{{Short description|Swedish chemist and mineralogist}} {{EngvarB|date=July 2017}} {{Use dmy dates|date=July 2017}} {{Infobox scientist | name = Torbern Bergman | image = Torbern Olof Bergman.jpg | image_size = 250px | caption = Portrait by [[Ulrika Pasch]] | birth_name = Torbern Olof Bergman | birth_date = {{birth date|df=yes|1735|3|20}} | birth_place = Katrineberg, Låstad parish, [[Sweden]] | death_date = {{death date and age|df=yes|1784|7|8|1735|3|20}} | death_place = [[Medevi]], Sweden | citizenship = | ethnicity = | field = [[Chemist]] and [[mineralogist]] | workplaces = [[University of Uppsala]] | education = [[University of Uppsala]] | doctoral_advisor = [[Bengt Ferrner]] | doctoral_students = [[Johann Afzelius]] | known_for = [[chemical affinity|Chemical affinity tables]] | author_abbrev_bot = | author_abbrev_zoo = | awards = | footnotes = | signature = Signature of Torbern Bergman.png | spouse = Margareta Catharina Trast }} '''Torbern Olof Bergman''' (''KVO'') (20 March 1735{{spaced ndash}}8 July 1784) was a Swedish [[chemist]] and [[mineralogist]] noted for his 1775 ''Dissertation on Elective Attractions'', containing the largest [[chemical affinity]] tables ever published. Bergman was the first chemist to use the A, B, C, etc., system of notation for [[chemical species]]. ==Early life and education== Torbern was born on 20 March 1735, the son of Barthold Bergman and Sara Hägg. He enrolled at the [[University of Uppsala]] at age 17. His father wished him to hear 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. During a period of enforced abstinence from study, he amused himself with field [[botany]] and [[entomology]]. He was able to send [[Carl Linnaeus|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]].{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}} He returned to the university in 1758, and received his PhD in that year. ==Career== [[Image:Alchemical-symbols-1775.jpg|250px|right|thumb|[[Alchemical symbol]]s in Bergman's 1775 ''Dissertation on Elective Affinities'']] Bergman lectured at the University of Uppsala on [[physics]] and mathematics, publishing papers on the [[rainbow]], the [[aurora]], the [[pyroelectricity|pyroelectric]] phenomena of [[tourmaline]].{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}} Upon the resignation of the celebrated [[Johan Gottschalk Wallerius|Johan Wallerius]], Bergman was a candidate for the professorship of [[chemistry]] and [[mineralogy]]. His competitors charged him with ignorance of the subject, because he had never written on it. To refute them, he shut himself up for some time in a laboratory, and prepared a treatise on the manufacture of [[alum]], which became a standard work. Thanks to the influence of [[Gustav III]], then crown prince and chancellor of the university, he was appointed a professor of chemistry, and remained at this position for the rest of his life.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}} Bergman greatly contributed to the advancement of [[Quantitative analysis (chemistry)|quantitative analysis]], and he developed a mineral classification scheme based on chemical characteristics and appearance. He is noted for his research on the chemistry of metals, especially [[bismuth]] and [[nickel]]. In 1764, Bergman was elected a member of the [[Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences]]. In April 1765 he was elected a [[Fellow of the Royal Society]] of London.{{cite web| url = http://www2.royalsociety.org/DServe/dserve.exe?dsqIni=Dserve.ini&dsqApp=Archive&dsqCmd=Show.tcl&dsqDb=Persons&dsqPos=0&dsqSearch=%28Surname%3D%27bergman%27%29| title = Library and Archive Catalog| publisher = Royal Society| access-date = 13 December 2010}}{{Dead link|date=July 2018 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=no }} In 1773 he was elected a member of the [[American Philosophical Society]].{{Cite web|url=https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=tobern&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=&year-max=&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanced|title = APS Member History}} In March 1782, he was elected Foreign Associate of the [[French Academy of Sciences]].