| Date | Text | |
|---|---|---|
25 Dec 1904
Guido Bodländer |
death Guido Bodländer Died 25 Dec 1904 at age 49 (born 31 Jul 1855). German chemist who, with Richard Abegg, proposed an electrochemical theory of valency in a paper Die Elektronaffinität (Electron Affinity, 1899) to explain how certain atoms can combine based on the newly discovered electrons comprising the atom. It had several difficulties and was not generally accepted. Bodländer studied the electrolytical and optical properties of solutions; and the optical properties of crystals. |
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25 Dec 1904
Gerhard Herzberg |
birth Gerhard Herzberg Born 25 Dec 1904; died 3 Mar 1999 at age 94. German-Canadian physicist who was awarded the 1971 Nobel Prize for Chemistry "for his contributions to the knowledge of electronic structure and geometry of molecules, particularly free radicals." He published his first work in molecular spectroscopy at the end of the 1920's. His measurement of how molecules absorb ultraviolet and infrared energy yield information on energy states in molecules, leading to knowledge of their size, shape and other properties. For example, he showed that radicals can drastically change their shape with increasing energy, such as methylene which is linear in its ground state but bent in higher energy states. He also applied spectroscopy in astronomy, identifying molecules in space, planetary atmospheres and comets. |
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