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Marcellin Berthelot

 
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Pierre-Eugène- Marcellin Berthelot
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(born Oct. 27, 1827, Paris, France — died March 18, 1907, Paris) French chemist. The first professor of organic chemistry at the Collège de France (from 1865), he later also held high government offices, including that of foreign minister (1895 – 96). He did research in alcohols and carboxylic acids, the synthesis of hydrocarbons, and reaction rates, studied the mechanism of explosion, discovered many coal-tar derivatives, and wrote on the history of early chemistry. He was a pioneer in the use of chemical analysis as a tool of archaeology. His work helped break down the traditional division between organic and inorganic compounds. He opposed the then-current idea that a "vital force" is responsible for synthesis and was one of the first to prove that all chemical phenomena depend on physical forces that can be measured.

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Scientist: Pierre Eugène Marcellin Berthelot
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French chemist (1827–1907)

The Parisian-born son of a doctor, Berthelot studied medicine at the Collège de France but became interested in chemistry, becoming assistant to Antoine-Jérôme Balard in 1851. He was professor of organic chemistry at the Ecole Supérieure de Pharmacie (1859–76) and professor of chemistry at the Collège de France (1864–1907).

Alcohols were Berthelot's early research interest and he introduced the terms mono-, di-, and polyatomic alcohols. He showed that glycerin was a triatomic alcohol and in 1854 he synthesized fats from glycerin and fatty acids. He carried out a great deal of work on sugars, which he recognized as being both polyhydric alcohols and aldehydes.

Berthelot was one of the pioneers of organic synthesis. Before his time, organic chemists had mainly been concerned with degradations of natural products but Berthelot, in keeping with his logical systematic nature, began with the simplest molecules; his syntheses included methane, methanol, formic acid, ethanol, acetylene, benzene, naphthalene, and anthracene. His favored techniques were reduction using red-hot copper and the silent electric discharge. His methods were somewhat crude and the yields were low. Berthelot's work on organic synthesis was published as Chimie organique fondée sur la synthèse (1860).

Arising from his interest in esterification, Berthelot studied the kinetics of reversible reactions. In 1862, working with Péan de Saint Gilles, he produced an equation for the reaction velocity. This was incorrect but it inspired Cato Guldberg and Peter Waage to enunciate the law of mass action (1864).

In 1864 Berthelot turned to thermochemistry. In his book Mecanique chimique (1879) he introduced the terms ‘endothermic’ and ‘exothermic’ to describe reactions that respectively absorb and release heat. He also introduced the bomb calorimeter for the determination of heats of reaction and investigated the kinetics of explosions.

Berthelot's interest in agricultural chemistry was stimulated by his discovery of nitrogen uptake by plants in the presence of an electrical discharge. In 1883 he established an agricultural station at Meudon, where fundamental work on the nitrogen cycle was carried out. He looked forward to the day when poverty and squalor would be eradicated by the application of synthetic chemistry and new sources of energy.

Berthelot was a pioneer of historical studies in chemistry. In this he was influenced by his friend, the scholar Renan. In later life he became increasingly involved in affairs of state, mostly concerned with education, and in 1895–96 he served as foreign minister.

French Literature Companion: Marcellin Berthelot
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Berthelot, Marcellin (1827-1907). French scientist, professor of organic chemistry at the Collège de France, author of books on general philosophical topics [see Encyclopedias].

 
Columbia Encyclopedia: Pierre Eugène Marcelin Berthelot
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Berthelot, Pierre Eugène Marcelin (pyĕr ûzhĕn' märsəlăN' bĕrtəlō'), 1827-1907, French chemist. He was professor at the École Supérieure de Pharmacie (1859) and at the Collège de France from 1865. In 1900 he became a member of the French Academy. A founder of modern organic chemistry, he was one of the first to produce organic compounds synthetically (including the carbon compounds methyl alcohol, ethyl alcohol, benzene, and acetylene), playing a major role in dispelling the old theory of a vital force inherent in organic compounds. He also did valuable work in thermochemistry and in explosives. His writings include Chimie organique fondée sur la synthèse (1860) and Leçons sur la thermochimie (1897).
Wikipedia: Marcellin Berthelot
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Marcellin Berthelot

Marcellin Berthelot
Born 25 October 1827 (1827-10-25)
Paris
Died 18 March 1907 (1907-03-19)
Nationality French
Fields chemistry
thermochemistry
Known for Thomsen-Berthelot principle

Marcellin (or Marcelin) Pierre Eugène Berthelot (25 October 1827 – 18 March 1907) was a French chemist and politician noted for the Thomsen-Berthelot principle of thermochemistry . He synthesized many organic compounds from inorganic substances and disproved the theory of vitalism. He is considered as one of the greatest chemists of all time.

