Early life and education
Søren Peter Lauritz Sørensen belongs to the record of chemistry as one of those whose work outlasted the questions that prompted it.
Søren Peter Lauritz Sørensen was born at Havrebjerg in 1868. His recorded nationality is Denmark. He was educated at University of Copenhagen.
Professional and academic career
The nineteenth century professionalised science. Laboratories acquired budgets, universities acquired chairs, and for the first time a person could be a scientist by occupation rather than by inclination.
Twenty questions, eight minutes on the clock, and a percentile measured against everyone who has taken it. No sign-up.
Take the IQ test →The institutions that housed his research were Technical University of Denmark and University of Copenhagen, where the work centred on biochemistry.
Introduction of the pH scale
Søren Peter Lauritz Sørensen is associated first and foremost with introduction of the concept of pH, a scale for measuring acidity and alkalinity. Chemistry is a discipline of purification: most of its history is the work of separating one thing from another.
Scientific context and recognition
The Denmark setting is not incidental. National academies, funding and language decided which findings travelled and which stayed local, in this period as in ours.
His work was formally recognised with the Knight Grand Officer of the Order of the Dannebrog, Knight of the Order of the Dannebrog and commander of the Order of the Dannebrog.
Later years and legacy
The measure that matters is durability. Results that survive re-examination become the floor of a discipline, and it is on that floor that everything afterwards is built.
Death came in 1939, at 71. By then the contribution had passed into the settled body of chemistry, where it is used without being credited - the surest sign that it was right.
Achievements
- Held posts at Technical University of Denmark and University of Copenhagen
- Educated at University of Copenhagen
- Fields of research: biochemistry
