s in Bergman's 1775
Dissertation on Elective Affinities Bergman lectured at the University of Uppsala on
physics and mathematics, publishing papers on the
rainbow, the
aurora, the
pyroelectric phenomena of
tourmaline. Upon the resignation of the celebrated
Johan Wallerius, Bergman was a candidate for the professorship of
chemistry and
mineralogy. His competitors charged him with ignorance of the subject, because he had never written on it. To refute them, he shut himself up for some time in a laboratory, and prepared a treatise on the manufacture of
alum, which became a standard work. Thanks to the influence of
Gustav III, then crown prince and chancellor of the university, he was appointed a professor of chemistry, and remained at this position for the rest of his life. Bergman greatly contributed to the advancement of
quantitative analysis, and he developed a mineral classification scheme based on chemical characteristics and appearance. He is noted for his research on the chemistry of metals, especially
bismuth and
nickel. In 1764, Bergman was elected a member of the
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. In April 1765 he was elected a
Fellow of the Royal Society of London. In 1773 he was elected a member of the
American Philosophical Society. In March 1782, he was elected Foreign Associate of the
French Academy of Sciences. In 1771, six years after he first discovered carbonated water and four years after
Joseph Priestley first created artificially
carbonated water, Bergman perfected a process to make carbonated water from chalk by the action of
sulphuric acid. He is also noted for his sponsorship of
Carl Wilhelm Scheele, whom some deem to be Bergman's "greatest discovery". The translation into English of his book Physical and Chemical Essays was read widely and regarded as the first systematic method of chemical analysis. ==Personal life==