Chemistry

Press release

11 October 1977 has decided to award the 1977 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Professor Ilya Prigogine, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium, for his contributions to non-equilibrium thermodynamics, particularly the theory of dissipative structures ORDER FROM DISORDER LED TO NOBEL PRIZE IN CHEMISTRY Thermodynamics is a central branch of modern science, and its general laws…

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Award ceremony speech

Presentation Speech by Professor Ingvar Lindqvist of the Your Majesty, Your Royal Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen, Throughout history, there has been a tendency for people to take a stereotyped view of their fellow men in other occupations or with different backgrounds. I think that we all would agree that these stereotypes are harmful, and yet…

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Speed read

The second Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Emil Fischer, who showed how establishing key relationships in biology can be a matter of finding the right chemistry. Fischer showed how piecing together intricate chemical details about substances in Nature that are essential for life can reveal vital information about their functions and uncover unexpected…

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The history of organic synthesis starts with the German chemist Friedrich Wöhler who, in 1828, succeeded to make urea from simple materials. This was the first time when organic (=living) matter was produced from inorganic (=dead) matter. This was not believed to be possible, at the time.      By the end of the nineteenth century…

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Biographical

George de Hevesy was born in Budapest on August 1st, 1885, the son of Louis de Hevesy, Court Counsellor and Eugénie, née Baroness Schosberger. After matriculating at the Gymnasium of the Piarist Order in 1903 he studied at Budapest University and Berlin Technical University and he gained his doctor’s degree at the University of Freiburg…

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Biographical

Manfred Eigen was born in Bochum on 9 May 1927, the son of the chamber musician Ernst Eigen and his wife Hedwig, née Feld. He received his schooling at the Bochum humanistic Gymnasium. In the autumn of 1945 he commenced the physics and chemistry course at the Georg-August University in Göttingen and obtained his doctorate…

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