Nobel Prize

Presentation Speech by Professor Gerard de Geer, President of , on December 10, 1921 Your Majesty, Your Royal Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen. As long ago as the Ice Age, when our species was in its childhood, man found in fire a powerful ally in his fight against cold and darkness, and it helped him make…

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1771 Joseph Priestley, England, discovers that plants can “purify” air that has been “burned out” by a candle. 1779 Jan Ingenhousz, The Netherlands, demonstrates that the plant in Priestley’s experiment is dependent on light and its green parts. 1782-1804 Several researchers show that carbon dioxide and water are stored as organic matter by plants. 1845…

John Charles Polanyi was born in 1929 in Berlin, Germany, of Hungarian parents, Michael and Magda Elizabeth Polanyi. The family moved to England in 1933 where he received his education. His University training was at Manchester University, where he obtained his B.Sc. in 1949, and his Ph.D. in 1952. From 1952-1954, he was a Postdoctoral…

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Contents: Based on materials from the 1988 Nobel Poster for Chemistry.

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Ttranslation from the German text Born in Berlin in 1897. Doctorate and University Teaching Thesis in Marburg/Lahn from the Faculty of Chemistry. Head of Department at Braunschweig (Technical College) from 1932; Associate Professor at Freiburg/Brsg. from 1937; Professor and Faculty Director at the Institute of Chemistry, Tübingen, from 1944; turned down the same position as…