00:00:00 My first reaction to the invitation of talking in the series Perspectives in Chemistry was

00:00:17 a feeling of inadequacy and awe.

00:00:20 I thought that I was supposed to predict for, say, the next decennium, what the chemists

00:00:26 were going to do.

00:00:28 I lacked detailed knowledge in all active fields of chemistry, pure and applied.

00:00:33 One cannot do that, and I lacked the knowledge, detailed or general, in almost all areas.

00:00:39 Then I remembered my first exposure to perspective.

00:00:43 As a child, riding in a train, in the last car, I looked out the rear window and saw

00:00:50 the rails running together in the distance.

00:00:54 My parents explained that that was a function of perspective.

00:00:59 Maybe I can look back rather than forward, and talk of origin rather than future, hoping

00:01:07 that these vistas and reminiscences will amuse you at this siesta hour.

00:01:14 Let me conclude these generalities with a remark, maybe I should say another naive remark.

00:01:21 Do not worry that by succeeding, you work yourself out of a job.

00:01:27 Much is to be learned in chemistry, and much is to be done by chemistry.

00:01:32 If nothing else, human frailty, our own, and that of mankind, will keep us busy.

00:01:40 This also applies to the field in which I have spent most of my professionally active

00:01:46 time, color photography.

00:01:49 The situation there may be seen as a battle of ideals.

00:01:53 We want perfect photographic quality, that is to say, the desired perspective, geometrical

00:02:00 relation and use of the image elements.

00:02:05 Chemistry has little to do with geometry, unless you think of the chemistry of the materials

00:02:13 from which the lens systems are made, glasses and other polymers.

00:02:18 The chemistry of polymers is important for the film base and the emulsion matrix, and

00:02:25 also for the building materials of the cameras, etc.

00:02:30 Chemistry plays a dominant role in the light-sensitive materials, for instance, silver salts or their

00:02:38 replacements, their spectral sensitization, and the amplification of the imprint of the

00:02:44 exposure into a visible permanent record.

00:02:48 Its tone value, or when it comes to color photography, its color.

00:02:54 Moreover, the image should be readily obtained and ideally perfectly stable.

00:03:02 Much progress has been made in various necessarily asymptotic approaches to the ideals, and we

00:03:08 are more or less high on the curves of accomplishments.

00:03:12 In none of the endeavors do I expect future progress by haphazard trial and error.

00:03:21 Basic understanding is needed and fundamental research is being done.

00:03:26 With that, I have no doubt that further advances will be made.

00:03:32 Your chairman has asked me to fill in at this place with some reminiscences of the early

00:03:37 days of color photography at Kodak.

00:03:41 The desire to endow the photographic image with color is old.

00:03:47 It became an obsession of two friends, Leopold Mannes and Leo Godowski, Jr.

00:03:55 Following their parents' profession, both were trained to become musicians, and the

00:04:00 interesting variation is that Mannes, the son of a violinist father, became a pianist,

00:04:07 like his mother.

00:04:09 And Godowski, son of a famous concert pianist, became a violinist.

00:04:16 They started their photographic researches in the Mannes bathroom.

00:04:21 When Mrs. Mannes threw them out, they rented other facilities financed by a New York bank,

00:04:29 Kuhn, Knope, and Company.

00:04:32 During a summer, sometime in the 20s, they were working in a rented garage on Cape Cod.

00:04:39 There, R.W. Wood, the Johns Hopkins physicist, became aware of them, was greatly impressed

00:04:47 by them, and introduced them to his friend C.E.

00:04:52 Kenneth Meese, the man who had started and developed a research laboratory for Eastman

00:04:58 in Rochester.

00:05:00 From then on, Mannes and Godowski received emulsions from Kodak.

00:05:05 In 1929, a fundamental problem of color photography was solved at Kodak by L.G.S.

00:05:13 Broecker, who invented non-diffusing sensitizing dyes.

00:05:18 These were needed if I wanted to make color photographic materials by superimposing three

00:05:24 emulsions sensitive to blue, green, and red light, respectively, on one film base.

00:05:32 With this hurdle taken, Meese invited Mannes and Godowski to join the Kodak research laboratories

00:05:38 as employees.

00:05:41 They tried all sorts of long-shot ideas which might be feasible with the then-routine photographic

00:05:50 manufacturing technology.

00:05:52 But in 1931, when they got scared by the depression, Mannes and Godowski decided to fall back on

00:06:00 a German invention by Fischer and Sigrist, patented in 1914.

00:06:06 This invention consisted in using the exposed silver halide as an oxidizing agent for the

00:06:12 condensation of a suitable photographic developer with copper to form azimuthene and indoaniline

00:06:20 dyes.

00:06:22 There were technical difficulties aplenty, but these were overcome by Clyde Carlton's

00:06:27 and Ronald Scott's crews, and Kodachrome went on the market in 1935.

00:06:35 It may amuse you that Mannes and Godowski, working in a dark room, once had their Kodak

00:06:40 timer go out of commission.

00:06:43 They helped themselves by whistling a Mozart sonata whose timing they knew by heart.

00:06:50 I joined Kodak in 1936, and in 1937 took over the organic chemical services for Mannes

00:06:57 and Godowski.

00:06:59 One of the early problems was to overcome the irritating properties of the color developers.

00:07:06 These derivatives of paraffinilenediamine cause in certain individuals an allergic dermatitis.

