chemistry

Giacomo Ciamician

Giacomo Ciamician is a chemistry topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Giacomo Ciamician rather than just read about it. In short: Giacomo Luigi Ciamician (Italian pronunciation: [ˈdʒaːkomo luˈiːdʒi ˈtʃaːmitʃan]; 27 August 1857 – 2 January 1922) was an Italian chemist and senator. He was a pioneer in photochemistry and green chemistry, and the earliest to anticipate artificial photosynthesis.

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Reference excerpt

Giacomo Luigi Ciamician (Italian pronunciation: [ˈdʒaːkomo luˈiːdʒi ˈtʃaːmitʃan]; 27 August 1857 – 2 January 1922) was an Italian chemist and senator. He was a pioneer in photochemistry and green chemistry, and the earliest to anticipate artificial photosynthesis.

Education and career Ciamician was born in Trieste, Austrian Empire to ethnic Armenian parents. His family had moved from Istanbul to Trieste in 1850. Ciamician studied at University of Vienna and University of Giessen, where he received his PhD under Hugo Weidel in 1880. He then worked as an assistant for Stanislao Cannizzaro at the University of Rome, before moving to University of Padua as a lecturer in 1887. He became a professor at University of Bologna and spent the rest of his career there. In 1910 he became the first man born in Trieste to be nominated Senator, in the XXIII Legislation of the Kingdom of Italy.

Research Ciamician was an early researcher in the area of photochemistry, where from 1900 to 1914 he published 40 notes, and nine memoirs. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Giessen. His first photochemistry experiment was published in 1886 and was titled "On the conversion of quinone into quinol. In 1912 he presented a paper before the 8th International Congress on Applied Chemistry later also published in Science in which he described the world's need for an energy transition to renewable energy. Ciamician saw the possibility to use photochemical devices that utilize solar energy to produce fuels to power the human civilization and called for their development. They would not only make humanity independent from coal, but could also rebalance the economic gap between rich and poor countries. His vision makes him one early proponents of artificial photosynthesis:

On the arid lands there will spring up industrial colonies without smoke and without smokestacks; forests of glass tubes will extend over the plains and glass buildings will rise everywhere; inside of these will take place the photochemical processes that hitherto have been the guarded secret of the plants, but that will have been mastered by human industry which will know how to make them bear even more abundant fruit than nature, for nature is not in a hurry and mankind is. And if in a distant future the supply of coal becomes completely exhausted, civilization will not be checked by that, for life and civilization will continue as long as the sun shines!

Honors and awards Ciamician received the honorary Doctor of Laws (DLL) from the University of Glasgow in June 1901. University of Bologna's Department of Chemistry is named after Ciamician. He was nominated for Nobel Prize in Chemistry nine times in 1905, 1907, 1908, 1911, 1912, 1914, 1916, 1919 and 1921.

Selected publications Ciamician, G. L.; Dennstedt, M. (1881). "Ueber die Einwirkung des Chloroforms auf die Kaliumverbindung Pyrrols". Berichte der Deutschen Chemischen Gesellschaft. 14 (1): 1153–1163. doi:10.1002/cber.188101401240. ISSN 0365-9496. Ciamician, G.; Plancher, G. (1896). "Ueber die Einwirkung von Jodäthyl auf α-Methylindol (Methylketol)". Berichte der Deutschen Chemischen Gesellschaft. 29 (3): 2475–2482. doi:10.1002/cber.18960290318. ISSN 0365-9496. Ciamician, Giacomo; Silber, Paolo (1901). "Chemische Lichtwirkungen". Berichte der Deutschen Chemischen Gesellschaft. 34 (2): 2040–2046. doi:10.1002/cber.190103402118. ISSN 0365-9496. Ciamician, Giacomo (27 September 1912). "The Photochemistry of the Future". Science. 36 (926): 385–394. Bibcode:1912Sci....36..385C. doi:10.1126/science.36.926.385. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 17836492.

See also Ciamician-Dennstedt rearrangement

External links Giacomo Luigi Ciamician Archived 18 May 2015 at the Wayback Machine at Michigan State University

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Giacomo Ciamician

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Giacomo Ciamician claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In chemistry, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Giacomo Ciamician before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Giacomo Ciamician ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Giacomo Ciamician

In research: Giacomo Ciamician appears in chemistry research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Giacomo Ciamician in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Giacomo Ciamician is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1857 births, 1922 deaths, 19th-century Italian chemists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Giacomo Ciamician outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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Frequently asked questions

What is Giacomo Ciamician in simple terms?

Why does Giacomo Ciamician matter?

Because it connects several chemistry ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

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Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Giacomo Ciamician.