New games! PlayTrivia andBirthle.

CHEMIST

Bernard Courtois

1777 - 1838

Photo of Bernard Courtois

Icon of person Bernard Courtois

Bernard Courtois, also spelled Barnard Courtois, (8 February 1777 – 27 September 1838) was a French chemist credited with first isolating iodine, making early photography possible. By 1811 the Napoleonic Wars had made the government-controlled saltpeter business taper off since there was by then a shortage of wood ashes with which potassium nitrate was made. As an alternative, the needed potassium nitrate was derived from seaweed that was abundant on the Normandy and Brittany shores. Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Bernard Courtois has received more than 91,331 page views. His biography is available in 25 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 24 in 2019). Bernard Courtois is the 280th most popular chemist (down from 264th in 2019), the 1,758th most popular biography from France (down from 1,675th in 2019) and the 28th most popular French Chemist.

Memorability Metrics

  • 91k

    Page Views (PV)

  • 57.39

    Historical Popularity Index (HPI)

  • 25

    Languages Editions (L)

  • 8.42

    Effective Languages (L*)

  • 1.91

    Coefficient of Variation (CV)

Page views of Bernard Courtois by language


Among CHEMISTS

Among chemists, Bernard Courtois ranks 280 out of 509. Before him are Fraser Stoddart, Thomas A. Steitz, Alexander Shulgin, William Henry, Torbern Bergman, and Paul-Émile Lecoq de Boisbaudran. After him are Richard J. Roberts, S. P. L. Sørensen, Ryōji Noyori, Hartmut Michel, Georg Brandt, and Andreas Libavius.

Most Popular Chemists in Wikipedia

Go to all Rankings
Load previousLoad previous

Contemporaries

Among people born in 1777, Bernard Courtois ranks 17. Before him are Louis II, Grand Duke of Hesse, Philipp Otto Runge, Nathan Mayer Rothschild, Louis Jacques Thénard, Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué, and Adélaïde d'Orléans. After him are Filippo Taglioni, Guillaume Dupuytren, Louis Poinsot, Aleksey Petrovich Yermolov, William II, Elector of Hesse, and Henri Marie Ducrotay de Blainville. Among people deceased in 1838, Bernard Courtois ranks 11. Before him are Maximilian, Hereditary Prince of Saxony, Pierre Louis Dulong, Ivan Kotliarevsky, Johanna Schopenhauer, Ferdinand Ries, and Antoine Isaac Silvestre de Sacy. After him are Johann Nepomuk Maelzel, Bernhard Crusell, Anselme Gaëtan Desmarest, Charles Percier, René Caillié, and Black Hawk.

Others Born in 1777

Go to all Rankings
Load previousLoad previous

Others Deceased in 1838

Go to all Rankings
Load previousLoad previous

In France

Among people born in France, Bernard Courtois ranks 1,758 out of 6,011. Before him are Anna de Noailles (1876), Philibert de l'Orme (1514), Nicole, Duchess of Lorraine (1608), Princess Elisabeth of Savoy (1800), Anne de Pisseleu d'Heilly (1508), and Jean-Étienne Dominique Esquirol (1772). After him are Louise de Coligny (1555), Leos Carax (1960), Paul Pelliot (1878), Charles Huntziger (1880), Prince Ferdinand, Duke of Alençon (1844), and Pierre-Paul Prud'hon (1758).

Others born in France

Go to all Rankings
Load previousLoad previous

Among CHEMISTS In France

Among chemists born in France, Bernard Courtois ranks 28. Before him are Antoine Jérôme Balard (1802), Louis Jacques Thénard (1777), Charles Adolphe Wurtz (1817), Charles François de Cisternay du Fay (1698), Luis Federico Leloir (1906), and Paul-Émile Lecoq de Boisbaudran (1838). After him are Théophile-Jules Pelouze (1807), Antoine Baumé (1728), Antoine François, comte de Fourcroy (1755), François-Marie Raoult (1830), Alexandre-Émile Béguyer de Chancourtois (1820), and Anselme Payen (1795).

French born Chemists

Go to all Rankings
Load previousLoad previous
  • DatawheelCL