The Famous World Chemists

Scientists who specialize in the field of chemistry are known as chemists. There have been many famous chemists throughout history who have made discoveries and breakthroughs that changed the world. Here are some of them:

Amedeo Avogadro (1776 – 1856)

Amedeo Avogadro was an Italian scientist who proposed Avogadro’s law, which states that equal volumes of all gases contain the same number of molecules under the same conditions of pressure and temperature. Avogadro’s constant is named after him.

Jons Jacob Berzelius (1779 – 1848)

Jons Jacob Berzelius was a Swedish chemist best known for helping develop the notation for writing chemical formulas. He is also credited with discovering and isolating many elements, including silicon, thorium, cerium, and selenium. Many chemical terms are attributed to Berzelius such as “isotope” and “catalyst”. He is called the father of Swedish chemistry.

Robert Boyle (1627 – 1691)

Robert Boyle is often considered the first modern chemist and one of the founders of chemical science. He was also a pioneer of the scientific method. He developed Boyle’s Law which states that in a closed system at constant pressure, the pressure and volume of a gas are inversely proportional.

Marie Curie (1867-1934)

Marie Cure was a Polish chemist who coined the term radioactivity. She also discovered the elements polonium and radium. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize and has won it twice, once for physics in 1903 and again for chemistry in 1911. The unit of radioactivity, the Curie, is named after her and her husband’s name. she is Pierre. Click here to learn more about Marie Curie.

John Dalton (1766 – 1844)

John Dalton was an English chemist who helped develop the atomic theory of atoms and elements. In 1803, he presented the first list of atomic weights for certain substances. Dalton is also famous for his research on color blindness.

Sir Humphry Davy (1778 – 1829)

Sir Humphry Davy is best known for using electrolysis to isolate and detect many elements. He is said to have isolated or discovered sodium, calcium, boron, barium, magnesium, iodine, chlorine, and potassium. He also invented a miner’s safety lamp called the Davy’s lamp.

Rosalind Franklin (1920 – 1958)

Rosalind Franklin was an English chemist and physicist who helped discover the DNA double helix. His DNA X-ray diffraction imaging played an important role in his discovery. She has also done important research on polio and the TMV virus.

Antoine Lavoisier (1743 – 1794)

Antoine Lavoisier was a French chemist sometimes called the “father of modern chemistry”. He developed the “law of conservation of mass” which states that for any closed system, the mass of the system must remain constant with time. He also proved that sulfur was an element and named the elements oxygen and hydrogen.

Dmitri Mendeleyev (1834 – 1907)

Dmitry Mendeleyev was a Russian chemist who came up with the first periodic table of the elements which he published in 1865. He could predict the discovery of many other elements using this table.

Alfred Nobel (1833 – 1896)

Alfred Nobel was a Swedish chemist and inventor who invented dynamite. He is an outstanding inventor and holds 350 patents. He is perhaps most famous for initiating the Nobel Prize. The element nobelium is named after Alfred Noble.