Géza Zemplén
Géza Zemplén (born October 26, 1883 in Trencsén , † July 24, 1956 in Budapest ) was the founder of scientific organic chemistry in Hungary.
His parents were the postal and telex inspector János Zemplén (actually Danyicskó or Danyitzkó ) from Sátoraljaújhely in Zemplén County and Johanna, the daughter of the doctor Győző Wittlin. His older brothers Szilárd and Győző became captain and professor of physics, respectively.
He attended the grammar school of Fiume and then studied at the Budapest Eötvös József Kollégium. At first he was enthusiastic about mineralogy and botany. Later he turned to chemistry and obtained a doctorate in philosophy in 1903/04 with his dissertation “ On the surface tension of aqueous solutions ”.
He then taught for a year at the State High School in Budapest's V district until he received his diploma as a teacher of natural history and chemistry at medium-sized educational institutions. In May 1905 he was appointed assistant to the chair for forestry chemistry at the University of Mining and Forestry in Schemnitz . After his military service from October 1905 to September 1906, he became senior assistant there in December 1906.
In May 1907 he married Johanna Heinrich, the daughter of the literature professor Gusztáv Heinrich, who had published Egyetemes irodalomtörténet (General History of Literature) and A kelta és germán irodalom története (The History of Celtic and Germanic Literature). With her he had the children Éva (* 1908), Tibor (* 1912) and Dénes (* 1918). However, the couple separated again and in 1920 he married Natália Endrédy († 1931) and then the teacher Sarolta Rau.
In the autumn of 1907 he was sent on a study trip to Berlin by the Minister for Soil Management for six months, where he was able to study the methods of organic chemistry with Professor Emil Fischer . From October 1908 he worked with Fischer for two years and published about it in the journal Erdészeti Kísérletek (Forestry Experiments). Here he also got to know Emil Abderhalden . In 1910 he continued his teaching activity in Schemnitz and applied for his habilitation at the Budapest University the next year. Thanks to his publications, he completed his habilitation on May 3, 1912 as a private lecturer in the “Chemistry of Carbohydrates, Proteins and Enzymes”. In 1912 he was sent by the Ministry to the International Congress of Applied Chemistry in America, where he participated in the rescue of the passengers of the Titanic on the RMS Carpathia .
In the new Schemnitz laboratory he continued his experiments on the industrial use of ureides , then dealt with the hydrolysis of cellulose and began investigating gentiobiosis in May 1913 . He then applied for the newly established Chair of Organic Chemistry at the Technical University of Budapest , where he was the only one of the four applicants to be considered. However, after the outbreak of World War I, his institute remained without equipment. In 1915, he solved the problem of obtaining synthetic guaiacol from phenol for the Chinoin-Werke and offered the Flora-Werke a process for the production of glycerine from fats and oils. With this commissioned work, he procured the equipment for the chair. His most important collaborator was Zoltán Csűrös.
In 1915 he published the textbook Az enzimek és gyakorlati alkalmazásuk (The enzymes and their practical use). Around 1923 he developed the Zemplén saponification with Alfonz Kunz .
In 1923 the Hungarian Academy of Sciences elected him a corresponding member, in 1927 a full member and in 1946 an honorary member. With his work The breakdown of reducing disaccharides he won the Grand Prize of the Academy in 1928. In 1932 he was elected a member of the Leopoldina .
When the Arrow Cross took power in October 1944 during the Second World War and the universities wanted to relocate to Germany, he announced that he would not allow himself to be driven away and was imprisoned for two weeks in prison on the Margitring ( Margit körút ). His former assistant, engineer colonel Andor Bartha, obtained his release. As a result of the siege, only the bare walls remained at the chair and he had to start over.
In 1947 he was invited to Georgetown University in Washington as a visiting professor , but fell seriously ill and returned in February 1948. By 1952 he wrote the 1300 page book Organic Chemistry and in 1953 he was honored with the Kossuth Prize .
He was put to rest in the scientist's lot at Farkasrét cemetery.
literature
- László Móra: Géza Zemplén (1883–1956), the founder of scientific organic chemistry in Hungary
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b László Móra: Géza Zemplén (1883–1956), the founder of the scientific organic chemistry of Hungary I. ( Memento of the original of August 27, 2004 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 307 kB).
- ↑ a b László Móra: Géza Zemplén (1883–1956), the founder of the scientific organic chemistry of Hungary II. ( Memento of the original of August 27, 2004 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 239 kB).
- ↑ a b László Móra: Géza Zemplén (1883–1956), the founder of scientific organic chemistry in Hungary III. ( Memento of the original from August 26, 2004 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 379 kB).
- ^ Member entry of Géza Zemplén at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on June 8, 2016.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Zemplén, Géza |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Hungarian chemist and university professor, founder of organic chemistry in Hungary |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 26, 1883 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Trencsén |
| DATE OF DEATH | July 24, 1956 |
| Place of death | Budapest |