Henri Moissan, who occupied the chair of Inorganic Chemistry at the Sorbonne from 1900 until his death, was the first person to isolate and characterize the element fluorine. He also invented the high-temperature electric arc furnace and prepared many new fluorine compounds, elemental transition metals, and carbides, borides, and silicides. For his work on fluorine and the electric furnace he was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1906.

Ferdinand Frédéric Henri Moissan was born in Paris on September 28, 1852, the son of Francois Ferdinand and Josephine Mitel Moissan. The family lived modestly; his father was a clerk and his mother a seamstress. In 1864 they moved to Meaux, about twenty-five miles east of Paris. He was educated at the municipal school and was influenced by a mathematics and science teacher who gave him private lessons. His family, however, could not afford to pay for him to complete...