William Ramsay Biography

William Ramsay was a renowned Chemist who lived in Britain and made significant contribution in discovering the inert components in the earth’s atmosphere. He started his scientific career while in university where he studied the properties of toluic acids thus earning a doctorate. He then embarked on an academic career wherein he worked in association with great minds like John William Strutt, who would later become his collaborator in his most important discovery of noble gases. Following the discovery of argon, William set about identifying other inert elements. He successfully identified the elements xenon, neon and krypton present in the atmosphere. He also studied the radioactive decay of radium and made a significant discovery. He concluded that helium that was earlier believed to exist only on the surface of sun was produced during the radioactive decay of radium along with argon. This discovery was a major breakthrough and he was awarded a Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He also dabbled with possibility of extracting gold from sea water, an attempt that proved futile. Throughout his career Ramsay made several notable discoveries in the field of inorganic chemistry, which were related to studies of picoline and quinine alkaloids. He also studied stoichiometry and thermodynamics along with his research on properties of solutions of metals. Read on to know more about his life and works