Who were the 5 most famous chemists of ancient times?

Who were the most famous chemists of ancient times? This is one of the most common questions among students of science careers, where knowledge of chemistry represents a fundamental step towards approaching many other disciplines. Let us then know the history of the five best known chemists throughout history. Who were the 5 most famous chemists of antiquity? By chemistry we mean the science that studies the composition of matter and its behavior based on that composition. It is a discipline that has very ancient roots, dating back to Ptolemaic Egypt with alchemy, which was a great starting point for the development of modern chemistry. Chemistry has also been defined as “the central science” because it connects the others. natural sciences, such as astronomy, physics, materials science, biology, and geology. Hence, it can be easily deduced why the study of this science is so important, and there are many great names of scientists and chemists who have made a great contribution to the scientific community, so we are going to review those that they are perhaps the best known or the most famous of antiquity.Antoine-Laurent de LavoisierWe begin with the one considered as the «father of chemistry». In addition to being a chemist, Lavoisier was a French biologist, philosopher and economist, who lived in the years of the French Revolution. To Lavoisier we owe the first version of the law of conservation of mass, the recognition and “baptism” of oxygen (1778 ) and hydrogen (1783), the phlogiston theory and much of the chemical nomenclature.He was also the first to discover the close relationship between combustion and pulmonary respiration by highlighting the role that air plays in both processes.Thanks to his complementary political and economic activities, Lavoisier was able to finance his research, but his relations with the monarchy did. led to a conviction for treason by the insurgents of the Revolution. The great French scientist was guillotined in 1794 Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleev Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleev (1834-1907) was a Russian chemist and inventor of the periodic table of the elements, providing a classification system used even today that highlights the chemical characteristics of the elements. Alfred Nobel Now let’s talk about Alfred Nobel (1833-1896), Swedish chemist, entrepreneur and philanthropist. We all know this Swedish scientist for being the inventor of the prize that bears his name, the Nobel Prize. Nobel was also the inventor of dynamite, whose patent was filed in early 1867. Marie Curie We cannot forget about women and among scientists and the most outstanding chemists of all we have to mention Marie Curie (1867-1934). Born in Poland, Marie Curie was a chemist and physicist, winner of two Nobel prizes in both disciplines. In 1903, in fact, she received the Nobel Prize in Physics. for his studies on radiation and, in 1911, he won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discovering radium and polonium. Along with Linus Pauling, Curie is the only character in history to have won the Nobel Prize in two distinct areas.This is not the only record attributable to the scientist: in 1908 Marie Curie was assigned the chair of general physics, becoming the first woman to teach at the Sorbonne.Linus PaulingLinus Carl Pauling (1901-1994) was an American chemist, crystallographer, and activist. Considered one of the most famous scientists of the 20th century, he won two Nobel prizes, one for chemistry in 1954 and one for peace in 1962. In his career, Pauling has devoted himself mainly to quantum chemistry and physics: in fact, he is considered the father of chemical bonding. In the latter part of the 1920s, Pauling began publishing research on the nature of chemical bonds, prompting him to publish his work “The Nature of Chemical Bonding.” His work on chemical bonds , which began in 1931, solved all the riddles about the formation of molecules that contain the same atoms. Pauling also explained the concept of chemical affinity and compiled the most well-known electronegativity scale. Pauling is also one of the fathers of an unconventional medicine called orthomolecular medicine.