1950-1959

Jim Armfield- EC

1950 Nobel Peace Prize Winners Otto Paul Hermann Diels 

Otto Paul Hermann Diels won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1950 along with Kurt Alder. Diels was born on January 23, 1876 in Hamburg Germany. At the age of two, he moved to Berlin, the city in which his father was hired as a professor. In 1895 he studied chemistry and other science subjects at Berlin University. Emil Fischer was his teacher, the winner of the 1902 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Immediately after graduating in 1899, Diels was “appointed assistant at the Institute of Chemistry at Berlin University, becoming a lecturer in 1904.” In 1906 he became a professor, and in 1913, he was “appointed Head of the Department.” He eventually was asked to be a professor at The University of Berlin in 1915. He took the job, but did not stay there for a long time because he “moved to the University of Kiel as Professor and Director of the Institute of Chemistry.” He worked at the University of Kiel until he retired in 1945. While working in many science departments at various universities, Diels did some research of his own. At first he was researching inorganic chemistry, but he moved to organic chemistry later on. In 1928 Diels and a man named, Kurt Alder, did some chemical reactions that they are both known for. The reaction, named after both men, is called the diene synthesis, which “consists in the reaction of a diene with a second component which has carbonyl or carboxyl groups adjoining an ethylenic bond, to give unsaturated cyclic compounds.” This means that he was able to make a reaction that made available many new compounds. To do this reaction, it is not necessary to force condition, like in some other reactions. Diels was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry because of his and Alder’s “discovery and development of the diene synthesis.” Diels had many other accomplishments other than his Nobel Prize award. He wrote the book, //Einführung in die organische Chemie// in the year 1907. That book has had fifteen different editions. Diels also wrote in some papers including the scientific periodical //Liebigs Annalen der Chemie//. Diels won many awards throughout his lifetime. He won a Gold Medal at the St. Louis (USA) International Exhibition that was in 1904 along with the “Adolf v. Baeyer Medallion in 1930 and the Grosskreuz des Verdienstordens der Bundesrepublik Deutschland in 1952.” He had received an honorary degree from the University of Kiel as a Doctor of Medicine. He had also attended the Halle, Munich, and Göttingen Academies. Diels had five children with his wife. Two of his sons died in World War II. Otto Paul Hermann Diels died on March 7, 1954.

** Kurt Alder **

Kurt Alder was born on July 10, 1902 in Prussia, which is now Poland. In his early childhood, he was used to being around an industrial society. He was eventually forced to move after World War I because of some “political circumstances.” In 1922 he attended Berlin University, where he started to ready about chemistry. In 1926 he switched universities, and started to attend the University of Kiel, where he graduated with a Ph.D. For Alder’s doctorate thesis, he worked under Diels, the other man who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1950. With Diels, Alder “studied problems of systematic organic chemistry.” With Diels, he discovered the principle of the diene-synthesis. He also studied other things while at Kiel, but his experiments with Diels are the most known. After Alder had worked at the University of Kiel for a while, he became the “head of department in the science laboratories of the I. G. Farben-Industrie.” While working in the labs he “worked on the preparation and constitution of synthetic rubber” also known as “buna”. Once he started working in the labs he got excited again about what he was once interested in. Alder started to be wanted in many places between 1940 and 1950. He was “appointed to the Chair for Experimental Chemistry and Chemical Technology at Cologne University.” In that same year, he became the Principal of the Institute of Chemistry. Two other Universities asked him to teach for them in 1950, but he did not accept either one. He also wanted to continue learning about what he and Diels had discovered. We know that the diene-synthesis is most important for applications in processes of substitution. What he found is very complicated, and his findings were published in different books. He won the Nobel Peace Prize for the same thing that Diels won it for, “the discovery and development of the diene synthesis." Alder won many other awards along with his Nobel Prize. The Emil Fischer Memorial Medal from the Association of German Chemists, the honorary doctorate of the University of Salamanca, and the honorary degree of M.D. from the University of Cologne were three awards that he received. He was also a member of the Imperial Leopold.-Karol.-German Academy of Natural Philosophers. Kurt Alder died at the age of 55 on June 20, 1958.

