The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1921

Frederick Soddy

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1921 was awarded to Frederick Soddy "for his contributions to our knowledge of the chemistry of radioactive substances, and his investigations into the origin and nature of isotopes".

Frederick Soddy received his Nobel Prize one year later, in 1922. During the selection process in 1921, the Nobel Committee for Chemistry decided that none of the year's nominations met the criteria as outlined in the will of Alfred Nobel. According to the Nobel Foundation's statutes, the Nobel Prize can in such a case be reserved until the following year, and this statute was then applied. Frederick Soddy therefore received his Nobel Prize for 1921 one year later, in 1922.

Frederick Soddy was “the father of nuclear fission,” winner of the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1921, discoverer of the existence of isotopes (in general, not of a specific isotope), discoverer of the cause of radioactivity, a professor of chemistry at Oxford University, and a Fellow of England’s most prestigious scientific organization, the Royal Society. Without Soddy’s discoveries we would never have developed nuclear power. All of these accomplishments pale in comparison to Soddy’s economic and monetary discoveries. After winning the Nobel Prize Soddy went on to invent a scientific monetary system and the new science of National Economy—the science of wealth. With these inventions Soddy forever solved the problem of poverty and paved the way to national prosperity. Soddy’s inventions and discoveries make it possible for everyone to work less and have more, to forever get out and stay out of debt, and to live better and longer lives. Today, Frederick Soddy is little remembered. When he is remembered, it is for his contributions to chemistry. His greatest achievements are almost completely unknown.

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Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1920

Walther Hermann Nernst

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1920 was awarded to Walther Nernst "in recognition of his work in thermochemistry".

Walther Nernst received his Nobel Prize one year later, in 1921. During the selection process in 1920, the Nobel Committee for Chemistry decided that none of the year's nominations met the criteria as outlined in the will of Alfred Nobel. According to the Nobel Foundation's statutes, the Nobel Prize can in such a case be reserved until the following year, and this statute was then applied. Walther Nernst therefore received his Nobel Prize for 1920 one year later, in 1921.

Walther Nernst is a name familiar to all students of Chemistry and Physics, due to his findings in the field of Thermodynamics, which are still regarded as groundbreaking even today.

Walther Hermann Nernst was born on June 25, 1864, in Briesen, West Prussia. In 1883, he received his school-leaving certificate from the secondary school at Graudenz (today's Grudziadz, Poland). In the same year, he took up his studies at Zurich, then changing to Berlin in 1884, where he attended the lectures of Ludwig Boltzmann. Nernst also began a collaboration with Albert von Ettinghausen in Graz, Austria, with whom he presented the Nernst-Ettinghausen Effect in 1887.

In that year, he moved to Würzburg, to complete his doctoral degree with Friedrich Kohlrausch. He also met Svente Arrhenius and Emil Fischer, two other future Nobel Laureates like him.

Together with Arrhenius and Ostwald, Nernst established and defined the field of Physical Chemistry. Galvanic elements, as batteries were called a hundred years ago, worked without anyone knowing their theory, which Nernst formulated shortly after the turn of the century. Then he turned towards the investigation of ceramic substances – today, they are used in exhaust emission probes. Time and again, he was preoccupied with determining specific heat in interdependence with temperature and free energy, meaning the energy that a battery is capable of emitting. From hypothesis to theory to proof in numerous practical experiments, Nernst showed that it is impossible – no matter by what method one cools – to reach absolute zero.

After a research stay with Ludwig Boltzmann and Albert von Ettinghausen in Graz, Nernst came to Würzburg, where he lived in Pleichertorgasse 10. Here he met future Nobel Laureates Fischer and Arrhenius at the Physical Institute chaired by Professor Kohlrausch. During this time, Nernst was working diligently on his dissertation on the Nernst-Ettinghausen Effect, which he successfully completed in 1887.

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The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1919

No Nobel Prize was awarded this year. The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section.

