Staudinger, Hermann

20th Century
Born: Worms (Germany), 1881
Died: Freiburg (Germany), 1965
After studying in Halle, Darmstadt and München, Staudinger became an assistant in Straßburg (Strasbourg) in 1903 where he discovered the ketenes. In 1907 he became professor in Karlsruhe, 1912 in Zürich and 1926 in Freiburg. From 1912 he studied compounds like cellulose and caoutchouc starting from the hypothesis that those compounds have an extremely high molecular weight. He also showed the relation between viscosity and the chain length of macromolecules. His results were further developed by the plastic industry. Together with his wife Magda Staudinger-Woit he also studied the molecular composition of proteins. Having long been considered an outsider in 1953 he was honoured with the Nobel Prize in chemistry.