SACRED LEGACY ARCHIVES™

Charles Adolphe Wurtz

1817-11-26 – 1884-05-12

Adolphe Wurtz (26 November 1817 – 10 May 1884)Credit: Unknown author

Life & Legacy

Charles Adolphe Wurtz (French: [vyʁts]; 26 November 1817 – 10 May 1884) was an Alsatian French chemist. He is best remembered for his decades-long advocacy for the atomic theory and for ideas about the structures of chemical compounds, against the skeptical opinions of chemists such as Marcellin Berthelot and Henri Étienne Sainte-Claire Deville. He is well known by organic chemists for the Wurtz reaction, to form carbon-carbon bonds by reacting alkyl halides with sodium, and for his discoveries of ethylamine, ethylene glycol, and the aldol reaction. Wurtz was also an influential writer and educator.

Occupation & Career

chemist, politician, university teacher, physician

Education

University of Strasbourg; University of Giessen; Jean Sturm Gymnasium; Séminaire protestant de Strasbourg

Faith & Community

Protestantism

Accomplishments, Inventions & Publications

Copley Medal; Faraday Lectureship Prize; Grand Officer of the Legion of Honour; Foreign Member of the Royal Society; Jecker Prize; 72 names on the Eiffel Tower; honorary member of the Physics Association (Frankfurt am Main, Germany); Wurtz reaction

Legacy Highlights

Honors & Awards

72 names on the Eiffel Tower · Copley Medal · Faraday Lectureship Prize · Foreign Member of the Royal Society · Grand Officer of the Legion of Honour · honorary member of the Physics Association (Frankfurt am Main, Germany) · Jecker Prize

Church

Protestantism

Employer

Faculté de médecine de Strasbourg · Institut national agronomique · Paris Medical Faculty

Organizations & Memberships

Académie Nationale de Médecine · Academy of Sciences of Turin · Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei · American Academy of Arts and Sciences · Association française pour l'avancement des sciences · Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities · French Academy of Sciences · Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Lower Saxony · National Academy of Sciences · Royal Academy of Medicine of Belgium · Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences · Royal Society of London · Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences · Société Chimique de France · Société Philomathique de Paris