Max Bodenstein
Bodenstein, Max (1871-1942) was a German physical chemist who made important contributions to the understanding of chain reactions. His discoveries laid the foundation for a number of applications, including the atomic bomb.
Bodenstein enrolled at the University of Heidelberg when he was 17 and began graduate school six semesters later. In 1893, he was awarded a doctorate degree for his investigations of the thermal decomposition of hydrogen iodide. While his thesis interpretations have subsequently been revised, the work is considered a landmark in reaction kinetics.
Following graduation, Bodenstein received two years of additional training in Berlin-Charlotten-burg and Göttingen. After serving in the army for a year, he returned to Heidelberg in 1896. That year, he married Marie Nebel. Three years later, he published a paper on reaction kinetics that brought his name to the forefront of the scientific community.
Bodenstein spent 1900 to 1906 in Leipzig, studying the kinetics of catalytic processes. In 1906, he became an extraordinary professor and department head at the University of Berlin. Two years later, he accepted a position as professor at the Technische Hochschule in Hannover. Eventually he returned to the University of Berlin, where he joined a faculty that included such renowned figures as Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck and Albert Einstein.
In 1916, Bodenstein explained the speed of certain chemical reactions by demonstrating that they were chain reactions. He studied the photochemical chlorine hydrogen reaction. Through his experiments, he determined the cause of a chain reaction and showed why photochemical reactions disobey Einstein's law of equivalents. The understanding of the chain reaction was fundamental to the development of the atomic bomb during World War II (1939-1945).
In 1923, Bodenstein was appointed director of the Institute of Physical Chemistry at the University of Berlin, a position he held until his death.