CHEMIST

Bernard Courtois

1777 - 1838

Photo of Bernard Courtois

Icon of person Bernard Courtois

Bernard Courtois (French pronunciation: [bɛʁnaʁ kuʁtwa]), 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 98,263 page views. His biography is available in 27 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 25 in 2019). Bernard Courtois is the 251st most popular chemist (up from 280th in 2019), the 1,501st most popular biography from France (up from 1,752nd in 2019) and the 28th most popular French Chemist.

Memorability Metrics

  • 98k

    Page Views (PV)

  • 65.31

    Historical Popularity Index (HPI)

  • 27

    Languages Editions (L)

  • 9.62

    Effective Languages (L*)

  • 1.85

    Coefficient of Variation (CV)

Among CHEMISTS

Among chemists, Bernard Courtois ranks 251 out of 602. Before him are William C. Campbell, Paul Lauterbur, Ida Noddack, Sidney Altman, Thomas A. Steitz, and Joseph L. Goldstein. After him are Walter Gilbert, Andreas Libavius, Michael Polanyi, Kikunae Ikeda, Arieh Warshel, and Dudley R. Herschbach.

Most Popular Chemists in Wikipedia

Go to all Rankings
Load previousLoad previous

Contemporaries

Among people born in 1777, Bernard Courtois ranks 15. Before him are Juliette Récamier, Nathan Mayer Rothschild, Philipp Otto Runge, Louis Jacques Thénard, Louis II, Grand Duke of Hesse, and Archduchess Maria Clementina of Austria. After him are Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué, Adélaïde d'Orléans, Filippo Taglioni, Louis Poinsot, Guillaume Dupuytren, and Aleksey Petrovich Yermolov. Among people deceased in 1838, Bernard Courtois ranks 6. Before him are Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, Lorenzo Da Ponte, Adelbert von Chamisso, Johanna Schopenhauer, and Jean Marc Gaspard Itard. After him are Ivan Kotliarevsky, Maximilian, Hereditary Prince of Saxony, Pierre Louis Dulong, Antoine Isaac Silvestre de Sacy, Ferdinand Ries, and Bernhard Crusell.

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 1,501 out of 6,770. Before him are François Louis, Prince of Conti (1664), Gabriel Bonnot de Mably (1709), Eugène Atget (1857), Michel Chasles (1793), René Just Haüy (1743), and Paloma Picasso (1949). After him are Sextus Afranius Burrus (1), Jean Tirole (1953), Henri, Prince of Condé (1552), Marcel Dassault (1892), William I, Duke of Aquitaine (875), and Rose Bertin (1747).

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 Louis Jacques Thénard (1777), Charles Adolphe Wurtz (1817), Charles François de Cisternay du Fay (1698), Paul-Émile Lecoq de Boisbaudran (1838), Luis Federico Leloir (1906), and Antoine Jérôme Balard (1802). After him are André-Louis Debierne (1874), Anselme Payen (1795), Antoine Baumé (1728), Théophile-Jules Pelouze (1807), Charles Friedel (1822), and Alexandre Brongniart (1770).

French born Chemists

Go to all Rankings
Load previousLoad previous