Document Type
Freshman Seminar Essay
Publication Date
1993
Excerpt
In 1839, a German born scientist, Christian Friedrich Schobein, was a professor of chemistry at the University of Basel in Switzerland. Besides teaching, he performed lab experiments hoping to find what made up the atmosphere. To do this he combined and separated many liquids and gases. During one of these experiments Christian passed an electrical charge through a flask of water. Each time he passed the change through he noticed a peculiar smell. At first he thought it was electrically charged oxygen but finally he realized it wasn't. He had found a new substance which he named ozone. The word ozone comes from the German word ozein, meaning "to smell." The same smell is the smell that lingers after a electrical lightning storms. During a lightning storm, lightning cuts through the air, which separates the oxygen molecules. The oxygen then reforms as ozone. A molecule of oxygen is made up of two atoms and a molecule of ozone contains three atoms of oxygen.
Recommended Citation
Lyons, Lisa, "Ozone Layer: Who Cares? Do You? (1993)" (1993). The Valpo Core Reader. 310.
http://scholar.valpo.edu/core_reader/310