Nobel Prize

I was born in 1926 to Lazar and Bella (née Silin) Klug in Zelvas, Lithuania, but remember nothing of the place, because I was brought to South Africa as a child of two and grew up there. My father was trained as a saddler, but in fact as a young man worked in his father’s…

My father Cecil Banks Mullis and mother, formerly Bernice Alberta Barker grew up in rural North Carolina in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. My dad’s family had a general store, which I never saw. My grandparents on his side had already died before I started noticing things. My mother’s parents were close to…

I was born on April 26th, 1932 at 65 St. Heliers Road, South Shore, Blackpool, England in the house of my maternal grandmother, Mary Martha Armstead, having been delivered by the District Nurse, Ms. Parkinson, a lady who I can remember from my infant and juvenile days in her uniform and navy blue raincoat on…

I was born in Alice, Texas on August 23, 1933. My father was a Methodist minister, and my mother was what we then called a housewife. I have a sister, Mary, who is some years my elder. In those days, Methodist ministers moved often, and as a child I lived in a succession of mostly…

My early life was spent in Burnham-on-Sea, Somerset, a small seaside resort town (population around 5000) on the west coast of England. I was born on October 31, 1925 and lived there with my parents until shortly after the end of the Second World War in 1946. No member of my family was involved in…

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…

François Auguste Victor Grignard was born in Cherbourg on May 6, 1871. He attended local schools during 1883-87 and in 1889 he won a scholarship to the École Normale Spécial at Cluny. After two years, the school, which was intended to produce teachers for modern secondary schools, was closed because of a dispute between supporters…

Paul Sabatier was born at Carcassonne in Southern France on November 5, 1854. He was educated at the local Lycée and then prepared at Toulouse for the entrance examinations to the École Polytechnique and the École Normale Supérieure. He was accepted for both and chose the latter which he entered in 1874; three years later…

Fritz Pregl was born in Laibach on September 3, 1869, and attended the local “Gymnasium” (grammar school), from where he proceeded to the University of Graz to study medicine. He received his M.D. in 1894, but even prior to graduation he became assistant lecturer for physiology and histology under Alexander Rollett, taking over the chair…

Hans Fischer was born in July 27, 1881 at Hoechst, on the river Main, in Germany. His father was Dr. Eugen Fischer, Director of the firm of Kalle & Co, Wiesbaden, and Privatdozent at the Technical High School, Stuttgart; his mother was Anna Herdegen. He went to a primary school in Stuttgart, and later to…