13 Facts About Torbern Bergman

Torbern Olof Bergman was a Swedish chemist and mineralogist noted for his 1775 Dissertation on Elective Attractions, containing the largest chemical affinity tables ever published.

Torbern Bergman enrolled at the University of Uppsala at age 17.

Torbern Bergman's father wished him to read either law or divinity, while he himself was anxious to study mathematics and natural science; in the effort to please both himself and his father, he overworked himself and harmed his health.

Torbern Bergman was able to send Linnaeus specimens of several new kinds of insects, and in 1756 he succeeded in proving that, contrary to the opinion of that naturalist, the so-called Coccus aquaticus was really the ovum of a kind of leech.

Torbern Bergman returned to the university in 1758, and received his PhD in that year.

Torbern Bergman lectured at the University of Uppsala on physics and mathematics, publishing papers on the rainbow, the aurora, the pyroelectric phenomena of tourmaline.

Torbern Bergman's competitors charged him with ignorance of the subject, because he had never written on it.

Torbern Bergman greatly contributed to the advancement of quantitative analysis, and he developed a mineral classification scheme based on chemical characteristics and appearance.

Torbern Bergman is noted for his research on the chemistry of metals, especially bismuth and nickel.

In 1764, Torbern Bergman was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

In 1771, six years after he first discovered carbonated water and four years after Joseph Priestley first created artificially carbonated water, Torbern Bergman perfected a process to make carbonated water from chalk by the action of sulphuric acid.

Torbern Bergman is noted for his sponsorship of Carl Wilhelm Scheele, whom some deem to be Bergman's "greatest discovery".

In Bergman's honour, the uranium mineral torbernite and the lunar crater Bergman both bear his name.