This year's Nobel Prize in chemistry went to Hermann Staudinger, 72, of Freiburg, West Germany, who is considered the father of the study of macro-molecules. When he started his work, many organic compounds were known to contain large groups of atoms, but these were considered mere mechanical clumpings of smaller molecular groups. Dr. Staudinger showed that they are true molecules, their thousands of atoms hooked together in definite patterns.
Out of this discovery grew such great modern industries as plastics and artificial fibers, as well as new understanding of the way that nature builds the complex compounds in living organisms.
Dr. Fritz Zernike,...
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