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The Most Famous

CHEMISTS from Norway

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This page contains a list of the greatest Norwegian Chemists. The pantheon dataset contains 509 Chemists, 4 of which were born in Norway. This makes Norway the birth place of the 20th most number of Chemists behind Ireland and Canada.

Top 4

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary Norwegian Chemists of all time. This list of famous Norwegian Chemists is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.

Photo of Odd Hassel

1. Odd Hassel (1897 - 1981)

With an HPI of 64.92, Odd Hassel is the most famous Norwegian Chemist.  His biography has been translated into 52 different languages on wikipedia.

Odd Hassel (17 May 1897 – 11 May 1981) was a Norwegian physical chemist and Nobel Laureate.

Photo of Lars Onsager

2. Lars Onsager (1903 - 1976)

With an HPI of 63.34, Lars Onsager is the 2nd most famous Norwegian Chemist.  His biography has been translated into 61 different languages.

Lars Onsager (November 27, 1903 – October 5, 1976) was an American physical chemist and theoretical physicist. He held the Gibbs Professorship of Theoretical Chemistry at Yale University. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1968.

Photo of Kristian Birkeland

3. Kristian Birkeland (1867 - 1917)

With an HPI of 55.03, Kristian Birkeland is the 3rd most famous Norwegian Chemist.  His biography has been translated into 28 different languages.

Kristian Olaf Bernhard Birkeland (born 13 December 1867 – 15 June 1917) was a Norwegian scientist, professor of physics at the Royal Fredriks University in Oslo. He is best remembered for his theories of atmospheric electric currents that elucidated the nature of the aurora borealis. In order to fund his research on the aurorae, he invented the electromagnetic cannon and the Birkeland–Eyde process of fixing nitrogen from the air. Birkeland was nominated for the Nobel Prize seven times.

Photo of Peter Waage

4. Peter Waage (1833 - 1900)

With an HPI of 51.85, Peter Waage is the 4th most famous Norwegian Chemist.  His biography has been translated into 22 different languages.

Peter Waage (29 June 1833 – 13 January 1900) was a Norwegian chemist and professor of chemistry at the University of Kristiania. Along with his brother-in-law Cato Maximilian Guldberg, he co-discovered and developed the law of mass action between 1864 and 1879.

Pantheon has 4 people classified as chemists born between 1833 and 1903. Of these 4, none of them are still alive today. The most famous deceased chemists include Odd Hassel, Lars Onsager, and Kristian Birkeland.

Deceased Chemists

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Which Chemists were alive at the same time? This visualization shows the lifespans of the 4 most globally memorable Chemists since 1700.