Works Cited "Kurt Alder - Biography". Nobelprize.org. 17 Nov 2010 [] "Kurt Alder." //NNDB: Tracking the Entire World//. Web. 16 Nov. 2010. . "Otto Diels - Biography". Nobelprize.org. 16 Nov 2010 [] "The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1902". Nobelprize.org. 16 Nov 2010 http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1902/index.html

Peter- 1951 //The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1951 was awarded jointly to Edwin Mattison McMillan and Glenn Theodore Seaborg "for their discoveries in the chemistry of the transuranium elements"// McMillan was born in Redondo Beach, California. He is the son of Dr. Edwin Harbaugh McMillan, a physician, and his wife, Anne Marie McMillan, née Mattison, who both came from the State of Maryland and were both of English and Scottish descent. The boy spent his early years in Pasadena, California, and obtained his education in that state. McMillan began his studies at the California Institute of technology in 1924. McMillan did a research project with Linus Pauling as an undergraduate.Linus Pauling was an American chemist, peace activist, author, and educator. McMillan recived his "Bachelor of Science" degree in 1928 and his "Master of Science" degree in 1929. He then took his "Doctor of Philosophy" from Princeston University in 1932.he died on the 7th of September 1991, El Cerrito, CA, USA.
 * "Edwin Mattison McMillan"**

Of Swedish ancestry, Seaborg was born in Ishpeming, Michigan, the son of Herman Theodore and Selma Olivia Erickson Seaborg. He had one sister, Jeanette. At the age of 10 he moved with his family to California, in 1929 he graduated at David Starr Jordan High School in Los Angeles as valedictorian of his class.He entered the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1929, and received the degree of Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1937. From 1937 to 1939 he was the personal laboratory assistant of the late G. N. Lewis, with whom he published a number of scientific papers.He Died on the 25th of February 1999, Lafayette, CA, USA.
 * "Glenn Theodore Seaborg"**

McMillan and Seaborg both were awarded with the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1951 for their discoveries of the transuranium elements. Transuranium elements are the chemical elements with atomic numbers greater than 92 (the atomic number of uranium). Hence "trans"- (after) and "uranium". all of these elements are extreamly unstable and radioactively decay into other elements extreamly fast.All of the elements with higher atomic numbers then technetium, promethium, astatine, and francium, have been first discovered in the laboratory, other than neptunium and plutonium. McMillan was the first to produce a transuranium element. He created the element 93. neptunium, Np, named after the planet Neptune, as it follows uranium and Neptune follows Uranus in the planetary sequence. Next Seaborg produced plutonium [The next planet after Neptune (which I think is ironic now because pluto is now not a planet)], americium (named after america), curium (named after Pierre and Marie Curie, famous scientists who separated out the first radioactive elements), berkelium (named after the city of Berkeley, where the University of California is located), and californium (named after California. the first transuranium element was produced when McMillan exposed uranium oxide to neutrons from a cyclotron. This then made neptunium. Ryan- 1952 The 1952 Nobel Prize was jointly awarded to Archer John Porter Martin as well as Richard Laurence Millington Synge. They were awarded this prize for the invention of partition chromatography. For those of you who have no idea what partition chromatography, this is what it is, partition chromatography is a method of chromatography which is a method of separating and identifying the components of a complex mixture by differential movement through a two-phase system, in which the movement is effected by a flow of a liquid or a gas (mobile phase) which percolates through an adsorbent (stationary phase) or a second liquid phase. This form of the process is a method using the partition of the solutes between two liquid phases (the original solvent and the film of solvent on the adsorption column). This is such a great contribution to chemistry during its time because it made the process a lot easier than it was before.
 * "The Nobel Prize"**

Archer John Porter Martin was born on March 1st, 1910 in London, his father, was a doctor in his community that he grew up in. He attended college at Cambridge, where he originally intended to become a chemical engineer, but thanks to some influence in his life, from one of his professors J.B.S. Haldean who was currently reader of Biochemistry at Cambridge. During his time at Cambrige Martin did several studies including one on the deficiencies of Vitamin E. When Martin left Cambridge he worked the Wool Industries Research Association, where he met R.L.M Synge, and developed there Nobel Prize winning project. After this Martin became a well renowned scientists and obtained several awards that included the Berzelius Medal of the Swedish Medical Society, the John Scott Award, as well as the Leverhulme Medal along with several more. Martin got married in 1943 to Judith Bagenal in which he had one son and three daughters.

