The most important village in chemistry

By Kit Chapman and Kristy Turner2018-10-29T13:27:00

Source: Kit Chapman

How one small Swedish hamlet contributed to the periodic table

In 1789, a Swedish artillery lieutenant, Carl Axel Arrhenius, with an interest in minerals, visited the mine in Ytterby that supplied Stockholm with feldspar for making porcelain and glass. There, Arrhenius noticed a strange, heavy black rock he didn’t recognise. That discovery led to the isolation of nine new elements.

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