Who Discovered Hydrogen

It is said that hydrogen is one of the most common elements that make up our earth. Rough estimates put the number for how much of the earth contains hydrogen in any form to around 90%. Hydrogen is also a crucial part of several chemical compounds, most notably, water.

Discovery of Hydrogen Element

As the story goes, hydrogen was first discovered although unknowingly and unintentionally by the legendary alchemist Paracelsus, who was also known by the name T.B. Von Hohenheim from the 15th Century. It is said that T.B. Von Hohenheim was dabbling with acids and metals when he came across a substance which he neither knew nor he understood. So while T.B. Von Hohenheim, the Swiss chemist is the one who may have unknowingly discovered hydrogen, he ended up leaving little note of his experiment which Robert Boyle in 1671, presumably picked up. As Robert Boyle set out to make this discovery using the same basic elements - iron and acids, he too apparently came across hydrogen, but didn't really understand it. At least this is what the recorded history of hydrogen says. Whether another person accidentally stumbled across hydrogen before these two gentlemen did, it cannot be said.

But this still conclusively doesn't put a name to the person who discovered, acknowledged and understood the element known as hydrogen. Finally, a man named Henry Cavendish came along in 1766 and amazingly enough tried out the same experiment that T.B. Von Hohenheim and Boyle struggled to understand and make much out of. Henry Cavendish realized that the result of this experiment yielded a different sort of gas and disturbingly an inflammable one. And furthermore, when this gas burned it turned into water. Cavendish realized that he has stumbled upon something special there, something which his predecessors haven't been able to make out.

But there is another catch in this story! While by now, this article has conclusively brought the matter about who discovered hydrogen to rest, fact remains that for all of Cavendish's discovery and intelligence, he never thought that he ought to give this new element a name! So this element, and its properties as detailed by Cavendish are there for all to see and applaud, Henry Cavendish did make the grave oversight of not naming this element.

A flaw which was happily remedied by one Antoine Lavoisier - known to be one of the fathers of modern Chemistry alongside the earlier mentioned Robert Boyle. Antoine Lavoisier saw the most telling quality of hydrogen, which was its ability of turning into water when brought into contact with oxygen and decided to call it hydrogen (hydro- - water; -gen - creating).

Basic Facts About Hydrogen

• Atomic Number: 1
• Atomic Weight: 1.00794
• Melting Point: 13.81 K (-259.34° C or -434.81° F)
• Boiling Point: 20.28 K (-252.87°C or -423.17°F)
• Density: 0.00008988 grams per cubic centimeter
• Phase at Room Temperature: Gas
• Element Classification: Non-metal
• Period Number: 1

So as we come to the end of this article, we still aren't able to really place a finger on the one person who officially discovered hydrogen and when was it discovered. All we can say is that hydrogen had many fathers, Paracelsus for one and Boyle on the other. But the main person in this article, and the one credited by most people as the discoverer of hydrogen is Henry Cavendish. Largely because Henry Cavendish understood that he had something different in his hands and something which can be discovered further!