Svante August Arrhenius Essay, Research Paper

Svante August Arrhenius was born at Uppalsa, Sweden, on February 19,

1859 His intelligence and creativity were apperent nt from an early age–he taught

himself to read when he was three Although credi ted with many scientific

innovations, he remains best known for his ionic theory of solutions, For which he

was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1903 Arrhenius henius died in

Stockholm on October 2, 1927

Science is a human endeavor subject to human frailties and governed by

personalities, politics, and prejudice ces. One of the best illustrations of the often

bumpy path of the advancement of scientific knowledge is the story of Swedish

chemist Svante Arrhenius. When Arrhenius henius began his doctorate at the

University of Uppsala around 1880, he chose to study the passage of electricity

through solutions. This was a problem that had baffled scientists for a century, The

first experiments had been done in the 17 70s by Cavendish, who corn pared the

conductivity of salt solutions with that of rain water, using his own physiological

reaction to the electric shocks he rece ived! Arrhenius had an array of instruments

to measure electric current, but the process of carefully weighing, meas uring, and

recording data from a multitude of experiments was a tedious one.

After his long series of experimerits were performed, Arrhenius quit his laboratory

bench and returned to his country home to try to formulate a model that could

account for his data, He wrote, “I got the idea in the night of the 17th of May in

the year 1883, and I could not s leep that night until I had worked through the

whole problem.” His idea was that ions were responsible for conducting electricity

through a solution.

B ack at Uppsa]a, Arrhenius took his doctoral dissertation containing the new theo

ry to his advisor, Professor Cleve, an eminent chemist and the discoverer of the

elements holmlum and thulium. Cleve’s unlnterested response was what Arrhenius

had expected. It was in keeping with CIeve’s resistance to new ideas he had not

even accepted Mendeleev’s periodic table, introduced ten years earlier.

It is a long standing custom that before a doctoral degree is granted the disse

rtation must be defended before a panel of professors. Although this procedure i s

still followed at most universities today, the problems are usually worked out in

private with the evaluating professors before the actual defense. However, w hen

Arrhenius did it, the disserta tion defense was an open debate, which could be

rancorous and humiliating. Knowing that it would be unwise to antagonize his

professors, Arrhenius downplayed his convictions about his new theory as he de t

ended his dissertation. His diplomacy paid off: he was awarded his degree, albei t

reluctantly, as the prolessors still did not believe his model and considered him to

be a marginal scientist, at best.

Such a setback could have ende d his scientific career, but Arrhenius was a

crusader; he was determined to see his theory triumph. Recognizing his low

credibility in his home coun try, he sen t his dissertation first to Rudolf Clausius, a

German seientist who had fimnulat ed the second law of thermodynamics, but

Clausius wasn’t interested. He next app roached Lothar Meyer, another German

scientist who had gained prominence for his work on the periodicity of the

clements, but Meyer was also unresponsive. Final ly, Arrhcnius found the right

champion in Wilhelm Ostwald, a German profes sor o f chemistry at Riga.

Ostwald, already known as a defender of revo lutionary chem ical causes, fully

accepted the idea that reactions in solu tion often involve i ons.

In 1885 Arrhenius began work ing in Ostwald’s laboratory, continui ng his

research on ions. Reading everything he could find on the sub jeer, he ca me

across a research paper written by a Dutch scientist, Jacobus van’t Heir, whi ch

was particularly helpful in placing the ionic theory on firmer gnound. In 1887

Arrhenius went to Amsterdalm to nicer van’l Heft At 22 years of age, van’t Help

had postulated the existence of stereochemistry; that is, that atoms in molecules

have definite relative positions in space. This theory was initially criticized

harshly, and van’t Heft, aided by Ostwald, had to fight to have it accepted. The

ionic theory was yet another unaccepted theory for which both Ostwald and van’t

Heft’ would extend their support.

By the time Arrhenius returned from Amsterdam, Ostwald had moved to Leipzig,

where he had be come professor of chemistry. It was there that Ostwald and

Anhenius put together a promotional strategy that would have done credit to a

canny politician. In the then new journal Zeitschrift fur Physikalische Chemic,

Ostwald wrote about the ionic theory, and finally the European scientific

establishment began to listen. Arrhenius’s classic paper “On the Dissociation of

Substances in Aque ous Solulhms” was published in 1887.

The ionic theory had become one of thc most ctmtroversal issues in science.

Although Ostwald, van’t Holt, and Arrhenius continued to champion the cause

vigorously. many scientists remained vebenmently opposed to the theory. In fact,

even though Arrhenius was by then a prominent scientist, his appointment as

Professor of Chemistry at the University of Stockholm was highly con troversial.

Ultimately, the ionic theory triumphed. Arrhenius’s fame spread, and honors were

heaped on him, culminating in tile Nobel Prize in chemistry. Nol one to rest on his

laurels, Arrhenius turned to new fields, in cluding astronomy; he formulated a new

theory that the solar system may have come into being through the collision of

stars. His exceptional versatility led him to study the use of serums to tight

disease, energy resources and conservation, and the origin of life.