Zygmunt Florenty Wróblewski
Zygmunt Wroblewski Florenty ( born October 28, 1845 in Grodno, Russian Empire, now Belarus, † April 16, 1888 in Kraków, Austria - Hungary) was a Polish chemist and physicist. Wroblewski is known mainly because he succeeded in 1883, the first liquefaction of air along with Karol Olszewski.
After finishing school in Grodno to wrote Zygmunt Wroblewski, son of a lawyer, one at the University of Kiev. As a 18- year-old he interrupted his studies to take part in the Polish January Uprising in 1863. He was captured in July this year. He spent his first imprisonment in Siberia, later he was brought to the region of Kazan. During the six years of captivity, his eyesight was strong and after he threatened to go blind. After his pardon, he traveled to an ophthalmologist in Berlin and after two surgeries his sight could be saved.
He then studied in Germany, first in Berlin and later in Heidelberg with Hermann von Helmholtz, who held the chair of physiology there. He had a very good acoustic memory, which he used to expand his knowledge. During his captivity, he had set up some theories when reading papers from the field of physics. Helmholtz advised him now to review these theories, which is why he sought a position as an assistant to a research laboratories, which he eventually took place at the University of Munich in 1872. In 1874, he wrote his doctoral thesis there. He then joined the University of Strasbourg, where he worked with Professor August Kundt, one of the leading experimental physicists in Germany. In Strasbourg in 1876, he wrote his habilitation thesis.
In 1880 he went on a scholarship from the Cracow Academy of Natural Sciences to Paris to Henri Etienne Sainte -Claire Deville. He managed to gain entry into the laboratory of the École normale supérieure and meet Louis Cailletet. There he improved the methods used by Cailletet method. 1882 Wroblewski took a chair at the University of Krakow. There he worked with Karol Olszewski, who in turn brought experience in the liquefaction of gases. On March 29 of the year 1883 - other sources said on April 9 - succeeded the two first the static liquefaction of atmospheric oxygen. Until now, oxygen, nitrogen, methane, hydrogen and carbon monoxide liquefaction had resisted. In the following years there were discussions about whether now or Cailletet Olszewski and Wroblewski had made the greater contribution to initial liquefaction of air, as the latter had benefited greatly from the experience Cailletets.
On April 19, 1888, when Wroblewski explored the physical properties of hydrogen, a momentous accident occurred when Wroblewski accidentally knocked over a kerosene lamp, and died from the effects of burns. In memory of Wroblewski a lunar crater named after him.