Hermann Staudinger
Staudinger, Hermann (1881-1965) was a German chemist who proposed the theory of macromolecules in the 1920's. For his study of these huge, chainlike molecules, which opened the door to high-polymer chemistry and the development of plastics and synthetic fibers, he was awarded the 1953 Nobel Prize in chemistry.
Despite the desire to study botany, Staudinger began his university studies in the field of chemistry in order to prepare for a career in botany. Staudinger studied at the universities in Halle, Darmstadt, and Munich. He received his Ph.D. degree in 1903 from the University of Halle, after which he taught and conducted research in several European universities, including 14 years at the Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule in Zurich. In 1926, he became a professor and director of the chemistry laboratory at the University of Freiburg and retired from there in 1951. He then worked as the head of the Research Institute for Macromolecular Chemistry until 1956.
Staudinger was a prolific writer and made several achievements in more traditional areas of organic chemistry, but his greatest achievement was in his visionary grasp of the structure of what he termed “macromolecules.” At the time, polymers, the basis of plastics, were thought to be a series of small separate molecules, clustered together much like a string of beads. In 1920, Staudinger proposed that they were actually long chains of molecules. By 1924, he had defined the macromolecule and described it as one in which the particles were held together by normal valences, or chemical bonds. The outcry against this breakthrough idea was strong and lasted for many years. Staudinger's theory of macromolecules was eventually proved correct when X-ray studies confirmed it and, 30 years after he did his work, he was awarded the Nobel Prize.
Staudinger also received the French Chemical Society's Leblanc Medal and the Stanislao Cannizzarro Prize from the National Academy of Sciences of Italy.