Technikatörténeti szemle 25. (2001-02)

Papers of the Third International Conference on the History of Chemistry and Chemical Industry (Budapest, 2–4 July, 1999) – First Part - Tansjö, Levi: Mendelejev and the Nobel Prize in chemistry

The Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Caroline Institute, the Swedish Academy and the Norwegian parlament accepted to award the prizes so as Nobel had wished. Statutes for the legal and organizational structure of the Nobel Foundation had to be worked out and were finally ratified by the Swedish government in 1900. The first Nobel prizes were awarded on December the 10

th 1901, five years after the death on Alfred Nobel. Jacobus Hendricus van't Hoff got the first prize in chemistry, Röntgen the first one in physics. In 1902 Emil Fischer was awarded the prize in chemistry, Lorents and Zeeman at the University of Utrecht the prize in physics for their study of the effect of magnetic fields on electromagnetic radiation. Svante Arrhenius was in 1903 proposed for the prize both in chemistry and in physics and had been so also in 1901 and 1902. It was well known that Arrhenius himself wanted half the prize in chemistry and half the prize in physics. He regarded himself to be more of a physicist than a chemist and his theory of electrolytic dissociation was as imortant for physics as for chemistry. The Nobel Committee for chemistry wanted to propose Arrhenius for half the prize in chemistry and William Ramsay for the other half. It suggested to the Committee in physics to propose Arrhenius for half the prize in physics and Lord Rayleigh for the other half. But three of the five members in the Committee for physics were professors in Uppsala and didn't want to see Arrhenius as a Nobel prize winner. There existed since 1884, when Arrhenius defended his doctor's thesis in Uppsala and got no dozentship, a strong animosity between Arrhenius and the professors in science in Uppsala. The Committee for physics instead suggested to the Committee for chemistry to propose William Ramsay for the whole prize in chemistry so that Lord Rayleigh could be proposed for the whole prize in physics. But the Committee for physics suspected that Arrhenius now would be proposed for the whole prize in chemistry and it therefore proposed Henri Becquerel to half the prize in physics and Pierre and Marie Curie to the other half, and the Academy decided in accordance to the Committees's proposals. In 1904 William Ramsay was awarded the prize in chemistry and Lord Rayleigh the prize in physics. In 1905 nine persons were proposed for the prize in chemistry; A. von Baeyer, München, Le Chatelier, Paris, D. Mendelejev, St Petersburg, H. Moissan, Paris, Th. W. Richards, Cambridge, Mass., W. Ostwald, Leipzig, E. Büchner, Berlin, G. Ciamician, Bologna and E. Fischer, Berlin. The Committee for chemistry found that von Baeyer, Mendelejev and Moissan were the strongest names so only their works were seriously analysed. E. Fischer had got the prize in 1902 and therfore was not actual. The Committee unanimously proposed A. von Baeyer for the prize and he got it 1905 for his works in organic chemistry on dyestoff and hydroaromatic compounds. Lenard got the 1905 prize in physics for his research on cathode rays. In 1906 Mendelejev and Moissan were again proposed for the prize in chemistry together with W. Nernst, W. Grlgnard and W. Ostwald. The chairman of the Committee Peter Klason, professor in chemistry at the Royal Technological