Bunsen Burner

 

Robert Wilhelm Bunsen (1811-99) invented and gave his name to a burner for use in laboratories, the bunsen burner.

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Bunsen, a German was a professor at Heidelberg, where he established his reputation as one of the leading chemists of his day.  Much of his greatest work was accomplished in collaboration with the physicist Kirchoff and it was with Kirchoff, in 1860, that he discovered the elements caesium and ribidium. 

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It was some five years earlier, however, that Bunsen has discovered that a certain mixture of coal-gas and air could produce a smokeless flame of great heat.  He then proceeded discoveries and inventions, the bunsen burner remains the one which he is best remembered for - even (to many people) the only thing he is remembered for at all.