Herbert A. Hauptman

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Herbert Aaron Hauptman receiving an honorary doctorate from the University of Buffalo (2009)

Herbert Aaron Hauptman (born February 14, 1917 in New York City , † October 23, 2011 in Buffalo ) was an American mathematician and biophysicist . In 1985 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry together with Jerome Karle .

Herbert Hauptman was the eldest son of Israel Hauptman and Leah Rosenfeld, he had two brothers. He studied mathematics, graduated from the City College of New York in 1937 with a bachelor's degree (BS), in 1940 he received a master's degree in mathematics from Columbia University . 1940 to 1942 he was a statistician in the Census Bureau. He then served as a soldier in the US Navy Weather Service in the South Pacific during the Second World War and was a radar instructor (1942/43, 1946/47).

In 1947 Hauptman came to the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC , where he began working with Jerome Karle. Both were then accepted into the graduate program of the University of Maryland, College Park , where Hauptman received his doctorate in 1955. He was a physicist at the Naval Research Laboratory until 1961 and a mathematician from 1962 to 1970. He was also a lecturer at the University of Maryland from 1956 to 1970 .

Since 1970 he was a professor at the Medical Foundation of Buffalo in New York (since 1994 named Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute ), where he became its science director in 1972 and its president in 1988.

From 1953 to 1956 Hauptman and Jerome Karle developed a statistical method for the direct determination of crystal structures by X-ray analysis, an important analysis method that is now used worldwide with computer support. This method is of particular importance in determining the structure of organic and biologically important macromolecules. Together with Jerome Karle, he received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1985 for developing “direct methods” for determining crystal structure.

He has multiple honorary doctorates (including Columbia University, City College of New York, Bar-Ilan University, State University of New York, Buffalo). In 1988 he became a member of the National Academy of Sciences . In 1984 he received the Patterson Award from the American Crystallographic Association and in 1986 the Schoellkopf Award from the American Chemical Society.

Hauptman died in 2011; he left two daughters and his wife, whom he married in 1940 as Edith Citrynell.

literature

Web links

Commons : Herbert A. Hauptman  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Nobel Laureate Herbert Hauptman Dies
  2. ↑ Career data according to Pamela Kalte u. a. (Eds.), American Men and Women of Science, Thomson Gale 2004
  3. ^ Winfried R. Pötsch, Annelore Fischer and Wolfgang Müller with the collaboration of Heinz Cassebaum : Lexicon of important chemists . Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig 1988, pp. 228-229, ISBN 3-323-00185-0 .
  4. ^ Winfried R. Pötsch, Annelore Fischer and Wolfgang Müller with the collaboration of Heinz Cassebaum: Lexicon of important chemists . Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig 1988, p. 192, ISBN 3-323-00185-0 .
personal data
SURNAME Hauptman, Herbert A.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hauptman, Herbert Aaron (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American mathematician, biophysicist, and Nobel Prize winner in chemistry
DATE OF BIRTH February 14, 1917
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City
DATE OF DEATH October 23, 2011
Place of death Buffalo