1826 One day, while reading a scientific magazine, German chemist Justus von Liebig was attracted by a paper entitled "New Elements in Seaweed". The author of the paper is a strange name, Bagra, 23 years old, French. The article wrote: When he was doing the experiment of extracting iodine with seaweed liquid, he found that a dark red liquid was precipitated in the seaweed liquid of iodine. After research, it is a new element with pungent smell, hence the name bromine. Justus von Liebig watched it several times in a row, and suddenly walked quickly to the front of the medicine cabinet and found a bottle marked "Iodine Chloride" from the shelf. Justus von Liebig wiped the dust off the bottle, shook the dark red liquid inside, opened the bottle cap and smelled it. Ah, there is a pungent smell.

It turns out that a few years ago, when Justus von Liebig was doing iodine experiment, chlorine gas was gradually introduced into the algae solution in order to replace iodine in the algae solution. When he got the purple iodine, he also saw the dark red liquid under the iodine. At that time, Justus von Liebig didn't think much. He even subjectively thought that since this dark red liquid was produced after chlorine was introduced, it must be iodine chloride. He put the label "iodine chloride" on the outside of the bottle containing this dark red liquid and put it aside.

At the moment, Justus von Liebig felt remorse. If I had been more careful, the discovery of bromine should have belonged to myself and Germany! However, all the opportunities were missed. Justus von Liebig deeply condemned himself. In order to learn this lesson, he carefully put the bottle marked "iodine chloride" into a cupboard. This cabinet, called "the wrong cabinet" by Justus von Liebig, contains his failures and lessons in his work. Justus von Liebig often opens this "wrong cupboard" to warn himself.

Later, Justus von Liebig made many achievements and became a famous German chemist. In his autobiography, he specifically talked about it. He wrote: "From now on, unless there is a very reliable experiment as the basis, I will never make a theory out of thin air again."

After Bagra's paper was published, another German chemist, Lowe, caused a shock. Lowe got the dark red liquid before Baglar did. It's a pity that he didn't do further research and missed the opportunity of discovery.

The discovery of bromine tells us that science is ruthless, and success only belongs to those who are sensitive to new things and firm and persistent in their work.

Bromine is a suffocating malodorous gas, which is toxic. It is used to make bromide, hydrobromic acid and some sedatives and dyes.