Peter Waage

Peter Waage was born on June 29, 1832 on the island Hidra, near Flekkefjord in Norway. His father, also named Peter, was a ship-master and owner so he was often away from home and Waage was raised and taught by his mother, Regine. Waage learned to read by age four and spent his youth collecting minerals, plants, and insects. He graduated high school in Christiana and began studying medicine at the university. After his first division he switched to chemistry. in 1858 Waage won the Crown Prince's Gold Medal for a paper he wrote about oxygen containing organic acids and he earned his doctorate in 1859. After graduating Waage won a scholarship to study in France and Germany, Waage as appointed as a lecturer in 1861 and professor of chemistry in 1866 at the University of Kristiana.

Waage is most remembered for his discovery, with his brother-in-law Otto Guldberg, of the law of mass action. The law of mass action says that the rate of a chemical reaction is proportional to the concentration of the chemical reacting. For the chemical reaction A + B --> AB the rate of the reaction is =k[A][B], where [A] and [B] are the concentrations of the reactants A and B and k is the the rate constant. The rate constant, k, varies depending on what the reaction is. Waage and Guldberg also studied the effects of temperature on chemical reactions. Because their paper was published in Norwegian it was largely unnoticed. The paper was later published in French and German and gained wide acceptance when the results were repeated by William Esson and Vernon Harcourt of Oxford University.

Waage and Guldberg were brother-in-laws twice over. Waage and Guldberg married sisters and after Waage's first wife died he married Guldberg's sister. Waage also discovered ways of preparing unsweetened condensed milk and sterile canned milk. Waage developed a condensed fish meal used as rations by the Norwegian Navy.

Waage died on January 13, 1900.


References:

Albe, Joseph and Smith, Michelle; "Otto Guldberg and Peter Wage";

Ringnes, Vivi; "Peter Wage"; Retrived from vitten.no

Peter Wage Wikipedia Entry

Cato Maximilian Guldberg

Cato Maximilian Guldberg was born on August 11, 1836 in Christiania (now Oslo) , Norway. He was educated at the University of Christiania. Starting in 1860 he taught mathematics at the Royal Military School. Later he became a professor of applied mathematics at the University of Christiana.

In 1863, working in collaboration with his brother-in-law Peter Waage (with whom he is pictured above, Guldberg is on the left) he formulated the law of mass action. This is a chemical law that says that the rate of any chemical reaction is proportional to the concentration of the reacting chemical(s). So for the chemical reaction A + B -> C, the rate of the reaction will be a constant (k) times the concentrations of A and B, such that rate = k[A][B], where [A] and [B] are the concentrations of A and B. Guldberg and Waage also investigated the effects of temperature on chemical reaction rates. Because Guldberg and Waage published in Norwegian the law of mass action when first published was largely ignored. When it was republished in French it still drew little attention until it was experimentally demonstrated by William Esson and Vernon Harcourt working at Oxford University.

Starting in 1870 Gulberg investigated how a dissolved substance affects the freezing point and vapor pressure of a pure liquid. In 1890 he formulated Guldberg's law which says that the boiling point of a liquid is two thirds the temperature of its critical temperature, the temperature at which a gas cannot be liquefied by increased pressure alone.

Gulberg died on January, 14, 1902 in his native city, which had respelled it's name to Kristiania.


References:

Daintith, John; "Guldberg, Cato Maximilian (1836-1902)" in Biographical Encyclopedia of Scientists, Third Edition; CRC Press; 2010

Tilden, Sir William Augustus; "Cato Maximilian Guldberg" in The Progress of Scientific Chemistry of Our Times; Longmans, Green; 1913

Cato Maximilian Guldberg Wikipedia Entry