Jacob Joseph Bikerman

Josef Jacob Bikerman (temporarily Bikerman) (born November 8, 1898 in Odessa , † June 11, 1978 in Cleveland , Ohio ) was a Russian-stateless-American chemist.

Life and activity

Bikerman was a son of the writer Iosif Menassievich Bikerman and his wife Sarah, b. Margulis. His older brother was the ancient historian Elias Bickermann . After attending school, Bikerman studied chemistry at the University of Saint Petersburg from 1916 to 1921.

In 1921 Bikerman got an assistant position in teaching at the chemistry department of St. Petersburg University. In the same year he emigrated to Germany with his family. It is not clear whether and when Bikerman received his doctorate (in Russia, the institution of doctorates was temporarily abolished after the revolution of 1917). From 1924 Bikerman worked as an assistant in the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for physical chemistry and electrochemistry in the department for Herbert F. Freundlich . Together with this he published the completely revised, greatly expanded fourth edition of the standard work on capillary chemistry.

Bikerman's research focus was on the chemistry and physics of surfaces and colloids and the electrochemistry of solutions and mixtures, of friction and adhesion.

After the National Socialists came to power, Bikerman was ousted from the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute because of his Jewish descent according to the National Socialist definition. After a short transition period, he decided to emigrate to Great Britain. There he received a fellowship at Manchester University (1935 to 1937) and then at Cambridge University (1937 to 1939). He then worked in the private sector: from 1939 to 1941 he was Research Director of Glass Fibers Ltd. in Glasgow, then from 1941 to 1944 in a corresponding position at Metal Box Co. in London and finally from 1944 to 1945 as head of the laboratory of the Printin and Allied Trades Researc Association in London.

After his emigration, Bikerman was classified as an enemy of the state by the National Socialist police: in the spring of 1940, the Reich Main Security Office in Berlin put him on the special wanted list GB , a directory of people who would be killed by the occupation forces in the event of a successful invasion and occupation of the British Isles by the Wehrmacht Subsequent SS special commands were to be identified and arrested with special priority. He was probably targeted by the National Socialists because he was listed in the work Displaced German Scholars: A Guide to Academics in Peril in Nazi Germany (as Bikerman, JJ ; under the same name he appears on the wanted list, which also includes numerous others Scientists appear under the same name / short name as in the work mentioned, so that it is obvious that many emigrated researchers were put on the wanted list by the secret police due to the evaluation of this work).

In March 1945 Bikerman went to the United States, where he initially worked for Merck & Co. until 1951. From 1951 to 1956 he was employed by Yardney Electrical Company Inc. in New York.

From 1956 to 1964, Bikerman was a supervisor at the Adhesives Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. From 1964 to 1970 he was a Senior Research Associate for Horizons Inc. in Cleveland. He then retired. As a retiree, he also took on consulting tasks. Among other things, he was Adjunct Professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland from 1974 until his death.

Bikerman was a member of the Faraday Society and the British Society of Rheology .

Marriage and offspring

Bikerman was married to the chemist Valentine Leiwand (1908-2005) since 1933. With this he had two children: the son Michael (* 1934) and the daughter Dina-Sara (* 1935).

Fonts

As an author

• Capillary Chemistry , 1930. (together with Freundlich)
• Foams. Theory and Industrial Applications , 1953. (with JM Perri)
• Surface Chemistry for Industrial Research , 1957.
• The Science of Adhesive Joitns , 1961.
• Contributions to the Thermodynamics of Surfaces , 1961.
• Physical Surfaces , 1970.
• The Two Bikermans , 1975 (with his brother Elias Joseph Bikerman)

As editor

• Beilstein's Handbook of Organic Chemistry , 4th Edition (1928–1935).

literature

• Reinhard Rürup: Fates and Careers: Memorial book for the researchers expelled from the Kaiser Wilhelm Society by the National Socialists , 2008, p. 158f.
• Herbert A. Strauss / Werner Röder (eds.): Biographical Handbook of German-speaking Emigration after 1933 , Vol. 2, Part 1 (A – K), Munich / New York / London / Paris 1983, p. 107.