What is Jöns Jakob Berzelius?
[[File:Jöns Jacob Berzelius.png|thumb|Jöns Jakob Berzelius]] '''Jöns Jakob Berzelius''' (20 August 1779 – 7 August 1848) was a [[Sweden|Swedish]] [[Chemistry|chemist]]. He [[invention|invented]] the modern [[chemical notation]]. Berzelius, [[John Dalton]] and [[Antoine Lavoisier]] are said to be the fathers of modern chemistry. Berzelius was born in [[Linköping]] in [[Östergötland]] in Sweden. He graduated from [[Uppsala University]] as a [[physician]]. He became a [[professor]] in [[medicine]] and [[surgery]] at the [[Stockholm School of Surgery]] in 1807. In 1810, this became part of [[Medico-Chirurgiska Institutet]] (later the [[Karolinska Institute]]) and Berzelius became a professor of chemistry and [[pharmacy]]. Not long after going to Stockholm, Berzelius wrote a chemistry [[textbook]] for his medical [[student]]s. While doing [[experiment]]s for the textbook, he found that [[inorganic compound]]s are made of different [[Chemical element|elements]] in [[proportion]] by [[weight]]. Based on this, in 1828, he created a table of relative [[atomic weight]]s. On this table, [[oxygen]] was set to 100. The table had all of the elements known at the time. This work gave [[evidence]] of the atomic [[hypothesis]] that [[chemical compound]]s are made of [[atom]]s combined in [[number|whole number]] amounts. In order to help his experiments, Berzelius created a system of chemical notation. In this [[notation]], the elements were given simple written [[wikt:label|labels]], for example, O for oxygen, or Fe for [[iron]]. The proportions of the elements was shown by numbers. This is the same basic system used today. The only difference is that instead of the [[subscript]] number used today (for example, H<sub>2</sub>O), Berzelius used a [[superscript]]. Berzelius found the [[chemical element]]s [[silicon]], [[selenium]], [[thorium]], and [[cerium]]. Students working in Berzelius [[laboratory]] also found [[lithium]] and [[vanadium]]. Berzelius was the first person to show the difference between [[organic compound]