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| Viktor Meyer | |
|---|---|
| Name | Viktor Meyer |
| Birth date | 5 September 1848 |
| Birth place | Freiburg im Breisgau, Grand Duchy of Baden |
| Death date | 9 November 1897 |
| Death place | Göttingen, German Empire |
| Nationality | German |
| Fields | Chemistry |
| Alma mater | University of Göttingen; University of Heidelberg; University of Würzburg |
| Doctoral advisor | Adolf von Baeyer; Heinrich Magnus |
| Known for | Meyer method for vapor density, discovery of thiophene, work on nitro compounds |
Viktor Meyer Viktor Meyer was a 19th-century German chemist noted for methods in gas analysis, organic sulfur chemistry, and stereochemical investigations. His work influenced contemporaries and institutions across Germany, shaping laboratory practice at universities such as University of Göttingen and University of Heidelberg. Meyer trained under and collaborated with figures like Adolf von Baeyer and engaged the scientific communities of Berlin and Munich.
Born in Freiburg im Breisgau in the Grand Duchy of Baden, Meyer studied at the University of Göttingen, the University of Heidelberg, and the University of Würzburg. He worked with chemists including Heinrich Magnus and Adolf von Baeyer, and his doctoral and postdoctoral years coincided with developments at institutes in Prussia and Bavaria. Meyer's formative period intersected with advances from contemporaries such as Robert Bunsen, Gustav Kirchhoff, and Friedrich August Kekulé.
Meyer established research programs at laboratories in Zurich and later at the Technische Hochschule Hannover before appointments at major German universities. He contributed to analytical protocols used in the laboratories of Justus von Liebig's tradition, and his experimental style reflected influences from August Wilhelm von Hofmann and Wilhelm Ostwald. Meyer's investigations spanned physical chemistry problems studied by peers like Svante Arrhenius and organic chemistry issues addressed by Charles Adolphe Wurtz.
Meyer devised a practical method for determining vapor density and molecular weight of volatile substances, now known as the Meyer method, which informed work by Dmitri Mendeleev and experimentalists at the Royal Society. He isolated and characterized the heterocycle thiophene, expanding the catalog of sulfur-containing organic compounds alongside studies by Friedrich Wöhler and Ernest Reichert. Meyer conducted key experiments on nitro compounds and alcohols, contributing to debates on isomerism contemporaneous with research by Louis Pasteur and Hermann Kolbe. His measurements of vapor densities influenced physical chemists such as J. H. van 't Hoff and Walther Nernst.
Meyer held professorships and directed laboratories at institutions including the University of Göttingen and the University of Heidelberg, mentoring students who later joined faculties across Europe and North America. He participated in academic networks connected to societies like the German Chemical Society and engaged with research funding and curricular reforms influenced by industrial partners in Berlin and Frankfurt am Main. His laboratory practices paralleled those developed at the University of Cambridge and the École Polytechnique.
Meyer died in Göttingen in 1897, leaving a legacy preserved in techniques adopted by generations of chemists in institutions such as the Max Planck Society and laboratories across Vienna and Prague. His name is attached to enduring experimental procedures taught in courses at the University of Oxford, Harvard University, and technical schools influenced by the German model of higher education. Historical treatments of his life appear in biographies and institutional histories relating to figures like Adolf von Baeyer and events such as the expansion of chemical research in 19th-century Germany.
Category:German chemists Category:1848 births Category:1897 deaths