Nils Abraham Langlet (9 July 1868 – 30 March 1936; known by his second given name) was a

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

chemist A chemist (from Greek ''chēm(ía)'' alchemy; replacing ''chymist'' from Medieval Latin ''alchemist'') is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties. Chemists carefully describe t ...

Biography

Langlet was born in

Södertälje Södertälje ( , ) is a city in Södermanland and Stockholm County, Sweden and seat of Södertälje Municipality. As of 2017, it has 72,704 inhabitants. Södertälje is located at Mälarens confluence in to the Baltic Sea through the lock in the ...

, Sweden. He was the son of architect Emil Victor Langlet (1824–1898) and his wife, author Clara Mathilda Ulrika Clementine Söderén (1832–1904). His brothers included author Valdemar Langlet (1872–1960). From 1886 to 1896, he studied chemistry under Per Teodor Cleve (1840–1905) at

Uppsala University Uppsala University ( sv, Uppsala universitet) is a public research university in Uppsala, Sweden. Founded in 1477, it is the oldest university in Sweden and the Nordic countries still in operation. The university rose to significance during ...

, where he became a philosophy graduate in 1888, Philosophy Licentiate in 1893 and obtained a doctorate in 1896 and was made '' docent'' in the same year. In 1899, he became lecturer in Chemistry and Chemical Technology at the

Chalmers University of Technology Chalmers University of Technology ( sv, Chalmers tekniska högskola, often shortened to Chalmers) is a Swedish university located in Gothenburg that conducts research and education in technology and natural sciences at a high international leve ...

in Gothenburg, where he received a professorship in the same field in 1911. From 1926, when his professorship was divided, he was professor of

Organic Chemistry Organic chemistry is a subdiscipline within chemistry involving the scientific study of the structure, properties, and reactions of organic compounds and organic materials, i.e., matter in its various forms that contain carbon atoms.Clayden, ...

. In 1895, while working with Cleve in Uppsala, he made the independent discovery of the element

helium Helium (from el, ἥλιος, helios, lit=sun) is a chemical element with the symbol He and atomic number 2. It is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic, inert, monatomic gas and the first in the noble gas group in the periodic table. ...

(in the same year discovered by

William Ramsay Sir William Ramsay (; 2 October 1852 – 23 July 1916) was a Scottish chemist who discovered the noble gases and received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1904 "in recognition of his services in the discovery of the inert gaseous element ...

) in the mineral cleveite. Langlet was the first to correctly define its

atomic weight Relative atomic mass (symbol: ''A''; sometimes abbreviated RAM or r.a.m.), also known by the deprecated synonym atomic weight, is a dimensionless physical quantity defined as the ratio of the average mass of atoms of a chemical element in a giv ...

. He died in Gothenburg, Sweden.

References

1868 births 1936 deaths People from Södertälje Swedish chemists Uppsala University alumni Chalmers University of Technology faculty {{chemist-stub