Georges H. Wagnière
Georges Henry Wagnière (* 4. April 1933 in Bern ; † 19th November 2013 in Zurich ) was a Swiss chemist with the research priorities physical chemistry and quantum chemistry. He was a professor at the University of Zurich .
Life
Georges H. Wagnière was the son of the Swiss diplomat Jean-Frédéric Wagnière (born August 22, 1899 in Bern, † November 25, 1984 in Nyon) and the American Margaret “Peggy” Warner (born October 26, 1904 in Boston; † October 13, 2001 in Morges). With a French-speaking father, an English-speaking mother, schooling in the German-speaking Bern and a two-year visit to the Progymnasium in Copenhagen, Denmark , Wagnière grew up multilingual.
After graduating from the municipal high school in Bern, Wagnière studied at the ETH Zurich with a diploma in natural sciences, chemical-physical direction (1957) and between 1958 and 1962 obtained a master’s (MA) in from the Graduate School of Harvard University , Cambridge near Boston Physics and a doctorate (Ph.D.) in chemical physics, where he also worked as a research assistant. In 1962 Wagnière became a research assistant in the dye molecule physics group at Ciba AG in Basel, headed by Heinrich Labhart .
After his appointment as assistant professor for physical chemistry (especially quantum chemistry) at the University of Zurich in 1965 , he was appointed associate professor in 1969 and full professor for physical chemistry in 1978 (successor to Labhart). In addition to his research work, Wagnière also took part in the general basic training at the Physico-Chemical Institute of the University of Zurich and gave lectures on thermodynamics, kinetics, statistics, molecular structure and molecular spectroscopy. In 1971 and 1984 he was a guest scientist at the IBM research laboratories in San José, California.
From 1985 to 1990 Wagnière was on the Research Council of the Swiss National Science Foundation and member of the expert groups of the National Research Programs 24 “Chemistry and Physics on Surfaces” and 36 “Nanosciences” (in the latter as President). From 1990 to 1992 Wagnière was Dean of the Philosophical Faculty II at the University of Zurich.
As a visiting professor, Wagnière also gave lectures at the University of Lausanne in 1994 and 1995 . After his retirement in 1999, he continued to work with the high-field magnet laboratory in Grenoble, France, for several years.
Georges H. Wagnière was primarily a theoretical chemist (quantum chemistry), but also worked experimentally. In particular, he dealt with the optical properties of chiral molecules, which was also important in stereoselective synthesis. Later he turned to molecular optics and especially to magnetic optics and nonlinear optics. At the end of the 1990s, his group succeeded in measuring magnetochiral light birefringence for the first time.
Georges H. Wagnière should not be confused with his grandfather, the Swiss diplomat Georges AM Wagnière (born August 19, 1862 in Florence, † April 20, 1948 in Geneva).
Fonts
Books
- On Chirality and the Universal Asymmetry - Reflections on Image and Mirror Image. VHCA - Wiley-VCH, Zurich, 2007.
- Linear and Nonlinear Optical Properties of Molecules. Verlag Helvetica Chimica Acta / Verlag Chemie, Weinheim 1993.
- Introduction to elementary molecular orbital theory and to semi-empirical methods. Vol. I of the Series “Lecture Notes in Chemistry”, Springer Verlag, 1976.
Scientific publications
Web links
- Biography at the University of Zurich
- Research papers of Georges H. Wagnière at the UZH archive in Kalliope
Individual evidence
- ^ Marc Perrenoud: Georges Wagnière. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland . May 6, 2013 , accessed June 7, 2019 .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Wagnière, Georges H. |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Wagnière, Georges Henry (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Swiss chemist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | April 4, 1933 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Bern |
| DATE OF DEATH | 19th November 2013 |
| Place of death | Zurich |