Svante Arrhenius (1859-1927), Nobel Prize-winning Swedish chemist, at work in his laboratory. Arrhenius was an infant prodigy and taught himself to read at 3. He studied physics and chemistry at the University of Uppsala before transferring to Stockholm to begin research on aqueous solutions of acids, bases and salts. He discovered that such solutions conduct electricity because the solute divides into charged ions in the water - a finding that was at first scoffed at but which later won him the 1903 Nobel Prize for chemistry. Subsequent achievements include his elucidation of the effect of temperature on reaction rates (Arrhenius equation) and discovery of the Greenhouse Effect.