00:07:13 A way to avoid this would be to hinder the developing agent from penetrating through

00:07:20 the skin into the bloodstream, where the allergic reaction occurs, by increasing the solubility

00:07:30 of the developing agent in the aqueous alkaline developer solution.

00:07:36 At a given concentration, the developing agent would then be farther from saturation in the

00:07:41 developer solution, and less prone to be transmitted to and through the skin.

00:07:49 Obvious means to increase alkaline solubility are the OH or CO2H groups.

00:07:57 While we were working on this approach, we became aware that AQFA had filed patent claims

00:08:04 for it.

00:08:05 Nobody even thought at that time of asking for a license, but we directed our thought

00:08:13 towards getting around the obnoxious patent which had anticipated our own plans.

00:08:20 As far as solubilization in aqueous alkali is concerned, the sulfonamido group, NHSO2R,

00:08:30 competes well with the CO2H group.

00:08:33 When we introduced the NHSO2R group into the molecule of the color developers, we obtained

00:08:41 excellent results, better than those with the CO2H group.

00:08:48 In addition to the increased solubilization in the alkaline developer, the sulfonamido

00:08:54 group diminished the solubility in lipids, that is to say, the hair follicles and the

00:09:01 sweat glands of the skin, thereby reducing penetration through these portals.

00:09:08 Moreover, sulfonamido groups have great affinity to proteins and probably are retained by the

00:09:15 keratin of the skin surface, again preventing penetration into the bloodstream where the

00:09:22 allergic reaction arises.

00:09:25 I have a suspicion that availability of a license would have delayed or maybe prevented

00:09:32 this discovery.

00:09:34 There are other cases of serendipity, of unexpected lucky results which could not have been expected

00:09:42 with the knowledge at the time available.

00:09:45 I can give you an amusing example of, say, negative serendipity, that is to say, a result

00:09:53 which could have been predicted but alas was not.

00:09:59 It was during the war that my friend Kenneth C.D. Hickman invited me to visit Distillation

00:10:05 Products Incorporated, a firm specializing on his ideas in high vacuum techniques and

00:10:13 their use.

00:10:14 When we inspected the glassblowing shop, the difficulties were mentioned that arise when

00:10:21 soft soda glass has to be sealed to modern glasses like Pyrex.

00:10:27 I could offer the experience that a thin layer of uranium-containing glass at the location

00:10:33 of the seal facilitates the sealing process.

00:10:37 I parted with the assurance of gratitude on the part of the glassblower.

00:10:42 Within a few days, however, this sentiment changed.

00:10:46 They had used the recommended innovation with good success, repairing an apparatus sent

00:10:53 to them by the University of Rochester.

00:10:56 The satisfaction had turned to dismay when the apparatus was put to use.

00:11:03 It was a Geiger counter rendered unusable by the radiation originating from the uranium

00:11:09 atoms.

00:11:10 There were also, of course, many problems with the hue of the dyes, the reactivity of

00:11:16 the couplers, the solubilities and diffusibilities, and last but by no means least, the stabilities

00:11:23 of the unexposed materials and of the resulting dyes.

00:11:28 It was a challenge and a satisfaction that many of the questions arising invited to make

00:11:35 guesses on the basis of the theoretical understanding then available.

00:11:40 There is, of course, always hope new vistas will open to the inventive mind.

00:11:46 But fundamental understanding is making for a striking difference in the conditions which

00:11:51 favor progress and innovation.

00:11:55 Progress in our understanding of the basic phenomena of chemistry.

00:11:59 As in the nature of the chemical bond, stereochemistry, the mechanism of reactions, the skill of running

00:12:08 reactions, etc. in other words, the very essence of fundamental chemical research in

00:12:15 academia and in industry opens new prospects for the understanding and the management of

00:12:22 applied chemistry.

00:12:24 This is, of course, also true for the application of chemistry to problems in other sciences.

00:12:31 The better we understand the fundamentals, the more intelligently can we ask the questions

00:12:37 to be answered in order to solve the problems at hand.

00:12:42 It is one of the most challenging tasks for a chemist to formulate a problem so that it

00:12:48 can be understood in chemical terms and thus becomes a chemical problem.

00:12:53 That may be a photographic problem like dye stability or a particular biological phenomenon

00:13:02 or anything else.

00:13:04 The essence is to make the problem accessible to thinking in chemical terms.

00:13:10 This is often the first step to a solution.

00:13:13 Maimonides already stated that the right question is the beginning of the right answer.

00:13:21 As chemistry progresses, we learn to ask more appropriate questions and thereby open the

00:13:29 way to better answers.

00:13:33 And I just said, but without the Kodachrome details, I had sent to Dr. Moore with my thanks

00:13:40 for the invitation to talk here and the request for frank criticism.

00:13:46 When we met in Rochester at the sixth biannual conference on chemical education, he told

00:13:52 me that my manuscript was what he wanted and I was hooked.

00:13:58 Immediately bringing in the fish, he added that he wanted me to talk about 50 minutes.

00:14:04 Realizing that I was getting scared, he added, oh, just tell a few experiences and some anecdotes.

00:14:11 Our audience likes that.

00:14:13 I told him one which had contributed to my hesitation.

00:14:19 At the organic symposium at Ann Arbor, Gomberg reminisced about the early days of the chemistry

00:14:25 of free radicals and some other of his personal experiences.

