Nobel Prize

Harold Clayton Urey was born in Walkerton, Indiana, on April 29, 1893, as the son of the Rev. Samuel Clayton Urey and Cora Rebecca Reinoehl, and grandson of pioneers who settled in Indiana. His early education in rural schools led to his graduation from high school in 1911 after which he taught for three years…

Jean Frédéric Joliot, born in Paris, March 19, 1900, was a graduate of the Ecole de Physique et Chimie of the city of Paris. His father was Henri Joliot, a merchant, and his mother was Emilie Roederer. In 1925 he became, at the Radium Institute, assistant to , whose daughter Iréne he married in 1926.…

Irène Curie, born in Paris, September 12, 1897, was the daughter of , and since 1926 the wife of Frédéric Joliot. After having started her studies at the Faculty of Science in Paris, she served as a nurse radiographer during the First World War. She became Doctor of Science in 1925, having prepared a thesis…

Walter Norman Haworth was born at Chorley, Lancashire, on March 19, 1883. He attended the local school until the age of fourteen when he joined his father, Thomas Haworth, to learn linoleum design and manufacture. His interest in chemistry was aroused through the use of dyestuffs in his work and his thirst for further knowledge…

Paul Karrer was born in Moscow on April 21, 1889. His parents, Paul Karrer and Julie Lerch, were Swiss nationals and in 1892 the family returned to Switzerland where he received his early education at Wildegg and at the grammar school in Lenzburg, Aarau, where he matriculated in 1908. He studied chemistry at University of…

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…

Archer John Porter Martin was born on March 1st, 1910, in London where his father was a general medical practitioner. He attended Bedford School from 1921 to 1929 when he entered Cambridge University to graduate in 1932. After a year in the Physical Chemistry Laboratory he obtained a post at the Dunn Nutritional Laboratory, where…

Richard Laurence Millington Synge was born at Liverpool on October 28th, 1914, as the son of Laurence Millington Synge, of Liverpool Stock Exchange, and Katharine Charlotte Swan. In 1928 he went to Winchester College, where he studied mainly classics until 1931, thereafter natural science. In 1933 he entered Trinity College, University of Cambridge and studied…

Hermann Staudinger was born in Worms on the 23rd of March 1881. His father was Dr. Franz Staudinger. Staudinger was educated in Worms, matriculated in 1899, and continued his studies first at the University of Halle, later at Darmstadt and Munich. He graduated at Halle in 1903 and qualified for inauguration as academic lecturer under…

Max Ferdinand Perutz was born in Vienna on May 19th, 1914. Both his parents, Hugo Perutz and Dely Goldschmidt, came from families of textile manufacturers who had made their fortune in the 19th century by the introduction of mechanical spinning and weaving into the Austrian monarchy. He was sent to school at the Theresianum, a…