Robert Bunsen is best known for his invention of the improved gas flame device which bears his name: the Bunsen burner. However, Robert Wilhelm Eberhard Bunsen's contributions to science extend far beyond this one invention; he developed a number of other common laboratory instruments, as well as a new device and process for analyzing the elemental constituents of chemicals called spectroscopy. This new science, developed with Gustav Kirchhoff, is probably his most important legacy to science. Bunsen received his doctorate in 1830 from the University of Göttingen, in his hometown. His high marks earned him a grant from the Hanoverian government and with those funds he traveled to Berlin, Bonn, Paris, and Vienna during the next three years. At each stop he met with the cities' great thinkers and toured their centers of industry. Upon his return to Göttingen he was made an instructor at...