Manfred Eigen

Born on 9 May 1927, Manfred Eigen was a German physicist and Nobel laureate best known for his work measuring fast ionic reactions in solution. He earned his PhD in physics at the University of Göttingen in 1951. In 1953 he joined the Max Planck Institute for Physical Chemistry and was elected director in 1964. With his colleague Leo de Maeyer, he began developing a series of measuring methods now known as relaxation techniques to determine the nanosecond changes a system undergoes when its equilibrium is briefly interrupted by the application of pulses of energy. For that work Eigen was awarded the 1967 Nobel Prize in Chemistry , along with Ronald George Wreyford Norrish and George Porter. He was also instrumental in forming the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in 1971 by merging the physical chemistry institute with the one for spectroscopy. As early as 1960, he started to become interested in physical organic chemistry and evolution, an interest reflected in the publication of a number of books such as Steps Towards Life: A Perspective on Evolution, which he cowrote in 1992 with Ruthild Winkler-Oswatitsch. In 1995 Eigen became director emeritus at the Max Planck Institute. He died in February 2019 at age 91. (Photo credit: Croes, Rob C. / Anefo, CC BY-SA 3.0 nl )

Date in History: 9 May 1927