Julius Lothar Meyer | |
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Meyer in 1883
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Born | 19 August 1830 Varel, Germany |
Died | 11 April 1895 (aged 65) Tübingen |
Fields | Chemistry |
Institutions | University of Tübingen |
Known for | Periodic table of chemical elements |
Influences | Robert Bunsen |
Notable awards | Davy Medal (1882) |
Julius Lothar Meyer (19 August 1830 – 11 April 1895) was a German chemist. He was one of the pioneers in developing the first periodic table of chemical elements. Both Mendeleev and Meyer worked with Robert Bunsen. He never used his first given name, and was known throughout his life simply as Lothar Meyer.
Lothar Meyer was born in Varel,Germany (then part of the Duchy of Oldenburg). He was the son of Friedrich August Meyer, a physician, and Anna Biermann. After attending the Altes Gymnasium in Oldenburg, he studied medicine at the University of Zurich in 1851. Two years later, he studied at the University of Würzburg, where he studied pathology, as a student of Rudolf Virchow. He studied under Carl Ludwig in Zurich, which prompted him to devote his attention to physiological chemistry. After taking his M.D. degree from Würzburg in 1854, he went to Heidelberg, where Robert Bunsen held the chair of chemistry. In 1858, he graduated with a Ph.D. with a thesis on the action of carbon monoxide on the blood. With this interest in the physiology of respiration, he had recognized that oxygen combines with the hemoglobin in blood.
Influenced by the mathematical teaching of Gustav Kirchhoff, he took up the study of mathematical physics at Königsberg under Franz Ernst Neumann, and in 1859 he became Privatdozent in physics and chemistry at the University of Breslau. In 1866, Meyer accepted a post at the Eberswalde Forestry Academy at Neustadt-Eberswalde but two years later was appointed to a professorship at the Karlsruhe Polytechnic.