He was born at Paris, the son of a doctor. After doing well at school in history and philosophy, he became a scientist.

Contents

Career

During 1851 he became a member of the staff of the Collège de France as assistant to A.J. Balard, his former master, and about the same time he began his life-long friendship with Ernest Renan. During 1854, he made his reputation by his doctoral thesis, Sur les combinaisons de la glycérine avec les acides, which described a series of beautiful researches in continuation and amplification of M.E. Chevreul's classic work. During 1859 he was appointed professor of organic chemistry at the École Supérieure de Pharmacie, and in 1865 he accepted the new chair of organic chemistry, which was specially created for his benefit at the Collège de France. He became a member of the Academy of Medicine during 1863, and ten years afterwards entered the Academy of Sciences, of which he became perpetual secretary in 1889 in succession to Louis Pasteur. He was appointed inspector general of higher education in 1876, and after his election as life senator in 1881 he continued to take an active interest in educational questions, especially as affected by compulsory military service. In René Goblet's ministry of 1886-1887 he was minister of public instruction, and in the Bourgeois cabinet of 1895-1896 he held the portfolio for foreign affairs. His scientific jubilee was celebrated in Paris in 1901.

Discoveries

The fundamental conception that underlay all Berthelot's chemical work was that all chemical phenomena depend on the action of physical forces which can be determined and measured. When he began his active career it was generally believed that, although some instances of the synthetic production of organic substances had been observed, on the whole organic chemistry remained an analytical science and could not become a constructive one, because the formation of the substances with which it deals required the intervention of vital activity in some shape. To this attitude he offered uncompromising opposition, and by the synthetic production of numerous hydrocarbons, natural fats, sugars and other bodies he proved that organic compounds can be formed by ordinary methods of chemical manipulation and obey the same principles as inorganic substances, thus exhibiting the "creative character in virtue of which chemistry actually realizes the abstract conceptions of its theories and classifications-- a prerogative so far possessed neither by the natural nor by the historical sciences."

Publications

His investigations on the synthesis of organic compounds were published in numerous papers and books, including Chimie organique fondée sur la synthèse (1860) and Les Carbures d'hydrogène (1901). He stated that chemical phenomena are not governed by any peculiar laws special to themselves, but are explicable in terms of the general laws of mechanics that are in operation throughout the universe; and this view he developed, with the aid of thousands of experiments, in his Mécanique chimique (1878) and his Thermochimie (1897). This branch of study naturally conducted him to the investigation of explosives, and on the theoretical side led to the results published in his work Sur la force de la poudre et des matières explosives (1872), while in practical terms it enabled him to render important services to his country as president of the scientific defence committee during the siege of Paris in 1870-71 and subsequently as chief of the French explosives committee. He performed experiments to determine gas pressures during hydrogen explosions using a special chamber fitted with a piston, and were able to distinguish burning of mixtures of hydrogen and oxygen from true explosions.

Bombs used for hydrogen explosion experiments

During later life he turned to the study of the earlier phases of the science which he did so much to advance, and students of chemical history are greatly indebted to him for his book on Les Origines de l'alchimie (1885) and his Introduction à l'étude de la chimie des anciens et du moyen âge (1889), as well as for publishing translations of various old Greek, Syriac and Arabic treatises on alchemy and chemistry (Collection des anciens alchimistes grecs, 1887-1888, and La Chimie au moyen âge, 1893). He was also the author of Science et philosophie (1886), which contains a well-known letter to Renan on "La Science idéale et la science positive," of La Révolution chimique, Lavoisier (1890), of Science et morale (1897), and of numerous articles in La Grande Encyclopédie, which he helped to establish.

Family

He died suddenly, immediately after the death of his wife Sophie Niaudet (1837-1907), at Paris, and was buried with her in the Panthéon. He had six children:[1] Marcel André (1862-1939), Marie-Hélène (1863-1895), Camille (1864-1928), Daniel (1865-1927), Philippe (1866-1934), and René (1872-1960).

References

  1. ^ Individus at mapage.noos.fr

Further reading

See also

External links

Political offices
Preceded by
René Goblet		 Minister of Public Instruction and Fine Arts
1886–1887		 Succeeded by
Eugène Spuller
Preceded by
Gabriel Hanotaux		 Minister of Foreign Affairs
1895–1896		 Succeeded by
Léon Bourgeois
Cultural offices
Preceded by
Joseph Bertrand		 Seat 40
Académie française
1900–1907		 Succeeded by
Francis Charmes

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