00:14:30 I found the talk delightful, including the story that it had been Gomberg's analysis

00:14:37 that established the figure of 99.44% pure for ivory soap.

00:14:44 The next morning, however, I overheard in the dormitory bathroom two students complaining

00:14:50 about the silly old stories.

00:14:53 Dr. Moore said something to the effect, don't worry, our audience is more tolerant.

00:15:01 I did not see anybody leaving when I talked about Madison Godofsky, so here we go on.

00:15:09 I mentioned Hansch.

00:15:12 There are very few people to whom I have as much of a feeling of gratitude as to him.

00:15:20 Once we knew each other, he was a tolerant and always inspiring teacher.

00:15:27 He was the ordinarius, the full professor of chemistry and the director of the chemical

00:15:33 laboratory of the University of Leipzig.

00:15:36 The prerogatives and the troubles of this austere position are well characterized by

00:15:41 a story reported to me by Bertolt Russell, the professor of chemical technology whose

00:15:47 laboratory was in the basement of the chemical laboratory and thus under Hansch.

00:15:53 When God had created the world, he sent the three archangels on an inspection tour to

00:16:00 report what they found.

00:16:02 On the whole, they found things in good order.

00:16:05 They had found, however, one position which was endowed with high social esteem, long

00:16:12 vacations, a high income, and all that for doing what pleased the incumbent most anyhow.

00:16:21 That is, the position of the ordinarius and director of his institute at a German university.

00:16:29 There was no particular reaction on the part of God, and at the end of the audience, one

00:16:35 of the archangels expressed wonder why God had done nothing to correct the overprivileged

00:16:41 position of the ordinarius.

00:16:44 God then said that all was in good order.

00:16:48 He had created the professor's colleague.

00:16:52 It must be emphasized, however, that in recent years, the privileges of the German ordinarius

00:16:58 have been greatly reduced, probably more than is good for the health of the university.

00:17:06 When I lived in Germany, the universities still showed that they were constituted on

00:17:12 the pattern of the Roman Republic.

00:17:15 The full professors, of whom there was one for each major discipline, made up the faculties.

00:17:25 There were three in chemistry, Hansch, the head of the chemical institute, Leblanc, Ostwald's

00:17:33 successor for physical chemistry in his own institute, and Paul, head of the laboratory

00:17:40 for applied chemistry.

00:17:42 The faculties, theology, medicine, law, and philosophy, were made up by the respective

00:17:50 full professors.

00:17:51 That is to say, the ordinarius and headed by deans elected for one year's tenure.

00:17:58 The philosophical faculty was split into two full faculties, one comprising the humanities

00:18:06 and the other embracing the sciences.

00:18:09 The faculties, made up of authorities in their respective fields, insisted on being respected

00:18:17 as bodies of higher collective authority.

00:18:21 This is characterized in a letter which a Prussian civil servant, Althoff, who was responsible

00:18:27 for higher education, is said to have written to a member of his staff, I quote from memory,

00:18:35 and please do not forget that faculties are like raw eggs.

00:18:40 When touched, they sit on their hind legs and jump into one's face.

00:18:45 A fine example, indeed, of a mixed metaphor.

00:18:51 After the First World War, the faculties in Leipzig were democratized.

00:18:55 That is to say, the associate professors delegated to the faculty one for each two of them.

00:19:06 The Privatdozenten delegated one for each ten of them.

00:19:11 I was a delegate of Privatdozenten.

00:19:15 These delegates had, of course, to leave the room when appointments were on the agenda.

00:19:21 The faculties elected the senate of the university.

00:19:25 The head of the university was a rector magnificus, elected by the senate for a one-year term

00:19:34 from the members of the faculties in rotation.

00:19:39 The rector's authority was high.

00:19:42 Even the police was not entitled to enter the university without his permission.

00:19:48 Continuity of the administrative services was assisted by the position of the chief judge of the university,

00:19:57 a permanent position held by a jurist also called the beer judge.

00:20:04 In order to become a member of a faculty, one had to qualify as a Privatdozent,

00:20:10 a position about equivalent to that of assistant professor in America, but without a salary.

00:20:18 Most of the Privatdozent, therefore, also served as paid instructors.

00:20:24 The qualification as Privatdozent was attained usually several years after one had acquired the degree of doctor.

00:20:33 It required approval by the civil authorities and completion of a thesis, acceptance of the thesis by the faculty,

00:20:41 passing of an examination where any member of the faculty who cared to attend the so-called colloquium

00:20:48 could ask questions, and delivery of a trial lecture.

00:20:53 When I was doing experimental work for my habilitation to become Privatdozent,

00:20:58 on an occasion Hansch came by and inquired how things were going.

00:21:05 I voiced my doubt whether I was barking up the right tree.

00:21:12 Hansch, you must know by now there are no wrong trees in chemistry,

00:21:18 as long as one searches for an answer to something which one does not understand.

00:21:25 What one can predict is not really new anyhow.

00:21:30 For the trial lecture, one had to submit three alternatives.

00:21:35 The rules said that the candidate was to be informed of the title selected by the faculty

00:21:41 as far as I remember, 24 hours before the lecture.

00:21:47 It may have been a couple of days.

00:21:51 I might mention that after my colloquium, Hansch said to me,

00:21:55 I should not do this, but my sponsor, that is to say Hansch,

00:22:02 let me know the decision ahead of the prescribed time, so I am doing the same for you.

