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This technique has become of great practical importance for investigating crystal structures. Meanwhile, with the impetus provided by this experimental confirmation, the wave theory was developed by de Broglie. Heisenberg, Schroedinger and Dirac into the monumental theoretical structure which is modern quantum Mechanics. All these theorists are Nobel Prizewinners.
Last week the Swedish Academy of Sciences reached back ten years in atomic history, back to the experimental demonstrators of the wave nature of electrons, awarded to Clinton Joseph Davisson and George Paget Thomson this year's Nobel Prize for Physics. Each will receive about $20,000. Said dark, lantern-jawed Dr. Davisson, already much honored for his researches: "I am suffering from a bad case of stage fright."
Two centuries ago British sailors learned to eat citrus fruits to keep free of scurvy. Within the past five years Vitamin C has been identified, its chemical structure determined, its synthetic preparation accomplished. Albert Szent-Györgyi of Hungary found a substance in animal adrenal glands, ascorbic acid, which turned out to be the same thing as Vitamin C, and extracted large quantities of ascorbic acid from paprika. Walter Norman Haworth of England plotted the architecture of the molecule and Paul Karrer of Switzerland synthesized it.
Last month when the 1937 Nobel Prize for Medicine was awarded to Szent-Györgyi, it seemed that the Swedish Academy of Sciences had passed up Haworth and Karrer (TIME, Nov. 8). Last week, well aware that the modern divisions of science overlap considerably, the Academy evened things up by announcing that the 1937 prize for Chemistry would go to Biochemists Haworth and Karrer.