Theodor Svedberg

Theodor Svedberg is the inventor of the analytical ultracentrifuge, capable of achieving 6 orders of magnitude of Gravitational force. A centrifuge capable of high velocity centrifugation able of density gradient sedimentation of macromolecules. - i.e. able of spinning really fast and splitting a solution of macromolecules up by molecular weight and size. While this may not sound important or interesting, it is very useful in chemistry, and extremely important in Biology. This method is used to separate DNA molecules based on molecular size so defined that it can resolve something as small as a 10 basepair difference, (about 36 angstroms (10^(-12) meters) in size.

Svedberg was born in Flerang, Sweden on August 30, 1884. He began attending Uppsala University in Jan. 1904. Here he stayed through undergraduate to Doctorate, and also took up the post of assistant in the Chemistry department in 1905. In 1907 he was given lecture status at the school. In 1909 he was given the status as lecturer and demonstrator in Physical Chemistry. And in 1912 he was appointed Professor of physical chemistry at the university. He did work on collides and macromolecules in chemistry, and here came his requirement for the creation of his ultra centrifuge. He then used this to further his research, and received the Noble Prize in Chemistry in 1926 for this research.

He also has a Standard Unit named after him,The Svedberg Unit equal to 10^(-13) seconds.

Resources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodor_Svedberg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-centrifuge
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1926/svedberg-bio.html
http://www.britannica.com/eb/topic-575982/Theodor-H-E-Svedberg