I was born on July 14, 1935 in Changchun, China, as a Japanese citizen. My family moved to Harbin when I was one and then to Seoul, Korea, two years before the end of World War II. As I was admitted to an elementary school in Harbin at age six, a year earlier than normal,…

Irving Langmuir was born in Brooklyn, New York, on January 31, 1881, as the third of four sons of Charles Langmuir and Sadie, neé Comings. His early education was obtained in various schools and institutes in the USA, and in Paris (1892-1895). He graduated as a metallurgical engineer from the School of Mines at Columbia…

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…

Harold Clayton Urey was born in Walkerton, Indiana, on April 29, 1893, as the son of the Rev. Samuel Clayton Urey and Cora Rebecca Reinoehl, and grandson of pioneers who settled in Indiana. His early education in rural schools led to his graduation from high school in 1911 after which he taught for three years…

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…

Jean Frédéric Joliot, born in Paris, March 19, 1900, was a graduate of the Ecole de Physique et Chimie of the city of Paris. His father was Henri Joliot, a merchant, and his mother was Emilie Roederer. In 1925 he became, at the Radium Institute, assistant to , whose daughter Iréne he married in 1926.…

Born in Monessen, Pennsylvania, March 26, 1916 Dr. Anfinsen obtained a B.A. degree from Swarthmore College in 1937 and an M.S. in organic chemistry in 1939 from the University of Pennsylvania. He spent the year 1939-40 as a Visiting Investigator at the Carlsberg Laboratory in Copenhagen. In 1943, he received a Ph.D. from Harvard Medical…

I was born June 25, 1911 in New York City, the second of three children, to Freed M. and Beatrice Borg Stein. My father was a business man who was greatly interested in communal affairs, particularly those dealing with health, and he retired quite early in life in order to devote his full time to…

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…

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…