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Manfred Eigen

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Nationality
  
German

Role
  
Chemist


Name
  
Manfred Eigen

Known for
  
Chemical reactions

Fields
  
Biophysical chemistry

Manfred Eigen Manfred Eigen Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry

Born
  
May 9, 1927 (age 96) Bochum, Germany (
1927-05-09
)

Institutions
  
Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry Braunschweig University of Technology

Alma mater
  
University of Gottingen

Notable awards
  
Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1967)

Awards
  
Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize

Books
  
The Hypercycle: A principl, From Strange Simplicity, The Laws of the Game: H, Steps Towards Life: A Pe

Similar People
  
Peter Schuster, Ronald George Wreyford, George Porter

Education
  
University of Gottingen

May 9 ricardo aguirre billy joel manfred eigen


Manfred Eigen (born 9 May 1927) is a German biophysical chemist who won the 1967 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for work on measuring fast chemical reactions.

Contents

Manfred Eigen httpswwwunigoettingendeadminbilderpicture

Education and early life

Manfred Eigen 85th Birthday Manfred Eigen ChemViews Magazine

Eigen was drafted into the German Army at fifteen, serving in an anti-aircraft unit until being captured by the Russians at the end of the Second World War. After escaping from captivity, he walked to Göttingen and joined the first post-war cohort of students, despite never finishing his high school qualifications.

Career and research

Eigen received his Ph.D. at the University of Göttingen and is a former director of the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen. He is an honorary professor of the Braunschweig University of Technology. From 1982 to 1993, Eigen was president of the German National Merit Foundation. Eigen is currently a member of the Board of Sponsors of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

In 1967, Eigen was awarded, along with Ronald George Wreyford Norrish and George Porter, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. They were distinguished for their studies of extremely fast chemical reactions induced in response to very short pulses of energy.

In addition, Eigen's name is linked with the theory of the chemical hypercycle, the cyclic linkage of reaction cycles as an explanation for the self-organization of prebiotic systems, which he described with Peter Schuster in 1977. He founded two biotechnology companies, Evotec and Direvo.

In 1981, Eigen became a founding member of the World Cultural Council.

Eigen is a member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences even though he is an atheist.

Honours and awards

Eigen has won numerous awards for his research including:

  • Otto Hahn Prize (1962)
  • Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1967), shared with Ronald George Wreyford Norrish and George Porter, for his studies on the kinetics of extremely fast running chemical reactions with relaxation methods
  • Member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences (now the Russian Academy of Sciences) (1976)
  • Corresponding Member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities (1972)
  • Elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society (ForMemRS) in 1973
  • Faraday Lectureship Prize from the Royal Society of Chemistry in 1977
  • Patron of the annual XLAB Science Festival in Göttingen
  • Austrian Decoration for Science and Art
  • Lower Saxony State Prize for Science (1980)
  • Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize (1992)
  • Helmholtz Medal (Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1994)
  • Max Planck Research Award (1994), jointly with Rudolf Rigler of the Karolinska Institute
  • Honorary member of the Ruhr University Bochum (2001)
  • Honorary doctorate from Harvard University
  • Lifetime Achievement Award from the Institute of Human Virology in Baltimore (2005)
  • Wilhelm Exner Medal (2011).
  • References

    Manfred Eigen Wikipedia