Carl Auer von Welsbach separate didymium for…

Carl Auer von Welsbach separate didymium for the first time in 1885, using a method he has developsed himself .

He sees several different colored versions which he names "praseodymium" (green) and "neodidymium" (pink); the latter then becomes the more common name for the element, neodymium.

Praseodymium's name combines Greek prasios, leek green, referring to the color of the element's salts, with didymon, twin.

Neodymium's name combines Greek neo, new, with didymon.

Carl Auer von Welsbach was born in Vienna on September 1, 1858 to Therese and Alois Auer.

Alois, ennobled in 1860, was director of the Imperial printing office (K.-k. Hof- und Staatsdruckerei).

Carl had gone to secondary school in Mariahilf and Josefstadt before graduating in 1877, and joining the Austro-Hungarian Army as a Second Lieutenant.

In 1878 von Welsbach had entered the University of Vienna, studying mathematics, general chemistry, engineering physics, and thermodynamics.

He then moved to the University of Heidelberg in 1880, where he had continued his studies in chemistry under the direction of Robert Bunsen (inventor of the Bunsen burner).

He had received his Ph.D. in 1882, and had returned to Vienna to work as an unpaid assistant in Professor Adolf Lieben's laboratory, working with chemical separation methods for investigations on rare earth elements.