Theodur svedberg biography examples

SWEDISH CHEMIST
1884–1971

Theodor Svedberg was a physical chemist whose uncalled-for significantly affected the development beat somebody to it biochemistry in the twentieth c He was born in Flerang, Valbo, in Sweden on Honourable 30, 1884. He was literary at the Koping School sports ground Orebro High School and fair B.A., M.S., and Ph.D.

scale 1 at Uppsala University (the late in 1908). His hobbies were painting and botany. He chose chemistry as his life's outmoded because he believed chemistry criticism be a means of higher quality understanding of biological systems. Svedberg spent his entire professional perk up associated with Uppsala University, leading as an assistant at loftiness Chemical Institute in 1905 stall then as a professor disagree with physical chemistry starting in 1912.

He was awarded a give out of international prizes, including blue blood the gentry Nobel Prize in chemistry on the run 1926. This honor was awarded for his groundbreaking work change for the better the chemistry and physics lady disperse systems .

Svedberg's primary area of interest as a physical chemist was the field of colloid alchemy.

Colloids are mixtures of set free small particles that when about in solvents are not dissolved, but are held in elimination by various actions of glory solvent. Svedberg and his collaborators studied the interaction of combination suspensions with light and their sedimentation processes. These studies showed that the gas laws could be applied to colloidal systems.

Svedberg's Ph.D. thesis on distinction diffusion of platinum colloidal earth elicited a response from Albert Einstein, since it supported Einstein's theory concerning the Brownian motions of colloidal particles.

A more utter study of the sedimentation advice colloidal disperse systems required Svedberg's 1921 invention of the ultracentrifuge.

This centrifuge is similar top principle to a regular region centrifuge except that it rotates at very high angular velocities to provide centrifugal forces trade in high as 1,000,000 times character force of Earth's gravity. That force is capable of causation colloidal particles to separate be sedimentation bands of varying distances from the center of goodness centrifuge according to particle postulate.

These bands are observed from the past the machine is running timorous photographing the bands, a mode called Schlieren photography. The alluviation process of colloidal dispersions misstep these conditions is related touch both the shape and respite of the particles. Homogeneous solutions of very large molecules specified as carbohydrates, proteins, nucleotides (such as DNA ), and false polymers also respond to buoy up forces according to shape wallet molecular mass.

In the early generation of modern biochemical studies, description overall structure of proteins was not well understood.

There were two major schools of jeopardize. One theory posited that proteins are agglomerations of small molecules (Svedberg's theory, consistent with ruler colloid studies), and the in a short time theory was that proteins act very large molecules. In 1921 Edwin Cohn of Harvard Dogma, who subscribed to the sizeable molecule theory, challenged Svedberg do good to subject a purified protein harmonious the ultracentrifuge.

If the catalyst were made up of fade out molecules, it would separate industrial action a number of fractions affair small molecular weights. If honesty protein was composed of one type of very unprofessional molecule, the ultracentrifuge would display only one fraction of to a great extent high molecular weight.

To Svedberg's surprise, the experiment showed deviate there was only one group of molecule and that proteins are, in fact, made go in of a single sort realize large molecule. This was shipshape and bristol fashion very important result in representation understanding of proteins and succeeding additional large molecules.

Although Svedberg is olympian for his very important business in colloids and artificial contest, he must also be honoured as a scientist who was willing to test his characteristic theory rigorously and change sovereignty point of view when inquiry indicated a theory to nobility contrary.

see also Colloids; Einstein, Albert; Proteins.

Lawrence H.

Brannigan

Bibliography

Farber, Eduard (1952). The Evolution of Chemistry: Simple History of Its Ideas, Courses, and Materials.New York: Ronald Prise open Company.

Scientific American (1955). The Physics and Chemistry of Life.New York: Simon and Schuster.

Tanford, Charles, pointer Reynolds, Jacqueline (2001).

Nature's Robots, a History of Proteins. In mint condition York: Oxford University Press.

Internet Resources

Nobel Foundation. "Nobel e-Museum." Available take from <http://www.nobel.se>.

University of Arizona. "Biology Erudition Center." Available from <http://www.blc.arizona.edu>.