• Question: who created the Ph scale to measure acids and alkalis?

    Asked by to Edward, Ian, Mathew, Naomi, sakshisharda on 23 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Ian Stephenson

      Ian Stephenson answered on 23 Jun 2014:

      It was invented by a guy called Soren Sorensen (his mum really liked the name?) in 1909. (I looked it up! I didn’t know either!)

      Turns out no one’s realy sure why its called pH – the letters just stuck!

    • Photo: Naomi Osborne

      Naomi Osborne answered on 24 Jun 2014:

      Sorensen studied the effect of hydrogen ions on proteins, so decided to come up with a way of expressing hydrogen ion concentration using electrodes or coloured indicators. Measuring pH is very important in my job – bacteria only grow at certain pH levels (usually around 7 which is what our body is) so we make agar at this pH so bacteria grow

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