Category Famous Nobel Laureates

          Hans Fischer was a famous German organic chemist. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his research in the structure of heme, the red blood pigment, and chlorophyll, the green pigment in plants.

          Hans Fischer was born on 27th July 1881, in Germany. Fischer studied haemoglobin, which is composed of the protein globin, and what is called the heme group. Haemoglobin possesses the unique property of forming a loose reversible combination with oxygen, so that oxygen taken up by it in the lungs can be given off in the tissues. In this loose combination the active part is heme, and heme combined with any other protein except globin, does not possess the property of giving up combined oxygen.

          Fischer mapped the composition of the heme group and in 1929; he succeeded in artificially producing the substance.

          He also studied other pigmented substances of biological importance, including chlorophyll, which plays a crucial role in plant photosynthesis. Hans Fischer died on 31st March, 1945.

          Fritz Haber was a German physical chemist. He was the winner of the 1918 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his successful work on nitrogen fixation.

          Haber was born on 9th December 1868 in Poland. He became known for his Nobel Prize winning invention of the Haber—Bosch process, a method used in industry to synthesize ammonia from nitrogen gas and hydrogen gas.

          This invention is of importance for the large-scale synthesis of fertilisers. The food production for half the world’s current population depends on this method for producing nitrogen fertilisers.

          His public life was entangled in controversy because of his role in the German poison gas programme during World War I. His name has been associated with the process of synthesizing ammonia. Haber formulated a theory to explain that exposure to a low concentration of a poisonous gas for a long time often had the same effect as exposure to a high concentration for a short time. This became known as Haber’s rule. He died on 29th January, 1934.

          Otto Wallach was a German chemist born on 27th March, 1847. He received the 1910 Nobel Prize for his work on alicyclic compounds.

          In 1865, he went to the University of Gottingen to study chemistry. In 1889, he was made the Director of the Chemical Institute at Gottingen. For many years, Wallach studied the structure and characters of alicyclic compounds, including hydrogen chloride.

         Wallach spent much of his research on the molecular structure of essential oils. He separated from the oils a group of fragrant materials that he called terpenes. He showed that many substances were mixtures of a small number of terpenes and that terpenes can easily be altered and changes into each other. Otto Wallach’s work became significant within the chemical industry, where essential oils are used in perfume and food.

          In 1909, he published his results and conclusions in his book about the chemistry of Terpenes- ‘Terpene and Campher’.

          Otto Wallach died on 26th February 1931, at the age of 84.

          Friedrich Wilhelm Ostwald almost single-handedly established physical chemistry as an acknowledged academic discipline. In 1909, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry for his work on catalysis, chemical equilibria, and reaction velocities.

          Ostwald, born on 2nd September 1853, was a German chemist. Ostwald, Jacobus Henricus van’t Hoff, and Svante Arrhenius are credited with being the modern founders of the field of physical chemistry.

          Ostwald went to Leipzig in 1887, where he carried out ground-breaking research on catalysis, while promoting the works of Arrhenius and van’t Hoff.

          In 1894, he revealed how a catalyst can affect a chemical reaction’s speed, but is not included in its end-products. This understanding shed great light on chemical reactions, occurring in both industrial processes and living organisms. Ostwald died in 1932, after a short illness. He was 79 years old.

            Sir Robert Robinson studied the chemical reactions involved in forming alkaloids, and won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1947. He isolated tropinone in 1917, and described the structure of morphine in 1925, and strychnine in 1946.

            Robert Robinson was born on 13th September, 1886 at Rufford in Derbyshire. He contributed greatly towards the definition of the arrangement of atoms within molecules of morphine, papaverine, narcotine etc. These discoveries led to the production of certain antimalarial drugs in future. He also invented the symbol for benzene having a circle in the middle whilst working at St. Andrews University in 1923.

            During the World War II, Robinson worked on topics of national importance such as chemotherapy and chemical defence.

            His closing years were marred by failing eyesight, and he became almost completely blind. Nevertheless, his intellect remained active, and he began an autobiography when he was 88-years-old, working at it even on the day he died, 8th February, 1975.

            Linus Pauling was one of the greatest scientists and humanitarians the world has seen. He was a much respected and beloved defender of civil liberties and health issues.

            Pauling was born on 28th February 1901, in the US. Linus Pauling has been awarded two undivided Nobel Prizes. In 1954, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Eight years later, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his opposition to weapons of mass destruction.

            He is one of four individuals to have won more than one Nobel Prize. Of these, he is the only person to be awarded two unshared Nobel Prizes, and one of the two legends to be awarded Nobel Prizes in different fields, the other being Marie Curie.

            After first studying at Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon, Linus Pauling earned his Ph.D from the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, with which he maintained ties for the rest of his career.

            In 1954, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his research into the nature of the chemical bond and its application in the structure of complex substances.

            Linus Pauling died on 19th August 1994.