00:22:09 The selection was recent developments in stereochemistry.

00:22:14 Hansch's generosity was in tune with our friendly relation.

00:22:19 The breach he committed, though, was not serious,

00:22:23 because it was a well-practiced trick to propose three titles for essentially the same lecture.

00:22:33 The lecture was given in the academic regalia.

00:22:36 That is to say, white tie, tails, black waistcoat.

00:22:40 While one removed one's white gloves, one started the address.

00:22:45 Eure Magnificenz, for the rector who came only if he was really interested.

00:22:51 Eure Spektabilität, for the dean who had to be there.

00:22:56 Hochverehrte Herren Professoren und Dozenten, for the faculty members.

00:23:01 Liebe Kommilitonen, for the academic staff and the students.

00:23:06 Verehrte Gäste, for the guests at the lecture.

00:23:10 At my trial lecture, one of the guests was Mrs. Hansch.

00:23:14 The next morning, Hansch congratulated me on being so calm and without stage fright.

00:23:21 When I told him that I had a full dose of stage fright, Hansch said,

00:23:26 oh, it did not show at all.

00:23:29 I also have that kind of stage fright.

00:23:32 One never gets rid of it, even in one's seventies.

00:23:36 He was right.

00:23:38 As mentioned, when appointments were discussed and recommendations decided upon,

00:23:45 the faculty meeting consisted only of the full professors.

00:23:49 A list of three candidates was made up,

00:23:52 and the Minister of Education issued the call to the prospective appointee.

00:23:58 Usually, he followed the sequence at which the candidates were listed.

00:24:03 The faculty took umbrage if this sequence was not respected.

00:24:09 There was real trouble, however, if the appointment went to a person not recommended by the faculty.

00:24:18 The faculty was aware that its authority could lead to inbreeding and nepotism.

00:24:26 It was an unwritten law that the list of recommendations

00:24:30 should contain only candidates from other universities.

00:24:35 Sometimes, this made it necessary for a professor who wanted to sponsor a favorite pupil

00:24:43 to see to it that another university appointed the disciple in good time

00:24:49 before the home position became vacant.

00:24:53 Let me talk a little more about Hansch.

00:24:56 After the First World War, I started as a freshman in his laboratory and took his lectures.

00:25:04 Hansch's lecture on five days a week, in the summer semester on inorganic chemistry,

00:25:10 in the winter semester on organic chemistry, took place from 9 o'clock,

00:25:14 that is, 9.15 to 10 o'clock, following the physics lecture.

00:25:21 It was a demonstration lecture.

00:25:23 Whatever could be shown was shown.

00:25:27 The setting up and the running of the demonstrations was a big job,

00:25:32 keeping an experienced mechanic during the semester fully busy.

00:25:37 His salary and the funding for the other expenses of the lecture were part of the budget of the laboratory.

00:25:45 The fees for the lecture, collected by the university from the students,

00:25:50 went essentially to the lecturer.

00:25:52 This was not a bad arrangement, because it provided a substantial part of the income of the lecturer,

00:25:58 certainly a contributing factor towards inducing the most distinguished professor,

00:26:04 that is, the ordinarius, to take year after year the onus of giving the so-called big lecture to the freshmen.

00:26:14 The chemistry lecture hall seated 350, the physics hall 450, which made for sizable incomes.

00:26:24 When I started my studies in chemistry, I was, in fact, not quite a freshman.

00:26:30 I had begun my academic studies with economics, philosophy, psychology, etc.,

00:26:37 but changed to chemistry after less than a year.

00:26:44 I might insert here that I did that after receiving a letter from my father,

00:26:52 who was a born Czech, living in Germany, having his job in Germany,

00:27:00 but as the Czechs justifiably were skeptical of Germany.

00:27:09 He wrote in that letter, now that Germany has lost the war,

00:27:15 I don't think concern with the humanities will keep you in an income.

00:27:26 If Germany should recover, however, it will not help you either,

00:27:30 because as I know the Germans, their recovery will be extremely nationalistic and antisemitic.

00:27:38 I therefore recommend to you highly to choose a profession with which you can make a living abroad.

00:27:46 And that was a real visionary letter.

00:27:51 My instructor in the laboratory was Franz Hein, a very fine, warm person,

00:27:58 an excellent teacher and chemist working in Werner Coordination Complexes.

00:28:04 It was he who made the first sandwich complexes, though he did not recognize their structure.

00:28:11 We did blowpipe analyses, wet crawl, and volumetric and gravimetric quant.

00:28:18 After my first year in chemistry, I transferred to Munich.

00:28:23 It was as easy as that.

00:28:25 Possessing the certificate of the Abiturienten Examen, the matric,

00:28:31 one just went to the university of one's choice, registered for one's courses,

00:28:36 shook hands with the rector, and started one's work.

00:28:41 There were no or hardly any dormitories.

00:28:44 The students lived in private homes.

00:28:48 That was the rule.

00:28:53 My transfer to Munich, however, had a complication which may amuse you.

00:29:01 I was a citizen of the Kingdom of Saxony, a constituent territory of Germany.

00:29:07 Munich, however, was the capital of the Kingdom of Bavaria, another part of Germany.

