Jöns Jacob Berzelius

Jöns Jacob Berzelius was a Swedish chemist who helped establish modern chemical notation, discovered several elements, and developed influential theories of chemical proportions.

Chemical symbol: A letter or group of letters representing a chemical element in formulas and equations. Berzelius introduced the letter-based element symbols that became standard chemical notation.
Law of definite proportions: The principle that a pure compound contains its constituent elements in fixed mass proportions. Berzelius tested and strengthened this principle with precise analyses of compounds.
Selenium: A chemical element with atomic number 34, discovered by Jöns Jacob Berzelius and Johan Gottlieb Gahn in 1817. Berzelius identified it while investigating a residue from sulfuric-acid production.
John Dalton: An English chemist who formulated an influential early atomic theory and a law of multiple proportions. Berzelius refined atomic-weight measurements while scrutinizing Dalton’s proposed atomic weights.
Vitalism: The doctrine that living processes depend on a distinctive principle absent from nonliving matter. Berzelius accepted a version of vitalism, later challenged by laboratory synthesis of organic compounds.
Chemical formula: A notation showing which elements and how many atoms compose a substance. His notation made formulas compact and readable across languages.
Law of multiple proportions: The principle that elements forming several compounds combine in small whole-number ratios by mass. His work on proportions helped connect this regularity to atoms and chemical formulas.
Cerium: A chemical element with atomic number 58, discovered in 1803 by Jöns Jacob Berzelius and Wilhelm Hisinger. Its discovery was one of Berzelius’s early contributions to the known elements.
Claude Louis Berthollet: A French chemist who argued that chemical composition could vary continuously with conditions. Berzelius’s evidence for fixed proportions opposed Berthollet’s account of variable composition.
Organic chemistry: The branch of chemistry focused principally on carbon-containing compounds and their reactions. Berzelius helped popularize the distinction between organic and inorganic compounds.

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