(soft rock music)
- [Narrator] Behold, the Bunsen burner.
But where did it come from?
Meet Robert Wilhelm Bunsen,
born in Germany in 1811.
Robert Bunsen's childhood
is a bit obscure,
but we know that he received
his doctorate in chemistry
at the ripe old age of 19.
After graduation, Robert
gave a lecture tour in Europe
and extensively studied
manufacturing, geology,
and inorganic chemistry.
Throughout his lifetime,
Robert made hundreds
of crucial scientific
breakthroughs involving everything
from the efficient transportation of heat
to the cure for arsenic poisoning.
However, his most famous invention is one
of his more minor innovations:
the Bunsen burner.
Like most full-time geniuses,
Robert suffered from an abundance of ideas
and a scarcity of time.
Among all of his
inventions and discoveries,
the one device named after Robert Bunsen
is something he never actually built.
It was simply his idea
to pre-mix gas and air
before igniting the mixture.
This process creates a
higher burning temperature.
And once Peter Desaga had built it,
the Bunsen burner became a fixture
in laboratories across the world.
