Photosynthesis
History of Photosynthesis
Aristotle proposes that plants, like humans, need energy to survive.
A proposal is made that states: animals need plants to survive, but plants to not rely on animals for survival.
c350 BC
Theophrastus, Aristotles student and “Father of Botany”, proposed that plants use their roots to obtain nourishment from the soil.
No experiments were completed by Theophrastus to support this observation.
c300 BC
1648
Jean Baptiste van Helmont preforms an experiment where he planted a plant in a pot and weighed the mass of the soil and the mass of a plant before and after a period of growth. He saw that the mass of the plant changed while the mass of the soil remained the same. He concluded that a plant receives all of its nutrients from water and that a plants mass is solely composed of water.
1679
A proposal is made by Edme Mariotte that plants obtain a portion of their nourishment from the atmoshpere.
1727
Stephen Hales predicted that plants proably obtain nutrients from the air and that they could possibly use light to create energy.
1774
It is descovered by Antoine Lavoisier that oxygen is consumed in animal respiration and combustion.
1782
Jean Senebier discovers that under the influence of sunlight green plants take in carbon dioxide and emit oxygen.
1804
The process of photosynthesis was defined by Nicolas de Saussure as a process in which a green plant, in the presence of sunlight, takes in carbon dioxide and water and converts them into organic material and realeses oxygen.
1818
The green pigment in plants is named "chlorophyll" by Pierre Joseph Pelletier and Joseph Bienaime Caventou.
1845
It is proposed by Julius Robert von Mayer that living organizms use the sun as their ultimate source of energy. He introduced the concept that photosynthesis is a conversion of light energy into chemical energy.
1864
Jean Baptiste Boussingault created the formula for the basic photosynthetic reaction which is accepted and used today.
1873
Emil Godlewski Sr. confirms that carbon dioxide used in photosyntheis is obtained from the atmosphere. He concludes this by showing that starch formation in leaves is dependent upon the presence of carbon dioxide.
1893
Charles Barnes gives the process its now accpeted name: "Photosynthesis".
Frederick Frost Blackman states that there are both "light dependent" and "light Independent" reactions that occur during photosynthsis. This finding shows the effect of limiting factors on photosynthesis.
1937
Robert Hill showed that isolated chloroplasts have the ability to form oxygen even in the absence of carbon dioxide, proving the existance of artificial electron acceptors.
Robin Hill and Fay Bendall propose the "Z scheme" model for the photosynthetic light reactions. They state that light dependent reactions utilize two photosystems which are unique but operate in tandem.
1960
1905
