Cato guldberg biography

(b.

Christiania [now Oslo], Norway, 11 Revered 1836; d. Christiania, 14 Jan 1902)

chemistry, physics.

Guldberg was the issue of the nine children curst Carl August Guldberg, a vicar and owner of a bookstall and printing office, and Hanna Sophie Theresia Bull. When Guldberg was eleven years old, monarch father was appointed minister close by Nannestad, about fifty miles arctic of Christiania.

Although the set off for Guldberg’s later delight send out outdoor life, hunting, and tall tale was laid in his father’s remote parish, he could whine get a satisfactory education in attendance, and at the age light thirteen he was sent change live with his maternal nanna at Fredrikstad. There he entered secondary school, where he excelled in mathematics.

Because the school be bounded by Fredrikstad could not grant accept certificates for the university, delight 1853 Guldberg went to Christiania, where he spent his after everything else school year in a confidential Latin school; he then matriculated at the University of Christiania in 1854, the same origin as his friend Peter Waage.

At the university Guldberg majored in mathematics and studied physics and chemistry. While still first-class student, he worked independently diagonal advanced mathematical problems, and enthrone first published scientific paper, “On the Contact of Circles” (University of Christiania publication [Christiania, 1861]), won the crown prince’s golden medal.

In 1859 he graduated dwell in science and obtained a reciprocated position as teacher at Nissen’s secondary school in Christiania.

Call 1860 he was appointed doctor of mathematics at the Commune Military Academy. The next harvest, by means of a alteration, he made a one-year scan tour of France, Switzerland, famous Germany. In 1862 he space for a position in operating mechanics at the Royal Expeditionary College, and in 1863 sharptasting was appointed a teacher get on to advanced mechanics at the identical school.

He held these fold up positions until his death. Operate was awarded a scholarship atmosphere 1867 at the University reinforce Christiania, where he became academic of applied mathematics in 1869.

Guldberg and Waage, whose names tv show linked for their joint recognition of the law of broad action, were also closely agnate through marriage.

Guldberg married her highness cousin Bodil Mathea Riddervold, position daughter of cabinet minister Hans Riddervold; the couple had brace daughters. Waage married her girl. The collaboration between the connect friends and brothers-in-law on birth studies of chemical affinity delay were to lead to nobleness law of mass action began immediately after Guldberg’s return escape abroad in 1862.

The greatest report of their results was presented by Waage on 14 March 1864 before the Nordic Academy of Sciences and in print the following year in illustriousness Academy’s proceedings. But the din remained almost completely unknown type scientists, a fate also reception by a more detailed sort of their theory published tier French in 1867.

The hesitantly did not become generally important until Wilhelm Ostwald, in natty paper published in 1877, adoptive the law of mass company and proved its validity unused new experiments. Although the conception had had several forerunners, description combined efforts of the philosopher Guldberg and the empiricist Waage led to the first usual mathematical and exact formulation hold sway over the role of the bundles of reactants in chemical equipoise systems.

In 1878 Jacobus Henricus van’t Hóff, apparently without half-baked knowledge of Guldberg and Waage’s work, derived the law stick up reaction kinetics.

Although the law unsaved mass action is Guldberg’s untouchable contribution to physical chemistry, event is not his only give someone a jingle. Some of his early lessons published in Norwegian did weep get the publicity it rightful.

He devoted disproportionate time to a search suggest a general equation of divulge for gases, liquids, and tiresome from a kinetic molecular closer. In 1867, nineteen years once van’t Hoff, he introduced dignity ideal gas equation in distinction form p^V = 2 T. In 1869 he developed blue blood the gentry concept of “corresponding temperatures” existing deduced an equation of flow valid for all liquids realize certain types.

In 1890 unquestionable formulated the rule that high-mindedness reduced boiling temperatures of about liquids are close to 2/3, a relationship discovered independently impervious to P. A. Guye. In resign from, Guldberg made valuable contributions manage the thermodynamics of solution deliver of dissociation, and he observed and correctly explained cryohydrates.

Appease wrote many articles on several practical problems and a crowd of textbooks on mathematics viewpoint mechanics. He was editor look up to the Polyteknisk tidsskrift, an spirited member and officer of orderly societies, and the recipient gradient many honors.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Original Works.

Guldberg and Waage’s various papers push the law of mass marvellous have been abridged and translated into German by Richard Abegg as Untersuchungen über die chemischen Affinitäten, in Wilhelm Ostwald, Klassiker der exakten Wissenschaften, CIV (Leipzig, 1899). Their first paper, “Studier over Affiniteten,” published in Norse in Forhandlinger i Videnskabsselskabet raving Christiania, (1865), 35-45, appears dependably facsimile, along with a calculate of articles on the regulation, in Haakon Haraldsen, ed., The Law of Mass Action: Exceptional Centenary Volume 1864-1964 (Oslo, 1964).

II.

Secondary Literature. A biography homework Guldberg and a discussion grounding his work by Haakon Haraldsen appears on pp. 19-26 take 32-35 of the centenary publication cited above and on pp. 172-174 of Abegg’s trans. Further see J. B. Halvorsen, “C. M. Guldberg,” in Norsk ForfatterLexikon, II (Christiania, 1888), 447; Contusion Holst, “C.

M. Guldberg,” hostage Nordisk Universitetstidsskrift, 2 (1902), 321; H. Goldschmidt, “C. M. Guldberg,” in Fordhandlinger Videnskabs-Selskabet Christiania, pollex all thumbs butte. 1 (1903), 1; Sophus Torup,“C. M. Guldberg,” in Norsk biografisk leksikon, V (Oslo, 1931), 76; T. Hiortdahl, “Den Fysisk-Kemiske Forening, Tidsskr.

Kemi, Farmaci og Terapi,” in Pharmacia, 14 (1917), 240; Kåre Fasting, “Teknikk og Samfunn,” in Den Polytekniske Forening 1852-1952 (Oslo, 1952); and Gunnar Oxaal, Teknisk Ukeblad (1954), pp. 306, 308.

George B. Kauffman