Manfred Eigen Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1967 (jointly with R. Norrish and D. Porter). Date of Birth: 09.05.1927 Country: Germany

Biography of Manfred Eigen

Manfred Eigen was a German physical chemist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1967. He was born into a family of musicians, with his father Ernst Eigen being a musician and his mother Hedwig Feld. After completing his education at Bochum Gymnasium, Manfred served in an anti-aircraft defense unit during the final months of World War II.

Following the war, Manfred studied physics and chemistry at the University of Göttingen, where he obtained his doctorate in natural sciences in 1951. His dissertation focused on the determination of the specific heat capacity of heavy water and aqueous solutions of electrolytes. During his research, Manfred discovered that sound waves were absorbed more strongly in seawater than in pure water or in aqueous solutions of sodium chloride. He found that the presence of small amounts of magnesium sulfate in seawater caused high-frequency sound waves to disrupt ion clusters, resulting in the loss of small amounts of sound wave energy. Manfred considered high-frequency sound waves as a factor leading to small changes in a chemical system. By observing the state of a chemical system when it deviated slightly from equilibrium, he was able to determine the rates of chemical processes that were previously unmeasurable.

Later, Manfred utilized rapid changes in temperature and electric potential, which caused small changes in electrical conductivity or light absorption in chemical systems. He named these methods relaxation methods, as they recorded the transitions of chemical systems to new equilibrium states. With these methods, Manfred investigated fast chemical reactions that occurred within a time frame of one thousandth to one billionth of a second. He developed two types of relaxation methods – those with single shifts in equilibrium and those with periodic shifts. He particularly studied the kinetics of hydrogen and hydroxyl ion reactions with acid-base indicators in aqueous solutions, such as phenolphthalein and phenol red.

After working as an assistant lecturer for two years at the University of Göttingen, Manfred joined the staff of the Max Planck Institute for Physical Chemistry in Göttingen. In 1964, he became the director of the institute.

In 1967, Manfred Eigen, together with D. Porter and R. Norrish, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their research on extremely fast chemical reactions stimulated by the disturbance of equilibrium using very short bursts of energy.

In the 1970s, Manfred's scientific interests shifted towards the origins of life. His research focused on hypercycles, the self-organization of individual nucleic acids into more complex structures, their interactions with proteins, and the emergence of primitive genes.

Besides his scientific pursuits, Manfred Eigen is a talented pianist who enjoys mountaineering and mushroom collecting. He also likes to spend his free time with his students.

Some of Manfred's notable works include "Methods for investigation of ionic reactions in aqueous solutions with half times as short as 10–9 sec.: Application to neutralization and hydrolysis reactions" (Discussions of the Faraday Society, 1954), "Potential-impulse method for the investigation of very rapid ionic reactions in aqueous solution" (Zeitschrift für Elektrochemie, 1955), "A temperature-jump method for the examination of chemical relaxation" (Zeitschrift für Elektrochemie, 1959), and "Hypercycle: Principles of Self-Organization of Macromolecules" (translated with P. Schuster, 1982).