00:29:14 I had lived and studied in Munich for a few weeks,

00:29:18 when I received a summons to pay a fine or spend a day in jail,

00:29:25 because although a foreigner, that is to say a Saxon, I had taken residence in Munich

00:29:31 without applying for and being granted permission.

00:29:37 I tried to absolve my guilt by presenting myself for a day in jail,

00:29:43 but was told that this alternative was open only if I could prove

00:29:49 that I did not have the money for the fine.

00:29:52 Thus, I paid 10 marks, normally the equivalent of $2.50,

00:29:59 and took the streetcar from the police station to the laboratory.

00:30:04 It happened to be the day of the Cup Putsch in March 1920,

00:30:09 which attempted but failed to overthrow the government in favor of a more conservative regime.

00:30:17 When we passed the square in front of the Munich Town Hall,

00:30:21 there was a platoon of light cavalry lined up in formation,

00:30:26 and in the laboratory some of the students and teachers were in uniform.

00:30:34 There were several chemical laboratories of the university in Munich.

00:30:39 I had a working place in one of the inorganic divisions of the so-called Staatslaboratorium.

00:30:46 The head of the whole laboratory was Richard Wilstädter,

00:30:49 the successor of Bayer, who had followed Liebig.

00:30:54 The Staatslaboratorium had an organic, a physicochemical,

00:30:58 and several inorganic and analytical divisions.

00:31:01 I belonged to the inorganic analytical laboratory under Otto Hönigschmidt,

00:31:07 famous for the accuracy of his determinations of atomic weights.

00:31:12 He was an impressive lecturer.

00:31:15 The big lectures, however, were given by Geheimrat Wilstädter,

00:31:19 as they were in Leipzig by Geheimrat Hansch.

00:31:22 I again took and enjoyed the lecture on organic chemistry,

00:31:26 meticulously presented and amply illustrated by demonstrations.

00:31:31 Hönigschmidt lectured on analytical chemistry.

00:31:34 He ran his own demonstrations, showing the respective reactions in test tubes

00:31:41 as one would run them in routine qualitative analyses.

00:31:46 On occasion he talked to his test tubes.

00:31:49 When failing solution did not promptly turn brown,

00:31:53 indicating the presence of glucose, he said,

00:31:57 Da wird doch braun, du Luder. Du bist doch ein Reagenz für Zucker.

00:32:01 Become brown, you strumpet.

00:32:03 You are supposed to be a reagent for sugar.

00:32:06 He had a drastic sense of humor.

00:32:09 The assistants who mixed the chemicals given to the students for analysis

00:32:16 sometimes went a little wild in their choices.

00:32:19 When, after Hönigschmidt's lecture, a student asked him

00:32:23 how a certain separation could be accomplished, he answered,

00:32:27 But that only happens in an exploded drug store.

00:32:31 I attended the colloquium where senior students or faculty members

00:32:35 reported on the recent literature.

00:32:39 Here I learned first of isotopes.

00:32:42 Feyenz had been called to Munich as professor of physical chemistry.

00:32:47 He had predicted isotopes at the same time as Soddy in Cambridge.

00:32:53 Hönigschmidt told at that colloquium, in the discussion period,

00:32:58 that during the war, that means the First World War,

00:33:01 when he was professor in Prague,

00:33:04 he had received a package from Professor Kamerlingh Onnes in Leiden

00:33:10 containing samples of lead.

00:33:14 They had been collected in the Congo.

00:33:17 Being end products of a uranium line,

00:33:20 Soddy had found their density different from that of ordinary lead

00:33:25 and had sent the samples to Kamerlingh Onnes

00:33:28 to be forwarded to Hönigschmidt for determination of the atomic weight.

00:33:34 Hönigschmidt confirmed Soddy's result.

00:33:37 The atomic weight was not that of ordinary lead.

00:33:41 He informed again, through Kamerlingh Onnes,

00:33:44 Soddy, who published the data in Nature,

00:33:48 that trading with the enemy was involved,

00:33:51 was mentioned by Hönigschmidt with a smile.

00:33:55 Wilsteder, famous for his work on the constitution of chlorophyll,

00:33:59 was going deeper into the mechanisms of life

00:34:03 by studying the nature of enzymes.

00:34:06 Since their discovery by Bucherer,

00:34:08 a large number of these organic catalysts

00:34:12 had been described by their highly specific activities.

00:34:17 Wilsteder tried to purify them

00:34:19 as a first step towards their characterization as chemical entities.

00:34:24 Gossip in the Lab mentions the possible chemistry of life

00:34:28 in the hope of running reactions at ambient temperature

00:34:32 and under physiological conditions,

00:34:35 not with brutal reagents like strong acids, etc.,

00:34:40 but with the help of the chemistry of living matter.

00:34:43 That was in the early 20s.

00:34:45 Now, 60 years later,

00:34:48 those dreams and novel ideas not even dreamt of then

00:34:52 have become, or are becoming, reality in biological engineering.

00:34:58 I remember a botanist in Leipzig

00:35:00 who envied us chemists

00:35:03 because when fed up with teaching,

00:35:06 we could go into the chemical industry.

00:35:09 He did not see a botanical industry which would employ him.

00:35:13 How things have changed in a lifespan.

00:35:17 Let me mention another discussion in 1919 or 1920

00:35:21 at a colloquium or a meeting of the Chemical Society in Munich.