Richard Laurence Millington Synge was born in Liverpool England on October 28th, 1914 he was the son of Laurence Millington Synge of the Liverpool stock exchange. Then he attended Winchester college where he at first studied classics, but later natural science. Then he studied at Trinity college at Cambridge where he worked on physics, chemistry, and physiology as well as biochemistry. He was an was a research student at the University Biochemical laboratory headed by Sir Frederik G. Hopkins. He then later worked at the Wool Industries Research Association, where he met A.J.P. Martin, where they conducted their Nobel prize winning experiment. He then later achieved his P.H.D. degree at Cambridge in 1942. Dr. Synge’s specialty is protein chemistry and since 1942 he has worked on several exclusive experiments in this field. He has been mainly concerned with digestion of proteins with the ruminant animals. In 1958-1959, he spent a year in New Zealand diving into more research involving animals. He was made a fellow of the Royal Society in 1950, he is an honorary member of the American Society of Biological Chemists. In 1943 he married Anne Stephen and they had four daughters and three sons. Gamal- 1954 Linus Pauling

Gamal Hossack Linus Pauling

Linus Pauling was born in Portland, Oregon, on 28th February, 1901. His family was of both Scottish and German decent. He went to public school in elementary school and high school and went to Oregon State for college. It was there he obtained his degree in chemical engineering. He then served as a full time teacher for quantitative analysis in the State College. But before doing that he was appointed a “Teaching Fellow” in Chemistry in the California Institute of Technology, which he did go to and graduated from there in 1925, working under Professor Roscoe G. Dickinson and Richard C. Tolman. He was awarded the Ph.D. in chemistry, with minors in physics and mathematics. Pauling got married Ava Helen Miller and they had four kids. In 1954 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for his research into the nature of the chemical bond and its purpose to the clarification of the structure of complex substances. there are many other thing he has done that were not Nobel Prize winning worthy but still pretty cool. Linus Pauling died in 1994 but his contributions to the scientific world were amazing and helped us excel as a society

Savannah Bruun- 1955 The Nobel Prize in Chemistry of 1955 was awarded to Vincent du Vigneaud for his outstanding accomplishments in the area of synthesis and isolation of a polypeptide hormone.

Born on May 18, 1901 in Chicago Illinois, Vincent du Vigneaud was raised in a highly educated home with his father, Alfred du Vigneaud, dedicated to his inventing and machine designs and his mother, Mary Theresa, dedicated to educating her son. In his own education, Vincent du Vigneaud studied with Professor C.S. Marvel at the University of Illinois and many other great men of medicine. Du Vigneaud also did much research in the field of chemicals. Aside from his studies, du Vigneaud pursued other things such as the woman by the name of Zella Zon Ford. They married in 1924 and had a son in 1933 named Vincent Jr. and a daughter in 1935 named Marilyn Renee.

Vincent du Vingeaud received the Novel Prize in Chemistry in 1955 for his work with two hormones. Vingeaud isolated the hormone oxytocin that is responsible for the contractions of the uterus and the secretion of breast milk and the hormone vasopressin that controls the muscles of blood vessels and results in blood pressure. In isolating these hormones, he studied the chemical structure of each and discovered oxytocin to contain a rarely low number of only eight different amino acids where others contain in the 100s. Later, he also synthesized oxytocin, becoming the first to synthesize any protein hormone.

Vincent du Vigneaud acheived many other awards such as: Hillebrand Award- 1936 Mead Johnson Vitamin B Complex Award- 1942 Nichols Medal- 1945 Borden Award- 1947 Lasker Award- 1948 <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Award of Merit for War Resarch- 1948 <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Osborne and Mendel Award- 1953 <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">John Scott Award- 1954 <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Scientific Award- 1954 <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Passano Award-1955 <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Chandler Medal-1955 <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Nobel Prize in Chemistry- 1955

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">"Vincent du Vigneaud." <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">__Encyclopædia Britannica__ <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">. 2010. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 04 Nov. 2010 < <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">[|__http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/172562/Vincent-du-Vigneaud__] <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">>.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Slovic, Lyle. "Du Vigneaud, Vincent." <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">//The GW and Foggy Bottom Historical Encyclopedia// <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">. Washington D.C.: 2010. Web.

