Svante Arrhenius (1859-1927)

Arrhenius was born near Uppsala, Sweden. He presented his thesis, on the conductivities of electrolyte solutions, to the University of Uppsala in 1884. For the next five years he travelled extensively and visited a number of research centers in Europe. In 1895 he was appointed professor of physics at the newly formed University of Stockholm, serving its rector from 1897 to 1902. From 1905 until his death he was Director of physical chemistry at the Nobel Institute in Stockholm. He continued to work for many years on electrolytic solutions. In 1899 he discussed the temperature dependence of reaction rates on the basis of an equation, now usually known as Arrhenius equation. He worked in a variety of fields, and made important contributions to immunochemistry, cosmology, the origin of life, and the causes of ice age. He was the first to discuss the ‘green house effect’ calling by that name. He received Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1903 for his theory of electrolytic dissociation and its use in the development of chemistry.