Sophus Mads Jorgensen

Background

Sophus Mads Jorgensen was born on July 4, 1837, in Slagelse, Denmark. He was the son of Jens Jorgensen, a tailor, and Caroline Gronning.

Education

Jorgensen attended school in Slagelse and later studied at Soro Velvillie. In 1857 he entered the University of Copenhagen, from which he received his master’s degree in chemistry (1863) and his doctorate (1869) with the dissertation Overjodider af Alkaloiderne (“Polyiodides of Alkaloids”).

Career

At the university Jorgensen became assistant (1864) to Edward Augustus Scharling and director of the chemical laboratories (1867). In 1867 he was also appointed Laerer at the Technical University. In 1871 he also became Lektor at the university. In 1887 he was appointed professor of chemistry, a position which he held until his retirement in 1908.

Except for some early isolated organic and inorganic research, Jorgensen devoted himself exclusively to investigating the coordination compounds of cobalt, chromium, rhodium, and platinum; this work, upon which his fame rests, forms an interconnected and continuous series from 1878 to 1906. Jorgensen created no new structural theory of his own. His interpretations of the luteo (hexaammines), purpureo (halopentammines), roseo (aquopentaammines), praseo trans dihalotetraamminesvioleo, (cis-dihalotetraammines), croceo (trans-dinitrotetraammines), flavo (cis-dinitrotetraammines), and other series of coordination compounds were made in light of his logical extensions and modifications of the famous chain theory proposed by the Swedish chemist Christian Wilhelm Blomstrand.

For fifteen years Jorgensen’s views remained the most acceptable of the numerous theories advanced to explain the properties and reactions of the so-called molecular compounds, which were not explicable under the contemporary valence theory. In 1893 Alfred Werner, an unknown twenty six-year-old privatdozent at the Eidgenössiche Polytechnikum in Zurich, challenged the old system with his radically new coordination theory. The ensuing controversy between Jorgensen and Werner constitutes an excellent example of the synergism so often encountered in the history of science. Jorgensen regared Werner’s theory as an ad hoc explanation insufficiently supported by experimental evidence and an unwarranted break in the development of theories of chemical structure. In their scholarly rivalry each chemist did the utmost to prove his views, and in the process a tremendous amount of fine experimental work was performed by both. Although not all of Jorgensen’s criticisms were valid, Werner in a number of cases was forced to modify various aspects of his theory.

Werner’s ideas eventually triumphed, yet Jorgensen’s experimental observations were in no way invalidated. On the contrary, his experiments, performed with extreme care, have proved completely reliable in most cases and form the foundation not only of the now obsolete Blomstrand-Jorhensen theory but also of Werner’s coordination theory (a debt acknowledged by Werner). It is perhaps not an exaggeration to state that Werner’s theory might never have been propounded had not Jorgensen’s experimental work provided the observations requiring such explanation. Ironically enough, Jorgensen’s work bore the seeds that undid the Blomstrand-Jorgensen theory, for many of the compounds first prepared by him later proved instrumental in demonstrating the validity of Werner’s views When Werner finally succeeded in 1907 in preparing the long-sought cis-dichlorotetraamminecobalt (III) salts, whose existence was a necessary consequence of his theory but not of Blomstrand’s Jorgensen graciously capitulated.

Achievements

• Sophus Mads Jorgensen went down in history as a prominent chemist who is best known for the Blomstrand-Jorhensen theory. He is universally recognized as the founder not only of coordination chemistry but of structural inorganic chemistry as well. His research output was tremendous; and science is indebted to him for many of the basic experimental facts of coordination and structural inorganic chemistry.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Handbuch Der Anorganischen Chemie, Volume 2

Membership

Jorgensen was a board member of the Carlsberg Foundation from 1885 until his death in 1914, and was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1899.

Personality

A solitary research worker, Jorgensen was methodical and painstaking. Although he could have delegated much routine work to assistants, he insisted on personally performing all his analyses, a task for which he reserved one day a week. In terms of Wilhelm Ostwald’s twofold classification of scientific genius, classic vis-à-vis romantic, Jorgensen would seem to be the classic type - the slow and deep-digging scientist who proceeds with careful deliberation and completes a traditional theory or develops it to new consequences.

Connections

In 1871, after an engagement of five years, Jorgensen married Louise Wellmann.

Father:

Jens Jorgensen

Mother:

Caroline Gronning

Spouse:

Louise Wellmann

opponent:

Alfred Werner

References

• Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Volume 7
  1973