1851 Faraday Lecture - DISCOVERY OF OZONE - Schönbein

Author: Professor Faraday

Title: On Schönbein's Ozone.

Publisher: London: Royal Institution of Great Britain, 1851.

5 pages. These are original text pages printed in 1851. Paper is in Excellent Condition. Attractively bound booklet style in recent blue paper covers with label.

Christian Friedrich Schönbein was a German-Swiss chemist who is best known for inventing the fuel cell and his discoveries of guncotton and ozone. It was while doing experiments on the electrolysis of water at the University of Basel that Schönbein first began to notice a distinctive odor in his laboratory. This smell gave Schönbein the clue to the presence of a new product from his experiments. Because of the pronounced smell, Schönbein coined the term ‘ozone’ for the new gas, from the Greek word ‘ozein’, meaning ‘to smell’. Schönbein described his discoveries in publications in 1840. He later found that the smell of ozone was similar to that produced by the slow oxidation of white phosphorus.

Michael Faraday (1791-1867), was an English chemist and physicist who contributed to the fields of electromagnetism and electrochemistry. Faraday studied the magnetic field around a conductor carrying a DC electric current, and established the basis for the electromagnetic field concept in physics. He discovered electromagnetic induction, diamagnetism, and laws of electrolysis. He established that magnetism could affect rays of light and that there was an underlying relationship between the two phenomena. His inventions of electromagnetic rotary devices formed the foundation of electric motor technology, and it was largely due to his efforts that electricity became viable for use in technology.

As a chemist, Faraday discovered benzene, investigated the clathrate hydrate of chlorine, invented an early form of the bunsen burner and the system of oxidation numbers, and popularized terminology such as anode, cathode, electrode, and ion. Faraday was the first and foremost Fullerian Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, a position to which he was appointed for life. Albert Einstein kept a photograph of Faraday on his study wall alongside pictures of Isaac Newton and James Clerk Maxwell.

The Royal Institution of Great Britain is an organization devoted to scientific education and research. It was founded in 1799 by the leading British scientists of the age, including Henry Cavendish and its first president, George Finch, the 9th Earl of Winchilsea. The Institution has had an instrumental role in the advancement of British science since its founding. Notable scientists who have worked there include Sir Humphry Davy (who discovered sodium and potassium), Michael Faraday, Sir Lawrence Bragg (who won the Nobel prize for his work on x-ray diffraction), and more recently Lord George Porter.