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Svante Arrhenius (1859–1927)

1903 Chemistry

In recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered to the advancement of chemistry by his electrolytic theory of dissociation.

The Swede Svante August Arrhenius, father of the ionic theory that explains the movement of electric currents in solutions, was born in Vik to a family of farmers. When he was only a year old his parents moved to Uppsala, where he first attended school; he demonstrated a rare facility for solving mathematical problems and an unusual interest in physics and mathematics.

In 1876 he entered the University of Uppsala, the oldest university in Sweden, to study mathematics, chemistry and physics. In 1881 he moved to the Academy of Sciences in Stockholm. After working as an assistant to a professor he developed his doctoral thesis on the galvanic conductivity of electrolytes. Arrhenius concluded that electrical conductivity was possible in a solution due to the presence of ions. He was to later say that “the idea occurred on the night of the May 17, 1883, and I could not look at anything else until I had solved the problem.”

The relationship between electricity and chemistry was rejected by the scientific community at the time. However, while jury members raised many doubts about the new theory, Arrhenius obtained his doctorate in 1884. He lectured in physical chemistry at Uppsala, the first Swede to lecture in this branch of science, and, in 1895, he became a physics professor at the Stockholm Högskola (the “High School of Stockholm,” a private foundation that was the equivalent of a university science faculty). Arrhenius managed to win over many scientists in diverse fields and, in 1903, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, his theory for electrolytic dissociation having been widely accepted by that time. Two years later, despite being made various offers from universities, he stopped giving classes and became chief of the Nobel Institute for Physical Chemistry, newly created by the Academy of Sciences.

Arrhenius accumulated various distinctions, including being the first foreigner to be elected to the Royal Society and receiving a medal from the Chemical Society, among other prizes. He also published many popular books that could be understood by a non-scientific public. His interests in astronomy led him to propose a new theory on the formation of the solar system, based on the collision of stars, and he did valuable research into the use of chemical serum in fighting diseases.

Both in his professional and private life, Arrhenius was a quiet but happy man. During World War I he showed great bravery, successfully freeing and repatriating German and Austrian scientists. He married twice, first in 1894 to Sofia Rudbeck, with whom he had a son, and then to Maria Johansson in 1905, with whom he had three children. He died in Stockholm in 1927 and was buried in Uppsala.