Elsa- 1956

<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">Cyril Hinshelwood was born in London, England on June 19, 1897 He attended Westminster City School. At Oxford University he earned a Master of Arts and Doctor of Science degree and became a Professor of Chemistry. He studied physical chemistry and chemical kinetics. Hinshelwood, studied the combustion of hydrogen and oxygen at Oxford. He also <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">studied other chemical reactions that led him to draw important conclusions concerning the collisions between molecules. He won the Nobel Prize for his researches into the mechanism of chemical reactions. H <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">e found substances which could simultaneously react in different ways. <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">Among his many other accomplishments were many honorary degrees and medals from a variety of countries and Universities. He also held honorary memberships of the major scientific societies of many countries. Hinshelwood was knighted in 1948 and appointed to the Order of Merit in 1960.He served on several Advisory Councils on scientific matters to the British Government. He also served as Foreign Secretary from 1950 to 1955. Sir Cyril was unmarried. He was fluent in many languages Hinshelwood collected Chinese pottery and foreign literature, but his main hobby, was painting. <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif;"> He spoke many languages fluently. An interesting quote he used was: "To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive". **<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-weight: normal;">Sir Cyril Hinshelwood died the ** 9th of October, 1967 in London, England

<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">Nikolai Nikolaevic Semenov was born in Saratov on April 3, 1896. He graduated from Petrograd University in 1917. He started working at the electron phenomena laboratory of the Leningrad Physico-Technical Institute in 1920. In 1928 he was appointed Professor at the Polytechnical Institute. In 1931 he became Director of the Institute of Chemical Physics of the U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences. He became a professor at the Moscow State University in 1944. Semenov's scientific work concentrated on the mechanism of chemical transformation. He analyzed the application of the chain theory to varied reactions especially, to combustion processes. His theory led to a better understanding of the phenomena associated with the induction periods of oxidation processes. <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">The Nobel Prize was awarded to Semenov for his research into the mechanism of chemical reactions. He developed a detailed theory of un-branched and branched chain reactions in chemistry. Semenov had many other accomplishments. He wrote two books about his research.”//Chemical Kinetics and Chain Reactions//” was published in 1934, and in 1954 the second book //Some Problems of Chemical Kinetics and Reactivity//. Semonov was awarded five Orders of Lenin and the Order of the Red Banner of Labour.Honorary Doctorate degrees of Oxford and Brussels Universities were bestowed on him.He was married to Natalya Nikolaevna Semenova; they had one son and one daughter. <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">Nikolay Semenov died on September 25, 1986

Sean- 1958 <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">Fredrick Sanger was born on August 13, 1918 in Rendcomb. He was an <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">English biochemist. In 1958 he was awarded a Nobel Prize in chemistry <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">"for his work on the structure of proteins, especially that of <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">insulin". This following lists show that his major works can be <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">divided by three sections: Sequencing Insulin, Sequencing RNA, and <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">Sequencing DNA. When he worked about Sequencing Insulin, he got first <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">novel prize in 1958 because he mentioned that the two polypeptide <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">chains of the protein insulin had precise amino acid sequences and, by <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">extension, that every protein had a unique sequence. For his second section which is Sequencing RNA, He determined the nucleotide sequence of the [|5S ribosomal RNA] from // [|Escherichia coli] //, a small RNA of 120 nucleotides. For last section which is Sequencing DNA, he discovered the human genome. === **<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Jaroslav Heyrovsky was a son of Roman Law professor Leopold Heyrovsky and his wife Clara, néeHanl. In 1910 he studied at University College London **. He received his early education at secondary school till 1909 when he started to of math and chemistry at the Czech University, Prague. In 1910 he continued his studies at University College, London, under Professors Sir William Ramsay, W.C.Mc.C. Lewis and F.G. Donnan, for 4 years before obtaining his Bachelor’s degree of Science. He was particularly interested in electrochemistry and work with his professor (Donnan) closely. Donnan encouraged him to further his studies on the polarographic methods Jaroslav Heyrovsky was awarded the Nobel Prize for his creation of the polarographic methods of analysis prize. The polarographic methods are used to figure out the charge of a battery or other electronic system. === ** Jaroslav Heyrovsky's invention of the polarographic method started in 1922 and he put his life into the development of this new branch of electrochemistry (the study of chemical reactions). He created the school of Czech polarographers in the University, in which he continued his own studies. ** ** Heyrovsky was groomed by Professor B. Brauner at the Institute of Analytical Chemistry of the Charles University in Prague. In 1922 he was promoted to Associate Professor and four years later he became the first Professor of Physical Chemistry at this University. He was granted honorary membership of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Boston, Massachusetts. Heyrovsky was an honorary member of the Polarographic Society of Japan. **
 * 1959 -** Jaroslav Heyrovsky
 * Darrius Woody**