Friherre Jöns Jacob Berzelius (20 August 1779 – 7 August 1848) was a Swedish chemist. He invented the modern chemical notation, and is together with John Dalton, Antoine Lavoisier, and Robert Boyle considered a father of modern chemistry.

Berzelius is credited with identifying the chemical elements silicon, selenium, thorium, and cerium. Students working in Berzelius' laboratory also discovered lithium, and vanadium.
Berzelius is also credited with originating the chemical terms "catalysis", "polymer", "isomer" and "allotrope", although his original definitions differ dramatically from modern usage. For example, he coined the term "polymer" in 1833 to describe organic compounds which shared identical empirical formulas but differed in overall molecular weight, the larger of the compounds being described as "polymers" of the smallest. According to this (now obsolete) definition, glucose (C6H12O6) would be a polymer of formaldehyde (CH2O).

Berzelius had an effect on biology as well. He was the first person to make the distinction between organic compounds (those containing carbon), and inorganic compounds. In particular, he advised Gerhardus Johannes Mulder in his elemental analyses of organic compounds such as coffee, tea and various proteins. The term "protein" itself was coined by Berzelius, after Mulder observed that all proteins seemed to have the same empirical formula and might be composed of a single type of (very large) molecule. Berzelius proposed the name because the material seemed to be the primitive substance of animal nutrition that plants prepare for the herbivores.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jöns_Jakob_Berzelius