September in Chemistry

Today in Chemistry
On September 1st
1877, Francis
William Aston, the
inventor of the
mass spectrometer,
was born. This is
the first one he
made in 1919. Mass
spectrometers are
now routinely used
by forensic
scientists to ‘weigh’
atoms and molecules
and identify unknown
substances.

Today in Chemistry
Frederick Soddy
was born on
September 2nd
1877. He won the
Nobel Prize for
Chemistry in 1921
for his work on
radioactivity. He
was one of the
first chemists to
realise that elements can exist as
different isotopes. Isotopes are atoms
with the same number of protons in their
nuclei (same atomic number), but different
numbers of neutrons (and hence, different
mass numbers).

Today in Chemistry
On September 3rd 1976 the unmanned
Viking 2 probe landed on Mars. The
primary mission objectives were to obtain
high resolution images of the Martian
surface, characterize the structure and
composition of
the atmosphere
and surface, and
search for
evidence of life.
Chemists
analysed the
atmosphere and soil using an X-ray
fluorescence spectrometer that was
mounted on the probe. The search for life
still goes on…

Today in Chemistry
Harry Kroto discovered the football-
shaped allotrope of carbon, C60
buckminsterfullerene, on September 4th
1986. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for
Chemistry in 1996.

Today in Chemistry
On September 5th 1864, W. Esson and A.
Harcourt of Oxford University published a
breakthrough paper in Scientific News
stating that ‘the rate of a chemical
reaction is directly proportional to the
quantity of substance undergoing change’.
In other words, if you double the
concentration, you double the rate of
reaction. We now know other factors, such
as temperature, also affect rate.

Today in Chemistry
John Dalton was
probably born on
September 6th
1766 - despite
what it says on
the cottage! He
is famous for
reviving atomic
theory (the idea that everything in the
universe is made up of tiny particles called
atoms). He also carried
out some important
experiments on gases
and came up with
Dalton’s law of partial
pressures.

Today in Chemistry
On September
7th 1910,
Marie and
Pierre Curie
isolated the
first pure
sample of
radium. They
started with a
tonne of
uranium ore
and after ten
years of back-breaking work, ended up
extracting three-tenths of a gram of
radium from it!! They shared the Nobel
Prize for Physics in 1903 for discovering
radium in 1898.

Today in Chemistry
On September 8th 1854, the anaesthetist John
Snow removed the handle of a water pump in
Broadwick Street in London. Over 500 people had
died of cholera over a period
of a few months and Snow
tried plotting where all the
victims lived. Using maps of
the water supply in the area,
he deduced that all the victims had probably drunk
water from the Broadwick Street pump. After he
removed the handle of the pump, it turned out that
untreated sewage was indeed leaking into the well
that supplied the pump.
Using scientific
understanding and logical
deduction, John Snow
saved thousands of lives.
There’s now a pub called
the John Snow where the
contaminated water pump used to be!

Today in Chemistry
In a milestone case for forensic
chemistry, a young German girl vanished
and was later found murdered. Chemical
analysis of blood stains contributed to a
conviction on September 9th 1898.

Today in Chemistry
On September 10th 1984 DNA
fingerprinting was discovered by Alec
Jeffreys of Leicester University. He
discovered it accidentally while
researching inheritance patterns of
illnesses. DNA fingerprinting is now a
routine forensic tool. As well as being used
to convict
criminals, it
has also been
used to free
people that
have been
falsely
imprisoned.

Today in Chemistry
On
September
11th 1967 the
early space
probe
Surveyor 5
landed on
the moon and
began to
analyse the
elements on
the surface.

Today in Chemistry
On September
12th 1897,
Marie and
Pierre Curie
had a baby
daughter
Irene. She
continued her
parents’ work
on artificial
radioisotopes
and went on to
share the
1935 Nobel Prize for Chemistry with her
husband Frederic Joliot.

Today in Chemistry
On September 13th 1945,
the element americium,
Am, was first isolated at
the Wartime
Metallurgical Laboratory
in Chicago. It is
a man-made
element and is
used in smoke
alarms.

Today in Chemistry
The inventor of the battery, Georges
Leclanché died on September 14th 1882.
His 1.5 volt battery was made up of a
porous pot containing manganese dioxide
and a carbon rod as current collector
which was immersed in an electrolyte of
ammonium chloride solution with a negative
terminal of zinc metal.

Today in Chemistry
On September 15th
1932, Neil Bartlett,
who prepared the
first noble gas
compound, was born.
His work was a
triumph for
chemists’ ability to
use mathematical calculations to predict
whether or not reactions will occur.
Bartlett calculated that a compound of
xenon and platinum hexafluoride should be
stable. Sure enough, he tried the
experiment and created xenon platinum
hexafluoride, the first noble gas
compound.

