Nobel Prize

Otto Hahn was born on 8th March, 1879, at Frankfurt-on-Main. He attended the secondary high school there until he matriculated. From 1897 Hahn studied chemistry at Marburg and Munich, taking his doctorate examination in 1901 at Marburg and submitting to Professor Theodor Zincke a thesis on organic chemistry. He obtained a post as assistant in…

I was born on March 21, 1932 in Boston, Massachusetts. My father, Richard V. Gilbert, an economist, was at that time at Harvard University. He worked for the Office of Price Administration during the second World War and later headed up a planning group advising the Pakistani government. My mother, Emma Cohen, was a child…

Sir Cyril Norman Hinshelwood was born in London on June 19, 1897. He was educated at Westminster City School and Oxford University where he gained Master of Arts and Doctor of Science degrees. He held successive fellowships at Balliol, Trinity, and Exeter Colleges; he was tutor of Trinity College from 1921 to 1937 and since…

Nikolai Nikolaevic Semenov was born in Saratov on April 3, 1896. He graduated from Petrograd University in 1917 and in 1920 he took charge of the electron phenomena laboratory of the Leningrad Physico-Technical Institute. He lectured at the Polytechnical Institute and was appointed Professor in 1928. In 1931, he became Director of the Institute of…

Sir Robert Robinson was born at Rufford, near Chesterfield, Derbyshire on September 13th, 1886, the son of William Bradbury Robinson, a surgical dressing manufacturer who invented his own machines for the production of lint, bandages, etc., and the cardboard boxes for packaging them. He was educated at the Chesterfield Grammar School, Fulneck School, near Leeds,…

I was born in New York City on February 14, 1917, the oldest child of Israel Hauptman and Leah Rosenfeld. I have two brothers, Manuel and Robert. I married Edith Citrynell on November 10, 1940. We have two daughters, Barbara (1947) and Carol (1950). My interest in most areas of science and mathematics began at…

Walther Hermann Nernst was born in Briesen, West Prussia, on June 25, 1864. His father, Gustav Nernst, was a district judge. He spent his early school years at Graudentz, and subsequently went to the Universities of Zurich, Berlin and Graz (Ludwig Boltzmann and Albert von Ettinghausen), studying physics and mathematics, before proceeding to Wurzburg (Friedrich…

Svante August Arrhenius was born on February 19, 1859, the son of Svante Gustaf Arrhenius and Carolina Christina Thunberg. His ancestors were farmers; his uncle became Professor of Botany and Rector of the Agricultural High School at Ultuna near Uppsala and later Secretary of The Swedish Academy of Agriculture. His father was a land surveyor…

Petrus (Peter) Josephus Wilhelmus Debye was born March 24, 1884, at Maastricht, the Netherlands. He received his early education at the elementary and secondary schools in his home town and from then on his life has been devoted to a search for knowledge. He continued his studies at the Aachen Institute of Technology (Technische Hochschule)…

Kurt Alder was born in Königshütte, Upper Silesia, on the 10th of July 1902. His childhood and school years were spent in these industrial surroundings, but after the end of the First World War he was forced to leave his home, due to political circumstances. He started reading chemistry at Berlin University in 1922, and…