Nobel Prize

I attended elementary school and high school in Mexico City. I was already fascinated by science before entering high school; I still remember my excitement when I first glanced at paramecia and amoebae through a rather primitive toy microscope. I then converted a bathroom, seldom used by the family, into a laboratory and spent hours…

I was born on June 28, 1927, the second of three sons, in the small central Ohio town of Delaware, the home of Ohio Wesleyan University. My father and mother had moved there the previous year when he took the position of Professor of Mathematics and Chairman of the Department at Ohio Wesleyan. All of…

Hermann Emil Fischer was born on October 9, 1852, at Euskirchen, in the Cologne district. His father was a successful business man. After three years with a private tutor, Emil went to the local school and then spent two years at school at Wetzlar, and two more at Bonn where he passed his final examination…

Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Adolf von Baeyer was born on October 31, 1835, in Berlin, as the son of Johann Jakob Baeyer and Eugenie née Hitzig. He came from a family distinguished both in literature and the natural sciences. His father, a lieutenant-general, was the originator of the European system of geodetic measurement. Even as a…

Alfred Werner, son of factory foreman J.A. Werner and his wife Jeanne, née Tesche, was born on December 12, 1866, at Mülhausen in Alsace, where he went to school. While he was at school he showed an interest in chemistry and did, when he was only 18, his first independent chemical research. From 1885 until…

Richard Martin Willstätter was born in Karlsruhe in Baden on August 13, 1872, and went to school first in his home town and then, when his parents moved house, at the Technical School in Nuremberg. When he was 18 he went to the University of Munich where he studied Science, entered the Department of Chemistry…

Fritz Haber was born on December 9, 1868 in Breslau, Germany, in one of the oldest families of the town, as the son of Siegfried Haber, a merchant. He went to school at the St. Elizabeth classical school at Breslau and he did, even while he was at school, many chemical experiments. From 1886 until…

Theodor (The) Svedberg was born at Fleräng, Valbo, in the county of Gävleborg, Sweden on August 30, 1884, as the son of Elias Svedberg, a works manager, and his wife, Augusta, née Alstermark. He attended the Köping School, the Örebro High School and Gothenburg Modern School, where he passed his student examination in December 1903,…

Arthur Harden was born in Manchester, England, on October 12, 1865; his father was Albert Tyas Harden and his mother Eliza Macalister. He was educated at a private school in Victoria Park (1873-1877) and at Tettenhall College, Staffordshire (1877-1881). He entered The Owens College in the University of Manchester in 1882, studying under Sir H.E.…

Hans von Euler-Chelpin was born on February 15, 1873, at Augsburg. His father, who was then a captain in the Royal Bavarian Regiment, was transferred to Munich and von Euler-Chelpin spent most of his childhood not far away with his grandmother at Wasserburg. After going to school at Munich, Wurzburg and Ulm, he studied art…