was born.
He studied cell
membranes and
won the Nobel
Prize for
Chemistry in
2003.

Today in Chemistry
Ramsay and Rayleigh jointly announced
the discovery of the first noble gas,
argon, Ar, on January 31st 1895. The
name argon comes from the Greek word
argos, meaning ‘lazy’, because the gas is
totally unreactive.
Light bulbs are often
filled with argon so
that the tungsten
filament isn’t
oxidised. The second
picture shows an argon laser.

January in Chemistry
Written and compiled by
Anthony Hardwicke
Thanks to Nigel Freestone,
Northampton University
Acknowledgements for Pictures
5, 8, 9, 14, 15, 17, 20, 22, 24, 26, 27
SciencePhoto.com
11, 18, 19 ScienceandSociety.co.uk
30 Duke Medicine, USA
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