Today’s anniversary of Jon Jacob Berzelius’ birth is being celebrated with a series of videos posted on YouTube. The Periodic Table of Videos team (PeriodicVideos) will post 24 videos to the social media site, uploading one clip for every hour of the day as it passes. 

Videos will feature scientists from The University of Nottingham conducting a range of experiments. Viewers can expect to see spectacular chemical reactions, including exploding hydrogen balloons and colour changes. A brief biographical film about Berzelius is also available on the PeriodicVideos channel.

Regarded as one of the fathers of modern chemistry, Berzelius determined the exact elementary constituents of many compounds and worked out the modern technique of chemical formula notation, creating the now familiar system of chemical symbols. Martin Poliakoff, one of the lead presenters of Periodic Videos, said ‘Berzelius is one of the unsung heroes of science. […] Our Berzelius Day will explain why I, like many other chemists, want the work of Berzelius to be more widely recognised.’

The Period Table of Videos is presented by a team of award-winning scientists and chemists. The project aims to inspire interest in chemistry and encourage a new generation of would-be scientists.

To watch the series of videos as they unfold, visit the team’s YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/periodicvideos