Today in Chemistry
On September 16th 1987, 24 nations
signed the Montreal Protocol on
Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer.
Previously, chlorofluorocarbons had been
widely used in household refrigerators and
aerosol cans. This treaty has stopped
nearly all the production and use of CFCs.

Today in Chemistry
P.C. Hewett patented his mercury vapour
lamp in the United States on September
17th 1901. The mercury vapour lamp was an
important forerunner of the fluorescent
lights and energy-saving light bulbs that
we use today.

Today in Chemistry
From the 1950s to the 1980s, Russia and
America manufactured and stockpiled
nuclear weapons. Both sides had more than
enough nuclear weapons to obliterate each
other. On September 18th 1987 the US
President Ronald Reagan announced that
over 1000 nuclear warheads would be
scrapped.

Today in Chemistry
The first underground nuclear test
explosion was carried out on September
19th 1957 in the Nevada Desert. Previously
nuclear
weapons tests
were all above
ground,
producing
radioactive
fallout – that’s
progress I suppose!

Today in Chemistry
The inventor of
the thermos
flask, James
Dewar, was born
on September
20th 1842. The
picture shows a
reconstruction of
his original flask.
He was the first
person to liquefy
hydrogen, which
is not as easy as
it sounds - you
have to cool it
down to –259 C!

Today in Chemistry
On September 21st 1860, Louis Pasteur
visited the French Alps to carry out a
series of
experiments
comparing pure
mountain air
with city air.
His results
contributed to
his germ
theory of
disease, which
is now one of
the most
fundamental axioms of medicine.

Today in Chemistry
Michael Faraday,
one of the greatest
chemists of all
time, was born on
September 22nd
1791. He made the
first studies of
electrolysis and
electromagnetic
induction and also liquefied chlorine. Some
of his original experiments and chemicals
can be seen at the Royal Institution,
Albemarle Street, London.

Today in Chemistry
On September 23rd 1915, John Sheehan,
who first made semi-synthetic penicillin,
was born. Penicillin was one of the first
antibiotics, but was very difficult to
obtain from mould. Synthesising the
compound directly revolutionised the
treatment of bacterial infection.

Today in Chemistry
Amedeo Avogadro
published a paper
on September
24th 1811, which
stated that equal
volumes of gases
contained the
same number of
molecules.
Considering that
John Dalton had
only published his atomic theory a couple
of years earlier, Avogadro’s Law was quite
a cutting-edge and fairly abstract idea and
it took over 50 years for it to be accepted
by other scientists.

Today in Chemistry
Thomas H. Morgan, who discovered the
function of chromosomes, was born in
Kentucky, USA on September 25th 1866.
Chromosomes contain DNA and are found
in the nuclei
of cells.
Morgan won
the Nobel
Prize for
Medicine in
1933.

Today in Chemistry
On September 26th
1754, Joseph-Louis
Proust, famous for
Proust’s Law, was
born. This law
states that when
two chemicals react
together they do so
in simple ratios.
These ratios are
written as the big numbers (stoichiometric
coefficients) in balanced chemical
equations. He was also the first person to
isolate glucose (from grape juice) and to
realise that oxides and hydroxides are not
the same thing.

Today in Chemistry
On September 27th 1910, a patent for the
production of ammonia was issued to Fritz
Haber and Robert Le Rossignol. This
process is still used today to manufacture
ammonia on a large scale from hydrogen
and nitrogen, by passing a mixture of them
over an iron catalyst.

Today in Chemistry
On September 28th 1852, Henri Moissan,
who discovered the element fluorine, F,
was born.

Today in Chemistry
On September
29th 1901,
Enrico Fermi,
who did
research into
nuclear
reactions by
bombarding
atoms with
neutrons, was
born. He was
awarded the
Nobel Prize for Physics in 1938 and the
element fermium, Fm, was named after
him.

Today in Chemistry
William Morton’s claim that he used ether
(ethoxyethane) as an anaesthetic for the
first time on
September 25th
1866, whilst
removing a
tooth from his
patient Eben
Frost, may be
incorrect.
There is
evidence that
Crawford
Williamson Long
used ether as far back as 1842.

September in Chemistry
Written and compiled by
Anthony Hardwicke
Thanks to Nigel Freestone, Northampton
University
Acknowledgements for Pictures
9, 24, 29 www.SciencePhoto.com
1, 7, 12, 20, 30
www.ScienceandSociety.co.uk
15 UCLA
Today in Chemistry is available as a RSS
feed from www.rsc.org