Kasimir Fajans

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Kasimir Fajans

Kasimir Fajans , also Kazimierz Fajans (born May 27, 1887 in Warsaw , Russian Empire ; died May 18, 1975 in Ann Arbor , Michigan ) was a Polish- German- American physical chemist .

Life

Fajans studied chemistry in Leipzig from 1904 to 1907 and in Heidelberg from 1907 to 1909. In 1909 he was at Georg Bredig at the University of Heidelberg with the issue over the stereochemical specificity of the catalysts doctorate . He then worked at the ETH Zurich with Richard Willstätter and at the University of Manchester with Ernest Rutherford , before he became Bredig's assistant at the TH Karlsruhe in 1911 . In 1913 Fajans completed his habilitation in Karlsruhe, in 1917 he became an associate professor at the University of Munich , and in 1925 there full professor of physical chemistry. In 1932 he became director of the Institute for Physical Chemistry. The institute was established with the help of the Rockefeller Foundation . Since 1927 he was a full and since 1935 a corresponding member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences . In December 1924 he was accepted as a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences .

Since Fajans was a Jew, he was released in Munich in 1935. His sister Ludwika was a victim of the Holocaust . He emigrated to the USA and was professor at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor from 1936 to 1957 . In 1942 he received US citizenship; he had received German citizenship in 1918.

Fajans was married and had two sons, the son Stefan Stanislaus Fajans became an endocrinologist in the USA .

Important achievements

Fajans discovered the law of displacement in 1913 at the same time as Frederick Soddy . In the same year, together with Oswald Helmuth Göhring , he isolated a 1.2-minute activity (UX2) from uranium, which he called the brevium as a new element . The current name is the isotope with the mass number 234 of the element Protactinium . As a method of quantitative analysis, he developed the use of adsorption indicators in titration from 1922 ; the procedure is called after the discoverer titration according to Fajans . Fajans also set up rules for the polarizability of ions.

Works (selection, partly translated into many languages)

  • The position of the radio elements in the periodic system , 1913, in: Physikalische Zeitschrift 14 (4), 136–142
  • Radioactive transformations and the periodic system of the elements , 1913, in: Reports of the German Chemical Society 46, 422-439.
  • Radioactivity and the latest development in the theory of the chemical elements , 1919 (experienced several editions)
  • together with Joseph Wüst: Physico-chemical internship . 1st edition 1929 ( OCLC 249874810 ) 2nd edition 1935 ( OCLC 215858602 ), translation by Bryan Topley 1930 ( A textbook of practical physical chemistry , OCLC 2582428 )
  • Artificial radioactive isotopes of Thallium, Lead and Bismuth , 1941
  • Electronic structure of molecules , 1948
  • Quanticule theory of chemical bonding , 1960
  • Memoir, 1975

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ biographical data, publications and Academic pedigree of Kazimierz Fajans at academictree.org, accessed on 4 February 2018th
  2. ^ Foreign members of the Russian Academy of Sciences since 1724. Kasimir Fajans. Russian Academy of Sciences, accessed October 29, 2015 (Russian).
  3. ^ Stefan Stanislaus Fajans , in: Werner Röder; Herbert A. Strauss (Ed.): International Biographical Dictionary of Central European Emigrés 1933-1945 , Vol II, 1 Munich: Saur 1983 ISBN 3-598-10089-2 , p. 278
  4. ↑ K. Fajans: "Structure and deformation of the electron shells in their meaning for the chemical and optical properties of inorganic compounds" (1923).
personal data
SURNAME Fajans, Casimir
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Fajans, Kazimierz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Polish-German-American physical chemist
DATE OF BIRTH May 27, 1887
PLACE OF BIRTH Warsaw , Russian Empire
DATE OF DEATH May 18, 1975
Place of death Ann Arbor , Michigan