Germany – Justus von Liebig Comemmorative 2003 J Proof Silver 10 Euros 32.5mm (18.06 grams) 0.925 Silver (0.5319 oz. ASW) Reference: KM# 222 BUNDESREPUBLIK DEUTSCHLAND 10 EURO J, Eagle. 200. GEBURTSTAG DES CHEMIKERS JUSTUS VON LIEBIG, Leibig’s portrait. Edge Lettering: FORSCHEN . LEHREN . ANWENDEN .
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Justus Freiherr von Liebig (12 May 1803 – 18 April 1873) was a German chemist who made major contributions to agricultural and biological chemistry, and was considered the founder of organic chemistry. As a professor at the University of Giessen, he devised the modern laboratory-oriented teaching method, and for such innovations, he is regarded as one of the greatest chemistry teachers of all time. He has been described as the “father of the fertilizer industry” for his emphasis on nitrogen and trace minerals as essential plant nutrients, and his formulation of the law of the minimum, which described how plant growth relied on the scarcest nutrient resource, rather than the total amount of resources available. He also developed a manufacturing process for beef extracts, and with his consent a company, called Liebig Extract of Meat Company, was founded to exploit the concept; it later introduced the Oxo brand beef bouillon cube. He popularized an earlier invention for condensing vapors, which came to be known as the Liebig condenser.
Justus von Liebig was born in Darmstadt into the middle-class family of Johann Georg Liebig and Maria Caroline Möser in early May 1803. His father was a drysalter and hardware merchant who compounded and sold paints, varnishes, and pigments, which he developed in his own workshop. From childhood, Justus was fascinated with chemistry.
At the age of 13, Liebig lived through the year without a summer, when the majority of food crops in the Northern Hemisphere were destroyed by a volcanic winter. Germany was among the hardest-hit nations in the global famine that ensued, and the experience is said to have shaped Liebig’s later work. Due in part to Liebig’s innovations in fertilizers and agriculture, the 1816 famine became known as “the last great subsistence crisis in the Western world”.
Liebig attended grammar school at the Ludwig-Georgs-Gymnasium in Darmstadt, from the ages of 8 to 14. Leaving without a certificate of completion, he was apprenticed for several months to the apothecary Gottfried Pirsch (1792-1870) in Heppenheim before returning home, possibly because his father could not afford to pay his indentures. He worked with his father for the next two years, then attended the University of Bonn, studying under Karl Wilhelm Gottlob Kastner, his father’s business associate. When Kastner moved to the University of Erlangen, Liebig followed him.
Liebig left Erlangen in March 1822, in part because of his involvement with the radical Korps Rhenania (a nationalist student organization), but also because of his hopes for more advanced chemical studies. The circumstances are clouded by possible scandal. In late 1822, Liebig went to study in Paris on a grant obtained for him by Kastner from the Hessian government. He worked in the private laboratory of Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac, and was also befriended by Alexander von Humboldt and Georges Cuvier (1769-1832). Liebig’s doctorate from Erlangen was conferred on 23 June 1823, a considerable time after he left, as a result of Kastner’s intervention on his behalf. Kastner pleaded that the requirement of a dissertation be waived, and the degree granted in absentia.
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany is a federal parliamentary republic in western-central Europe. It includes 16 constituent states and covers an area of 357,021 square kilometres (137,847 sq mi) with a largely temperate seasonal climate. Its capital and largest city is Berlin. With 81 million inhabitants, Germany is the most populous member state in the European Union. After the United States, it is the second most popular migration destination in the world.
Various Germanic tribes have occupied northern Germany since classical antiquity. A region named Germania was documented before 100 CE. During the Migration Period the Germanic tribes expanded southward. Beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation.
The rise of Pan-Germanism inside the German Confederation resulted in the unification of most of the German states in 1871 into the Prussian-dominated German Empire. After World War I and the German Revolution of 1918-1919, the Empire was replaced by the parliamentary Weimar Republic. The establishment of the Third Reich in 1933 led to World War II and the Holocaust. After 1945, Germany split into two states, East Germany and West Germany. In 1990, the country was reunified.
In the 21st century, Germany is a great power and has the world’s fourth-largest economy by nominal GDP, as well as the fifth-largest by PPP. As a global leader in several industrial and technological sectors, it is both the world’s third-largest exporter and importer of goods. Germany is a developed country with a very high standard of living sustained by a skilled and productive society. It upholds a social security and universal health care system, environmental protection and a tuition free university education.
Germany was a founding member of the European Union in 1993. It is part of the Schengen Area, and became a co-founder of the Eurozone in 1999. Germany is a member of the United Nations, NATO, the G8, the G20, and the OECD. The national military expenditure is the 9th highest in the world. Known for its rich cultural history, Germany has been continuously the home of influential artists, philosophers, musicians, sportsmen, entrepreneurs, scientists and inventors.
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