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Svante Arrhenius

Svante ArrheniusAKA Svante August Arrhenius

Born: 19-Feb-1859
Birthplace: Vik, Sweden
Died: 2-Oct-1927
Location of death: Stockholm, Sweden
Cause of death: Respiratory failure
Remains: Buried, Uppsala Gamla Kyrkogård, Uppsala, Sweden

Gender: Male
Religion: Atheist
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Chemist, Physicist

Nationality: Sweden
Executive summary: Explored electrolytic conductivity

Swedish chemical physicist Svante Arrhenius taught himself to read at the age of three, and became a mathematics prodigy in childhood. He won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1903 for work begun with his doctoral thesis, a groundbreaking theory on the dissociation of substances into electrolytes or ions, postulating that substances are partly converted into an active form when dissolved, and that this active part determines the substance's conductivity.

He was the first scientist to describe the greenhouse effect, and is believed to have coined the term, predicting that rising levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) would cause the earth's temperature to rise. His equation showing the effect of temperature on reaction rates is still called the Arrhenius Law. He was also a proponent of "racial biology", part of the then-accepted science of eugenics.

Father: Svante Gustav Arrhenius (surveyor, d. 1885)
Mother: Carolina Thunberg Arrhenius
Wife: Sofia Rudbeck (m. 1894, div. 1896, one son)
Son: Olav Vilhelm (botanist)
Wife: Maria Johansson (m. 1905, two daughters, one son)

    High School: Cathedral School, Uppsala (1874)
    University: BS Chemistry, University of Uppsala (1878)
    University: PhD Physics, University of Uppsala (1884)
    Scholar: Physics, University of Riga (1886-87)
    Scholar: Physics, University of Leipzig (1887-88)
    Scholar: Physics, University of Würzburg (1888-89)
    Scholar: Physics, University of Graz (1889-90)
    Scholar: Physics, University of Amsterdam (1890-91)
    Teacher: Physics, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm (1891-95)
    Professor: Physics, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm (1895-1905)

    Davy Medal 1902
    Nobel Prize for Chemistry 1903
    Faraday Medal 1914
    Royal Society 1911:Foreign Member
    British Chemical Society
    Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences 1886
    Nobel Foundation Director (1905-27)
    Asteroid Namesake 5697 Arrhenius
    Lunar Crater Arrhenius (55.6° N 91.3° E, 40 km. diameter)
    Swedish Ancestry

Author of books:
Textbook of Theoretical Electrochemistry (1900, non-fiction)
Textbook of Cosmic Physics (1906, non-fiction)
Theories of Chemistry (1906, non-fiction)
Worlds in the Making: The Evolution of the Universe (1906, non-fiction)
Immunochemistry (1907, non-fiction)
The Life of the Universe as Conceived by Man from the Earliest Ages to the Present Time (1909, non-fiction)
Theories of Solutions (1912, non-fiction)
Quantitative Laws in Biological Chemistry (1915, non-fiction)
The Destinies of the Stars (1915, non-fiction)
Chemistry and Modern Life (1919, non-fiction)


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