00:35:27 Wilsteder had presented arduous work

00:35:31 by which he tried to elucidate the structure of some compound.

00:35:36 In the discussion, the mineralogist,

00:35:39 Geheimrat Professor Ritter von Groth,

00:35:42 said something like,

00:35:43 this is all very interesting,

00:35:45 but why don't you have patience for half a year or so and wait?

00:35:51 By then I expect us to be able

00:35:53 to give you the exact location of each atom

00:35:56 through X-ray analysis.

00:35:58 Von Groth's prediction was right,

00:36:00 though the timing was over-optimistic.

00:36:04 Von Groth was an earthy man.

00:36:06 He spoke with a heavy Bavarian accent.

00:36:09 It was told that the Minister of Education

00:36:12 had visited the professor,

00:36:15 then without the knightly title von.

00:36:19 He told Groth that the Prince Regent

00:36:22 would like to knight him,

00:36:24 but that there was a problem.

00:36:27 The professor lived with a lady without being married.

00:36:32 The reply was, oh, that can be corrected.

00:36:35 We just marry.

00:36:37 The children we have made already anyhow.

00:36:40 The marriage settled the matter.

00:36:43 In the laboratory,

00:36:45 I finished the experimental requirements

00:36:47 for the so-called Erstes Verbandsexamen,

00:36:51 in English, first association exam.

00:36:54 What association?

00:36:56 As a teaching of chemistry developed

00:36:58 in the 19th century in Germany,

00:37:00 difficulties arose when students,

00:37:03 as was the habit,

00:37:04 moved from one university to the next,

00:37:08 and maybe more.

00:37:09 It became necessary to arrange

00:37:12 for a certain uniformity of the courses

00:37:15 so that the students could continue

00:37:17 at the new laboratory

00:37:19 where they had finished at the old one.

00:37:22 The necessary arrangements were made

00:37:25 by the association of heads of laboratories

00:37:28 of the teaching institutions concerned.

00:37:32 Compliance was controlled by a syllabus

00:37:35 and by two examinations,

00:37:37 the first at the end

00:37:40 of the inorganic chemical practice,

00:37:44 mainly analysis,

00:37:45 the second after observing the laboratory requirements

00:37:49 in organic chemistry.

00:37:52 I had done blowpipe analysis,

00:37:54 wet quarrel in part of Grond in Leipzig.

00:37:58 I did electroanalysis

00:37:59 in the remaining Grond in Munich

00:38:03 and passed the experimental part

00:38:05 of the Erstes Verbandsexamen.

00:38:07 Thus, I was ready for the oral examination

00:38:11 by Hönigschmidt, Prandtl, and Wilstetter,

00:38:14 and there disaster struck.

00:38:17 I had not felt well for some time,

00:38:20 nothing acute, but serious fatigue.

00:38:24 On the advice of a colleague,

00:38:25 I had consulted Professor Friedrich von Müller,

00:38:29 the famous internist called Frederick the Great.

00:38:33 His diagnosis was that I was tired

00:38:36 as an after effect of the war.

00:38:38 Take it easy, nothing serious.

00:38:41 It was serious enough

00:38:43 to make me practically fall asleep in the oral

00:38:46 and I flunked.

00:38:48 Years later, it is in Rochester,

00:38:51 in the course of an eye examination,

00:38:54 it was found from the shape of the blind spot

00:38:59 that my fatigue in Munich was caused by Andelin fever.

00:39:03 No doubt, I had acquired it on my father's farm

00:39:06 drinking unpasteurized milk.

00:39:09 There had been contagious abortion in the herd,

00:39:13 which is caused by the same organism

00:39:15 which causes Andelin fever.

00:39:18 After a restful summer, in some studying,

00:39:22 I returned to the Leipzig laboratory.

00:39:24 Hansch accepted the Munich certificate

00:39:27 of the practical examination.

00:39:29 I passed the oral

00:39:31 and went through the organic preparations and analyses

00:39:35 so that I became ready for the second exam.

00:39:39 Hansch had been pleased with my inorganic oral.

00:39:43 That became evident

00:39:45 when I had finished the organic lab work.

00:39:48 I took time off to prepare myself

00:39:50 at home for the oral,

00:39:53 now and then visiting the lab.

00:39:55 On one of these visits, on a Thursday morning,

00:40:00 as far as I remember,

00:40:02 Professor Gustav Redelin,

00:40:04 the head of the organic division,

00:40:06 spotted me and asked me what I was doing,

00:40:10 indicating that Hansch wanted me

00:40:12 to work under his supervision for my PhD.

00:40:17 I told Redelin that I needed another three weeks

00:40:21 to study heterocyclic chemistry.

00:40:24 Redelin was on his way to see Hansch

00:40:26 to discuss the business of his division.

00:40:29 When he came out, he informed me

00:40:31 that my oral had been scheduled for next Tuesday.

00:40:35 I must have looked rather crestfallen.

00:40:38 Redelin beckoned me away

00:40:42 from the group with which I was talking

00:40:45 and said, the chief promises

00:40:48 not to ask any heterocyclic chemistry.

00:40:53 Redelin was not only a fine chemist,

00:40:56 but also a violinist of professional quality.

00:40:59 Both chemistry and music occupied his time.

00:41:02 Instructors working late at night

00:41:06 might hear music coming from Redelin's lab

00:41:11 when he played his violin

00:41:12 while waiting for a reaction to proceed.

