Chemistry

Biographical

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…

more

Biographical

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,…

more

Biographical

Richard Laurence Millington Synge was born at Liverpool on October 28th, 1914, as the son of Laurence Millington Synge, of Liverpool Stock Exchange, and Katharine Charlotte Swan. In 1928 he went to Winchester College, where he studied mainly classics until 1931, thereafter natural science. In 1933 he entered Trinity College, University of Cambridge and studied…

more

Press release

11 October 1977 has decided to award the 1977 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Professor Ilya Prigogine, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium, for his contributions to non-equilibrium thermodynamics, particularly the theory of dissipative structures ORDER FROM DISORDER LED TO NOBEL PRIZE IN CHEMISTRY Thermodynamics is a central branch of modern science, and its general laws…

more

Award ceremony speech

Presentation Speech by Professor Ingvar Lindqvist of the Your Majesty, Your Royal Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen, Throughout history, there has been a tendency for people to take a stereotyped view of their fellow men in other occupations or with different backgrounds. I think that we all would agree that these stereotypes are harmful, and yet…

more

Speed read

The second Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Emil Fischer, who showed how establishing key relationships in biology can be a matter of finding the right chemistry. Fischer showed how piecing together intricate chemical details about substances in Nature that are essential for life can reveal vital information about their functions and uncover unexpected…

more