The Bunsen burner is the iconic symbol of high school chemistry
and, for millions of inquiring scientists, "such stuff as dreams
are made on." Yet while we all may be familiar with this blazing
apparatus, relatively few know exactly who Bunsen was. Robert
Wilhelm Eberhard Bunsen (1811-1899) was born in Göttingen, which
was then part of the Kingdom of Westphalia. His father,
Christian, a professor of modern philology and chief librarian
at Germany’s famed University of Göttingen, encouraged his son
to constantly study, question, and verify. Fascinated by all
things physical, geological, mathematical, and chemical, Robert
Bunsen took his doctorate in physics from the University of
Göttingen in 1830. Before joining the faculty at Göttingen in
1833, Bunsen was awarded a prestigious, three-year travel grant
across Germany, France and Austria where he observed the
laboratories of such prominent scientists as Gay-Lussac and
Liebig, mineral mines, geological sites, and the great crucibles
of modern chemistry during t