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Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1918

Fritz Haber

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1918 was awarded to Fritz Haber "for the synthesis of ammonia from its elements".

Fritz Haber received his Nobel Prize one year later, in 1919. During the selection process in 1918, the Nobel Committee for Chemistry decided that none of the year's nominations met the criteria as outlined in the will of Alfred Nobel. According to the Nobel Foundation's statutes, the Nobel Prize can in such a case be reserved until the following year, and this statute was then applied. Fritz Haber therefore received his Nobel Prize for 1918 one year later, in 1919.

In 1905 Fritz Haber (1868–1934) reached an objective long sought by chemists—that of fixing nitrogen from air. Using high pressure and a catalyst, he directly reacted nitrogen gas and hydrogen gas to create ammonia. The process was soon scaled up by BASF's great chemist and engineer Carl Bosch—hence the name "Haber-Bosch" process. The nitric acid produced from the ammonia was then used to manufacture agricultural fertilizers as well as explosives.
Haber was from a well-to-do German-Jewish family involved in various manufacturing enterprises. He studied at several German universities, earning a doctorate in organic chemistry in 1891. After a few years of moving from job to job, he settled into the Department of Chemical and Fuel Technology at the Polytechnic in Karlsruhe, Germany, where he mastered the new subject of physical chemistry. His research in physical chemistry eventually led to the Haber-Bosch process. In 1911 he was invited to become director of the Institute for Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry at the new Kaiser Wilhelm Gesellschaft in Berlin, where academic scientists, government, and industry cooperated to promote original research.
The Haber-Bosch process is generally credited with keeping Germany supplied with fertilizers and munitions during World War I, after the British naval blockade cut off supplies of nitrates from Chile. During the war Haber threw his energies and those of his institute into further support for the German side. He developed a new weapon—poison gas, the first example of which was chlorine gas—and supervised its initial deployment on the Western Front at Ypres, Belgium, in 1915. His promotion of this frightening weapon precipitated the suicide of his wife, who was herself a chemist, and many others condemned him for his wartime role. There was great consternation when he was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry for 1918 for the synthesis of ammonia from its elements.
After World War I, Haber was remarkably successful in building up his institute, but in 1933 the anti-Jewish decrees of the Nazi regime made his position untenable. He retired a broken man, although at the time of his death he was on his way to investigate a possible senior research position at Rehovot in Palestine (now Israel).

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The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1917

No Nobel Prize was awarded this year. The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section.

Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1916

No Nobel Prize was awarded this year. The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section.

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The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1915

Richard Martin Willstätter

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1915 was awarded to Richard Willstätter "for his researches on plant pigments, especially chlorophyll".

  

Richard Martin Willstätter (13 August 1872–3 August 1942) was a German organic chemist whose study of the structure of plant pigments, chlorophyll included, won him the 1915 Nobel Prize for Chemistry. Willstätter invented paper chromatography independently of Mikhail Tsvet.He was in the Department of Chemistry, first as a student of Adolf von Baeyer -- he received his doctorate in 1894 - then as a faculty member.
In 1896 he was named Lecturer and in 1902 Professor extraordinarius. 
In 1905 he left Munich to become professor at the ETH Zürich and there he worked on the plant pigment chlorophyll. He determined its structure.
In 1912 he became professor of chemistry at the University of Berlin and director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry, studying the structure of pigments of flowers and fruits.
In 1916 he returned to Munich as the successor to his mentor Baeyer. During the 1920s Willstätter investigated the mechanisms of enzyme reactions and did much to establish that enzymes are chemical substances, not biological organisms.
In 1938 Willstätter emigrated to Switzerland. He spent the last three years of his life there in Muralto near Locarno writing his autobiography. He died of a heart attack in 1942.
Willstätter's autobiography, Aus meinem Leben, was not published in German until 1949. It was translated into English as From My Life in 1965.

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