Born in Worms, Germany in 1881 and receiving his PhD from the University of Halle in 1903, he had mainly been interested in ketene chemistry and only beginning his investigations on natural rubber in 1910. This new line of research led him to propose that polymers were made of macromolecules in 1917. The idea was controversial for reasons both scientific and political. Meanwhile, some scientists felt that there was an upper limit to the numbers of atoms that could be joined together in a single molecule. With dogged persistence he championed his theory, and in the 1930s the work of scientists like Herman Mark and Wallace Carothers would confirm Staudinger’s theory. In 1953, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry. He died in 1965.
estidotmy
28 july 2004
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