Who Discovered Platinum
Platinum is a chemical element which is a grey-white metal at room temperature. Platinum is represented by the chemical symbol Pt and has the atomic number 78. It is an extremely stable element and is known for being the least reactive metal. It is one of the rarest elements in the crust of the Earth and is commonly found in alluvial deposits. Continue reading, if you want to know who discovered this rare element.
Who discovered platinum?
Platinum was already well known to the South American natives, who used it to produce artifacts. The first European reference to this metal dates back to 1557 in the writings of Italian physician Julius Caesar Scaliger, who described an unknown metal. However, it wasn’t discovered by the scientific community until the 1700’s.
In 1741, the British metallurgist Charles Wood found platinum samples that had been smuggled to Jamaica. He sent these to his relative William Brownrigg who documented Wood’s experiments and completed some more of his own. Through these experiments he was the first to recognize platinum as a new element and in 1950 encouraged The Royal Society to further investigate this metal.
Spanish explorer Antonio de Ulloa is also credited with the discovery of platinum. He published a report in 1748 detailing his time in South America, including the discovery of platinum and some of its properties. Both of these events led to further scientific investigation of platinum.
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