Svante Arrhenius

Svante married his student Sofia Rudbeck in 1894 but the marriage ended two years later. He had one son from his first marriage and he was named Olof Vilhelm Arrhenius. Olof went on to become a chemist as well.

In the year, 1905 Arrhenius married Maria Johansson and the marriage lasted till the former’s death. He had two daughters and a son with Maria.

On 2nd October, 1927 this renowned chemist succumbed to inflammatory bowel disease with which he had been suffering. He died at the age of 68 and he was buried in Uppsala.

Svante Arrhenius was born in Vik near the Swedish town of Uppsala on Febuary 19, 1859 to Svente Gustav and Carolina Thunberg Arrhenius. His father was a non-teaching employee at the ‘Uppsala University’.

By the year 1862, a 3 year old Arrhenius learned how to read and became the talk of the town. Additionally, he also became an expert in arithmetic at the same time by going through his father’s accounting books.

In 1876, Svante Arrhenius graduated from the highly regarded cathedral school in the city of Uppsala and he was also the youngest graduate at the time.

In the year 1876, at the age of 17, he went to study at ‘Uppsala University’ and his subjects of study were physics, chemistry and mathematics. Arrhenius was awarded his bachelor’s degree two years later.

Arrhenius was dissatisfied with the physics teacher at ‘Uppsala University’ and so he discontinued his research work 1881 in order to study under Erik Edlund at the ‘Swedish Academy of Sciences’, Stockholm.

In 1884, the budding chemist put forward his dissertation at the ‘Swedish Academy of Sciences’ and in total it contained 56 theses, most of which would be considered flawless in the modern age.

In his 1884 dissertation he proved that a solution of salts and water is a good conductor of electricity while individually they weren’t. Although the theory did not impress his professors; stalwarts of physical chemistry like Rudolf Clausius and Wilhelm Ostwald were impressed.

Arrhenius was given a grant by the ‘Swedish Academy of Sciences’ in 1886 which allowed him to travel and conduct research with the leading scientists of the day like Ostwald and Boltzmann.

In the period between 1885 and 1890, he also carried out studies related to cosmic physics while at the same time he continued to make remarkable strides in findings related to electrolytic dissociation theory.

In the year 1891, Svante was appointed as a lecturer in physics at the Stockholms Hogskola, which is now better known as ‘Stockholm University’. He continued in that position till he was promoted as a professor four years later.

Svante Arrhenius was a staunch believer in making science and scientific thinking popular among the masses and to that end he published the famous book ‘Worlds in the Making’ in 1908. It was translated into many languages and was an immensely popular book.