00:41:16 On Hansch's request,

00:41:18 I worked on the activity of strong acids.

00:41:21 Our means to determine this activity

00:41:24 were the inversion rate of cane sugar,

00:41:27 the rate of nitrogen evolution

00:41:29 from the isoacetic ester,

00:41:31 and the equilibrium of dye formation with indicators.

00:41:36 The two latter reactions

00:41:38 could be measured in non-aqueous solvents.

00:41:42 After my graduation,

00:41:44 I gave a mentone to our arsenal of reactions

00:41:47 in non-aqueous solvents.

00:41:49 These investigations,

00:41:51 together with the work of G. N. Lewis,

00:41:54 Bronsted, Mierwein, Akerlof,

00:41:57 Snedlage, Bjerrum, and others,

00:42:00 formed the extension of the earlier work

00:42:03 by Ostwald, Arrhenius, and others.

00:42:06 There was much controversy,

00:42:08 and I remember how grateful Hansch was

00:42:12 when he read the paper in the JACS by Hammett

00:42:16 in which he agreed with Hansch's views.

00:42:19 Hansch wrote him a letter of appreciation

00:42:22 which, I understand, Hammett had framed

00:42:25 and hanging at the wall over his desk.

00:42:31 I got my Ph.D. in January 1924.

00:42:34 There was a three-hour oral examination

00:42:39 in sequence by Hansch, Rinne,

00:42:42 the professor of mineralogy,

00:42:45 and the theoretical physicist de Kudre.

00:42:48 Wiener, the professor of experimental physics, had died,

00:42:52 and de Kudre banked over backwards

00:42:55 in order to be fair to the chemical candidate.

00:42:58 When he noticed that Hansch and Rinne

00:43:01 had given me a summa cum laude,

00:43:04 de Kudre said so and added,

00:43:07 which you might answer correctly,

00:43:10 although the answer cannot be found in any book.

00:43:13 Why can you use white light in a polarimeter

00:43:16 with a quartz wedge compensator

00:43:19 if you determine the concentration of cane sugar?

00:43:23 The answer is because

00:43:26 the rotatory dispersion of quartz

00:43:29 happens to be practically identical

00:43:32 with that of cane sugar.

00:43:36 I was delighted

00:43:39 and, I think, relieved

00:43:42 and accepted Hansch and Rinne's grade.

00:43:45 After my graduation,

00:43:48 I continued to work in the lab as an instructor.

00:43:51 One of my duties was to supervise

00:43:54 the chemical laboratory course of medical students.

00:43:57 They were very similar in intelligence and skill

00:44:00 to the chemists and physicists I knew.

00:44:03 They made similar progress and made similar mistakes.

00:44:06 I often wonder about the enormous responsibility

00:44:09 which, at that time, physicians had to shoulder

00:44:12 when, with few analytical data

00:44:15 and without consultations,

00:44:18 they had to make critical decisions.

00:44:21 The course of medical students

00:44:24 took only two afternoons.

00:44:27 Most of my time was occupied

00:44:31 first in the inorganic analytical laboratories

00:44:34 later in the laboratories

00:44:37 where students worked on the 40 preparations

00:44:40 of organic compounds following the procedures

00:44:43 in Henle's manual,

00:44:46 a compilation similar to the classic of Kattermann

00:44:49 but also containing very instructive questions.

00:44:52 After these preparations

00:44:55 one had to prepare 10 compounds according to the literature.

00:44:59 This was followed by a number of identifications

00:45:02 of unknowns

00:45:05 and a number of elementary analyses for carbon,

00:45:08 hydrogen, and nitrogen.

00:45:11 Some time after my graduation

00:45:14 Hans chose me to be his private assistant.

00:45:17 I moved into the big personal laboratory

00:45:20 next to his office and worked on a multitude

00:45:23 of his ideas.

00:45:26 As a result, the work was turned over

00:45:29 to a new Ph.D. candidate of Hans.

00:45:32 More than 20 at that time.

00:45:35 Their supervision was mainly by Hans

00:45:38 but could also involve the private assistant.

00:45:41 This position, by the way,

00:45:44 was equivalent to that of the other full instructors

00:45:47 and paid by the university.

00:45:50 The payment was important.

00:45:54 At times, this proceeded so rapidly

00:45:57 that we instructors, after work,

00:46:00 went to the university payroll called Questur

00:46:03 and helped calculating the salaries.

00:46:06 We also might collect the remuneration of our professors

00:46:09 and take it to them

00:46:12 so that they could use the money

00:46:15 for purchases before 11 o'clock a.m. the next morning.

00:46:18 That is, before the new exchange rate came out.

00:46:21 If any money was left over,

00:46:24 it was wise to invest it in durables

00:46:27 which kept their value and could be used in barter.

00:46:30 I used to buy chocolate for this purpose

00:46:33 and other popular items were sausage or other preserves.

00:46:36 In 1927, Hans was celebrated

00:46:39 on his 70th birthday.

00:46:42 There was a galaxy of former students

00:46:45 and admirers, among them

00:46:49 the former students Roland Scholl,

00:46:52 professor in Dresden,

00:46:55 Kurt Hans Meyer of polymer fame,

00:46:58 Friedrich Bergius, Nobel laureate,

00:47:01 the inventor of systems for coal hydrogenation

00:47:04 yielding thin fuel

00:47:07 and of acid hydrolysis of cellulose

00:47:10 yielding an animal fodder.

