S. P. L. Sørensen, The Founder of pH Scale Honoured With Interactive Google Doodle Which Measures Acidity and Alkalinity
Sørensen was instrumental in finding the concept of pH, a scale for measuring acidity and alkalinity of a substance.
S. P. L. Sørensen was a Danish chemist who gave a very important concept to the field of science. Sørensen was instrumental in finding the concept of pH, a scale for measuring acidity and alkalinity of a substance. His findings are very important in the field of chemistry. The search giant Google thus made an animated doodle honouring the biochemist. A pH value of a substance refers to the hydrogen ion concentration in a substance to determine the acidity of basicity of an aqueous solution.
Sørensen was a son of a farmer and educated himself well. He wanted to pursue medicine but he was deeply influenced by S. M. Jorgensen, an important investigator of inorganic complex compounds. He chose chemistry as a career option. He presented several papers about the field of chemistry and even assisted in at the laboratory of the Danish Polytechnic Institute. From 1901 to 1938 he headed the Carlsberg Laboratory in Copenhagen. While his work he studied the effects of ions on proteins. He understood the concentration of hydrogen ions was particularly important and thus devised the pH measurement scale in the year 1909. He described two methods of noting down the pH value. The first one was based on electrodes, and the second involved comparing the colours of samples to a preselected set of indicators.
Emphasising on the second method, Google has made an interactive doodle. It shows S. P. L. Sørensen in the middle and a pH scale in the background. An object is placed on a placard and the user has to click which side of the pH scale will it fit in. If the user is right, the placard turns green and goes and fits into the pH value spot. For eg: The first object is tomato which has a pH value of 4, meaning it has four hydrogen ions. It goes and fits on the indicator scale. There are 6 such objects, including an egg, a broccoli. Once all the objects fit in they come together to form the word Google in its usual colour and Sørensen stands in the middle.
Check out the entire Google doodle here:
It is a quite a fun way of telling people about his work and also informing them about the pH values of different substances. Measurements of pH are important in agronomy, medicine, chemistry, water treatment, and many other applications. He received many honours from both scientific and technological societies. Sørensen retired in 1938 after a period of poor health.
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on May 29, 2018 12:27 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).