Carl F. Auer von Welsbach
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Carl F. Auer von Welsbach, or Baron von Welsbach, was an Austrian chemist, who in the 1880’s, worked in Robert Bunsen’s laboratory, doing research on rare-earth elements and their compounds. He was born on September 1st, 1858 in Vienna Austria and died on August 9th, 1929 in Treibach, Austria. During Welsbach’s experiments, he was discovered neodymium and praseodymium in a mixture of the two elements called didymium. He also created a gas mantle by experimenting with “fabric impregnated with a mixture of thorium nitrate and cerium nitrate could be made into a mantle that glowed brightly when heated by a gas flame.“ (The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica, par 2). He also introduced the first metallic filament for the incandescent light bulb, using osmium that was later replaced with more abundant tungsten metal.