00:47:13 So far, experiences which illustrate life

00:47:17 in a German laboratory in the 1920s.

00:47:20 I was lucky to leave Leipzig for Oxford

00:47:23 in 1933 after the Nazi takeover.

00:47:26 I have talked about this phase at Houston.

00:47:29 It need not be repeated.

00:47:32 At Oxford, I enjoyed

00:47:35 the hospitality of one of the fellowships

00:47:38 which had been arranged to assist German

00:47:41 colleagues in trouble, F.A. Lindemann.

00:47:44 Later, Lord Charwell, Churchill's professor

00:47:47 had been instrumental

00:47:50 in making the arrangements

00:47:53 and N.V. Zichwick had picked me for Oxford.

00:47:56 In Lindemann's laboratory was a group of physicists

00:47:59 including Franz Simon, later Sir Francis,

00:48:02 Kurti, Mendelssohn

00:48:05 and others.

00:48:08 They were working on low temperature problems

00:48:12 with two compressors for making liquid hydrogen

00:48:15 and liquid helium.

00:48:18 One did not work too well and was called

00:48:21 Ethelred the Unready.

00:48:24 The other was more efficient

00:48:27 and had been named Edward the Compressor.

00:48:30 Now I have a few more anecdotes

00:48:33 which you might like to hear.

00:48:36 After a colloquium at the physics institute

00:48:39 where dipole moments were the topic

00:48:42 I walked along with Edward Teller.

00:48:45 Continuing the discussion, I said something like

00:48:48 I wish I could understand why the electrical movement

00:48:51 of carbon monoxide is indistinguishable

00:48:54 from zero. Teller,

00:48:57 Das hat der liebe Gott so gemacht.

00:49:00 That is how the good Lord has made it.

00:49:03 Somebody accosted Max Hertzberger

00:49:07 the expert in geometrical optics

00:49:10 and devotee to philosophy

00:49:13 saying, Dr. Hertzberger, I understand

00:49:16 that we shall soon have machines thinking like you

00:49:19 Hertzberger, like you, not like me.

00:49:22 The colloquium part

00:49:25 of the habilitation of Heinrich Karlsson

00:49:28 was held in the small lecture room

00:49:31 of the chemical laboratory in Leipzig.

00:49:35 When I walked by, Janitor Schmidt

00:49:38 stopped me, obviously

00:49:41 in trouble, saying, I have been ordered

00:49:44 not to admit students to the lecture room.

00:49:47 Just now two students walked in

00:49:50 and ignored my warning. What shall I do?

00:49:53 I looked into the room and realized

00:49:56 that the two students were professors Hund

00:49:59 and Heisenberg, both young and young looking indeed.

00:50:02 At some meeting in Leipzig

00:50:05 Geheimrat Wilstetter, who had been helped

00:50:08 putting on his coat by a student

00:50:11 tried to do the same favor to the embarrassed student.

00:50:14 Somebody called this

00:50:17 humility in excess. When visiting in Rochester

00:50:20 Heisenberg told me

00:50:23 that he, Einstein, Dirac and Pauli

00:50:26 on the occasion of some meeting

00:50:30 sat together and talked about God.

00:50:33 Between Einstein, the humanitarian monotheistic Jew

00:50:36 Dirac, the 18th century type rationalist

00:50:39 Pauli, a mystic

00:50:42 and Heisenberg, the German romantic

00:50:45 there was not much agreement.

00:50:48 And Pauli suddenly said

00:50:51 something like this,

00:50:54 Oh, now I understand, there is no God

00:50:57 and Dirac is his prophet.

00:51:00 It will help any lecture if the conclusion gives a summary

00:51:03 but how can one summarize as rambling a talk?

00:51:06 Popular judgment of chemistry

00:51:09 has changed with time and occasion

00:51:12 from praise to condemnation and vice versa.

00:51:15 No wonder, in addition to providing

00:51:18 amenities and progress

00:51:21 chemistry can also cause contamination

00:51:25 and destruction. Having mentioned awe

00:51:28 in the beginning, let me

00:51:31 as a conclusion refer to some basic

00:51:34 problems which do keep me in awe.

00:51:37 Origin and nature

00:51:40 of the universe, origin and nature

00:51:43 of life, nature of consciousness

00:51:46 and nature of communication.

00:51:49 Chemistry has to do

00:51:53 with all of them and more or less

00:51:56 progress has been made by this rational approach.

00:51:59 In each case, however, an unanswered

00:52:02 fundamental residue remains unsolved.

00:52:05 DuBois-Raymond, the physiologist

00:52:08 in Berlin, predicted

00:52:11 that we shall never know.

00:52:14 Maybe another anecdote is apropos.

00:52:17 When the Kodak contingent

00:52:20 was on the train going to Oak Ridge

00:52:23 to work on the atomic bomb

00:52:26 Julian Webb, the head of the physics department

00:52:29 in the research laboratory

00:52:32 did not participate in the general discussion.

00:52:35 Offered a penny for his thoughts

00:52:38 he said he just dreamed

00:52:41 he didn't think, he just dreamed

00:52:44 of somebody in the Andromeda Nebula

00:52:48 and when the Earth grew up as a nova

00:52:51 you might say, damn it, they found it too.

00:52:54 Thank you for your patience.