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The Chemical Educator
ISSN: 1430-4171 (electronic version)
Abstract Volume 2
Issue 5 (1997), S1430-4171(97)05143-1
Victor Moritz Goldschmidt (1888–1947): A Tribute to the Founder of Modern Geochemistry on the Fiftieth Anniversary of His Death
George B. Kauffman
California State University, Fresno, CA 93740-0070
Published online: 26 November 1997
Abstract. Goldschmidt
combined a number of widely separated sciences to synthesize a new structural
crystal chemistry. Although his work on the relative abundances of the
elements, atomic and ionic radii, interionic distances, the effect of
radius ratio on coordination number in crystals, relacement of ions in
minerals, and the lanthanide contraction is found in almost every textbook
of general and inorganic chemistry and has provided the basis for modern
crystal chemistry and the use of size relationships for interpretating
properties of inorganic substances, Goldschmidt’s name, life, and career
remain relatively unknown to most chemical educators and practicing chemists.
Goldschmidt used the basic properties of matter to provide simple and
elegant explanations for the composition of our environment. Throughout
his relatively brief career, filled with sorrow and tragedy, he continued
to maintain his intense interest in the elements and their genesis, affinities,
and associations despite his changes from one method to another in his
attempts to obtain new and more complete data. Thus, although he used
petrology, crystallography, and chemistry and enriched all these fields
greatly, to him they were only tools for exploring the earth and its history.
Key Words: Chemistry and History; history/philosophy; inorganic chemistry; coordination chemistry; crystallography; environmental chemistry; geochemistry; periodicity/periodic table; stereochemistry; stoichiometry; theoretical chemistry
(*) Corresponding author. (E-mail: georgek@csufresno.edu)
Article in PDF format (1.2 MB)
Issue date: November
26, 1997
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