[http://www.academie-sciences.fr/en/Liste-des-membres-depuis-la-creation-de-l-Academie-des-sciences/les-membres-du-passe-dont-le-nom-commence-par-b.html Membres de l'académie du passé] In 1771, six years after he first discovered carbonated water and four years after [[Joseph Priestley]] first created artificially [[carbonated water]], Bergman perfected a process to make carbonated water from chalk by the action of [[sulphuric acid]]. He is also noted for his sponsorship of [[Carl Wilhelm Scheele]], whom some deem to be Bergman's "greatest discovery". The translation into English of his book Physical and Chemical Essays was read widely and regarded as the first systematic method of chemical analysis.Hamlin, Christopher. (1990) 'A Science of Impurity, water analysis in nineteenth century Britain', University of California Press ==Personal life== In 1771, Bergman married Margareta Catharina Trast. ==Legacy== In Bergman's honour, the uranium mineral [[torbernite]] and the lunar crater [[Bergman (crater)|Bergman]]{{gpn|700|Bergman}} both bear his name. ==Works== [[File:Bergman, Torbern – Opuscula physica et chemica, 1779 – BEIC 12240694.jpg|thumb|''Opuscula physica et chemica'', 1779]] * {{cite book|title=Physick Beskrifning Ofver Jordklotet|year=1766}} * {{Cite book|title=Opuscula physica et chemica|volume=1|publisher=Magnus Swederus|location=Stockholm|year=1779|language=la|url=https://gutenberg.beic.it/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=12240694}} ** {{Cite book|title=Opuscula physica et chemica|volume=2|publisher=John Edman|location=Uppsala|year=1780|language=la|url=https://gutenberg.beic.it/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=12242035}} ** {{Cite book|title=Opuscula physica et chemica|volume=3|publisher=Johann Gottfried Müller|location=Leipzig|year=1786|language=la|url=https://gutenberg.beic.it/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=12243622}} ** {{Cite book|title=Opuscula physica et chemica|volume=4|publisher=Johann Gottfried Müller|location=Leipzig|year=1787|language=la|url=https://gutenberg.beic.it/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=12245155}} ** {{Cite book|title=Opuscula physica et chemica|volume=5|publisher=Johann Gottfried Müller|location=Leipzig|year=1788|language=la|url=https://gutenberg.beic.it/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=12246400}} * {{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gP4JAAAAIAAJ|title=A Dissertation on Elective Attractions|year=1775|last1=Bergman|first1=Torbern}} * {{cite book|title=Essays, Physical and Chemical|year=1779–1781}} * {{Cite book|title=Historiae chemiae medium seu obscurum aevum|volume=|publisher=Giuseppe Tofani|location=Firenze|year=1782|language=it|url=https://gutenberg.beic.it/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=12408829}} *[https://www.tekniskamuseet.se/lar-dig-mer/svenska-uppfinnare-och-innovatorer/torbern-bergman-kolsyrat-vatten/ Tekniska Museet] ==See also== * [[Chemical crystallography before X-rays#18th century|Chemical crystallography before X-rays]] ==Notes== {{reflist|30em}} ==References== * {{Cite Americana|wstitle=Bergman, Torbern Olof|year=1920}} * {{EB1911|wstitle=Bergman, Torbern Olof|volume=3|page=774}} ==Further reading== * Mostrom, Birgitta. (1957). ''Torbern Bergman: a bibliography of his works.'' Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell. Includes over 300 items, including translations printed up to 1956. * Schufle, J.A. (1985). ''Torbern Bergman : a man before his time.'' Lawrence, Kan.: Coronado Press. * {{cite encyclopedia | last = Smeaton | first = W.A. | title = Bergman, Torbern Olaf | encyclopedia = [[Dictionary of Scientific Biography]] | volume = 2 | publisher = Charles Scribner's Sons | location = New York | year = 1970 | isbn = 0-684-10114-9 }} * Johannes Uray, Chemische Theorie und mineralogische Klassifikationssysteme von der chemischen Revolution bis zur Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts. In: Berhard Hubmann, Elmar Schübl, Johannes Seidl (eds.), ''Die Anfänge geologischer Forschung in Österreich''. Beiträge zur Tagung „10 Jahre Arbeitsgruppe Geschichte der Erdwissenschaften Österreichs" von 24. bis 26. April 2009 in Graz. Graz 2010, S 107–125. ==External links== *[http://academic.emporia.edu/aberjame/histgeol/bergman/bergman.htm Torbern Bergman Biography] – by James S. Aber *Bergman, Torbern (1735–1784). [http://www.scs.uiuc.edu/~mainzv/exhibit/bergman.htm Opuscula Physica et Chemica]. 6 vols. Uppsala, 1780. *[https://web.archive.org/web/20100611205143/http://www.scs.uiuc.edu/~mainzv/Web_Genealogy/Info/bergmanto.pdf Bergman's chemical genealogy] *[http://lhldigital.lindahall.org/cdm/search/searchterm/Torbern!bergman/field/creato!creato/mode/all!all/conn/and!and/order/nosort ''Physisk Beskrifning öfver Jord-Klotet''] (2 volumes, 1773) – full digital facsimile from [[Linda Hall Library]] *{{commons category-inline}} {{Authority control}} {{DEFAULTSORT:Bergman, Torbern}} [[Category:1735 births]] [[Category:1784 deaths]] [[Category:18th-century Swedish chemists]] [[Category:Swedish mineralogists]] [[Category:Uppsala University alumni]] [[Category:Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences]] [[Category:Fellows of the Royal Society]] [[Category:International members of the American Philosophical Society]] [[Category:Members of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities]] [[Category:18th-century Swedish inventors]]