In the eighteenth century, as the Age of Enlightenment permeated Europe and nations beyond, scientists made significant progress in unlocking the secrets of the natural world. Men like Sir Humphry Davy, Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac, Joseph Priestley, Antoine Lavoisier, and others all created a name for themselves due to their discoveries. However, another important scientist of that time, Carl Wilhelm Scheele, is less well-known due to his independence and unwillingness to publish. Even though Scheele did not receive enough credit for his work discovering elements, acids, and other compounds, countless scientists have benefitted from acquiring his knowledge. Carl Wilhelm Scheele was born in 1742 in a part of Germany under Swedish control. At fifteen, …show more content…
After finishing his apprenticeship, Carl worked at several different pharmacies all over Sweden until he created his own business. Although he treated scientific research as secondary to his work (Urdang 17), Scheele is described as fanatical and prolific by those who knew him. He was admitted to the Royal Swedish Academy of Science in 1775, and with his pension, was able to continue experimenting until his death at the age of 44 due to arsenic and cyanide poisoning. Arguably, Scheele’s greatest discovery is oxygen gas. He believed in the phlogiston theory that was prevalent at the time, but his findings are true nevertheless. Carl calculated that about a quarter of air could combust (The Discovery of Oxygen: Part 2), and tried obtaining a pure sample of the gas by heating substances such as HgO, KNO₃, Hg(NO₃)₂, or MnO₂ with H₂SO₄. After conducting these experiments, Carl wrote a book, which was called the Chemical Treatise on Air and Fire. Because this happened after Englishman Joseph Priestley already published on the topic, his work was largely ignored. Besides oxygen Scheele created and discovered many other elements and compounds. For example, by treating MnO₂ with hydrochloric acid, Scheele produced chlorine gas in
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All fields of science affects the lives of many people, but the inventors are left out. Inventors make many lives more comfortable and convenient. George Edward Alcorn, Jr. was a not so well-known inventor, but he...
Bragg, Melvyn, On Giants' Shoulders: Great Scientists and Their Discoveries from Archimedes to DNA. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1998.
and opened doors for later scientists that were in his field of organic synthesis. He was a
Francis Bacon - He was one one of the big contributors in the Enlightenment. He was recognized for his reasoning , methods & his well thought philosophies. He came up with the “scientific method”. The scientific method is techniques for DISCOVERING phenomena , LEARNING new knowledge , AND correcting and integrating previous knowledge.
It is hard to argue that the enlightenment does not heavily impact our lives today; and without the philosophers and scientists of that time, the world would be a completely different place. Galileo, a scientist, philosopher, and writer, was hugely important to our society’s advancement. With his advances in astronomy and the study of physics alone, he played a major role in our society’s advancement. However, even more important were his ideals that helped bring on the enlightenment and change the course of history.
Another important figure of the Scientific Revolution is Galileo Galilei (1564-1642). He was the first to use the telescope to observe the stars and come up with the idea that the universe is completely subject to mathematical laws, and he was an ardent supporter of this novel concept. The heavens before the Scientific Revolution had been considered as the most mysterious part of the universe. With the heavens explained, people started to believe that it would be easy to understand humans as well. They felt that science...
Inventor and astronomer Galileo Galilei is one of the most well-known scientists in the history of the world. Galileo has been credited for many astonishing inventions such as the pendulum and the telescope. Through many years of research and studious acts, he discovered behaviors of the universe that still hold true today. Galileo, “the Father of Modern Science”, changed the world.
When most people think of the Scientific Revolution, they think of scientists such as Galileo, Newton, Brahe, and Boyle. However, many people do not even know about the many women who played a vital role in the scientific advancements of this period. Even when these women were alive, most of society either ignored them or publicly disapproved their unladylike behavior. Because of this, these women were often forgotten from history, and very little is known about the majority of them. Although their names rarely appear in history books, the female scientists of the Scientific Revolution still impacted the world of science in several ways. In fact, all of the scientists listed above had a woman playing an influential role assisting them in their research. However, assisting men in their studies was not the only role open to women; several women performed experimentation and research on their own, or advancing science in some other way, even though the society of the time looked down upon and even resisted their studies.
5. Burns, William E. Science in the Enlightenment: An Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2003. Print.
Throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, radical and controversial ideas were created in what would become a time period of great advances. The Scientific Revolution began with a spark of inspiration that spread a wild fire of ideas through Europe and America. The new radical ideas affected everything that had been established and proven through religious views. "The scientific revolution was more radical and innovative than any of the political revolutions of the seventeenth century."1 All of the advances that were made during this revolutionary time can be attributed to the founders of the Scientific Revolution.
The 1800’s was a time of development in science. New and what seemed like crazy ideas were surfacing. These ideas were more easily accepted than in past years. There were new theories such as the Cell Theory by Mathias Schleiden and Theodor Schwann in 1838 (Farah 626) and the Atomic Theory by John Dalton (Farah 628).A little over a decade after the Cell Theory was proposed, Louis Pasteur discovered bacteria in 1850 (Farah 627).
Sazlberg, Hugh W. From Caveman to Chemist: Circumstances and Achievements. Washington, D.C.: American Chemical Society, 1991.
Bruce Mattson. “Henry Cavendish 1731-1810”. History of Gas Chemistry. Updated September 25, 2001. Retrieved December 1, 2011
Of all the scientists to emerge from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries there is one whose name is known by almost all living people. While most of these do not understand this mans work, everyone knows that his impact on the world is astonishing.